*Ne-Yo<\/strong> is making his mark in Music City \u2014 and the welcome has been warmer than he ever anticipated.<\/p>\n The R&B veteran sat down for the April 22 episode of Rolling Stone\u2019s \u201cNashville Now\u201d podcast<\/a> to discuss the country-influenced project he has been quietly building. When Ne-Yo first floated the idea of heading to Nashville, the response from those around him was rooted in skepticism.<\/p>\n \u201cIt came with all these warnings and all this fear that people were trying to put on me. \u2018They\u2019re not real accepting of anything outside of what they do over there. It\u2019s cliquey, and if you don\u2019t know this person or haven\u2019t done this\u2026\u2019 I hate to admit it, but I came out here kind of expecting something like that,\u201d Ne-Yo said, per PEOPLE<\/a>.<\/p>\n What he encountered instead caught him off guard. \u201cEvery single person I\u2019ve worked with out here has embraced what I\u2019m trying to do with open arms,\u201d Ne-Yo said, adding that collaborators have been genuinely curious about how his R&B sensibility will intersect with country.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s interested and intrigued about how I\u2019m going to take what I do and what country music is and fuse them together. And everybody\u2019s just been real receptive. So I\u2019m waiting to meet whoever the hell it is that is going to be the bane of my Nashville experience,\u201d he explained<\/p>\n His appreciation for country music runs deep \u2014 rooted in artists like Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, and Clint Black. \u201cI just fell in love with the storytelling elements of it. I fell in love with the cleverness of the lyric. The vulnerability of the lyric, like Dolly Parton\u2019s \u2018Jolene,’\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s literally begging another woman not to steal her man,\u201d he explained, adding that artists are now \u201ctoo cool for a song like that nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not Ne-Yo\u2019s first connection to the genre. He previously collaborated with Tim McGraw on the 2012 track \u201cShe Is\u201d and attended the CMA Awards last year.<\/p>\n Despite his enthusiasm, Ne-Yo is careful about how he frames his new direction. Speaking to The Tennessean<\/a> in September 2025, he made his position clear: \u201cI\u2019m not a country artist. Given that this is my first official attempt at trying to naturally transition into creating something in the country lane, it\u2019s disrespectful to call myself a country artist. My music, more than anything, is country-inspired.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE NEWS ON EURWEB.COM<\/a>:\u00a0NE-YO Explains Why He Won\u2019t Call His New Project a Country Album<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Ne-Yo](\"https:\/\/eurweb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Ne-Yo-via-Instagram2.webp\")