Maxwell Shares New Details About The Sequel To BLACKsummers’night

Maxwell’s last album, BLACKsummers’night, came out back in 2009. In a new interview with Essence, the R&B singer suggested that a follow-up is finally on the way and possibly due out this summer. He defended the long delay between records, suggesting “I can sometimes feel like it’s okay to wait” and quoting a line from Marvin Gaye: “You can rush to fail, or you can take your time to succeed.” (That being said, Gaye released albums more regularly than Maxwell.)

As for the sound of the new album, the singer described it as “fresh and it’s different… It doesn’t make you feel like, oh, yeah, that’s going to come out in 1996.” “There's a song called, ‘Hostage,’” he continued. “We have this song called ‘Orphan,’ that's pretty much opening the album—it sort of talks about who I am and how my life has been. There’s a very orphan quality to my experience. It’s very up-tempo. We have this song called ‘Three,’ that's super funky… There’s a song called ‘Lost’ that I did with Stuart Matthewman, and another one called ‘Listen Here.’ It’s so exciting… It takes a long time before I have to realize that what used to be a rock is now a statue. Sometimes people have to tap me on my shoulder and say, ‘Look, dude, that’s a sculpture.’”

Read the whole interview here. Maxwell is performing next weekend with Nas at the Barclays center.