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Fd that d <a href=">here</a>.</em></p><p class="">Around this time 25 years ago, a new artist planted the seed for what would bee a new genre.</p><p class="">His name was Maxwell, and he sound nothg like the heavily sampled hip-hop-spired R&B micians that domated the airwav.</p><p class="">His voice harkened back to the days of Motown. Maxwell’s silky smooth falsetto was acpanied by orchtra level stmentatn, and somethg that up until that moment had been left behd the ’80s — the horn solo.</p><p class="">The album “Urban Hang Sue,” which turns a quarter-century-old this year, helped her an era of R&B lled neo-soul. The new genre weled the lik of Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and Lryn Hill.</p><p class="">Rollg Stone pared Maxwell's but rerd to Marv Gaye's 1978 album, “Here, My Dear,” wrg that Maxwell’s exploratn of monogamy and matrimony was almost like a rponse to Gaye's exploratn of divorce.</p><p class="nt-medium">“Urban Hang Sue” is also known for rtorg somethg else lost between the ‘80s and the ‘90s — eply soulful mic about Black people lovg each other.</p><p class="nt-medium">“I remember havg a journal. I always have a journal,” Maxwell says. “And I said, ‘God, if you give me this opportuny, I promise to stay te to the creative thg that ma me love Marv Gaye, ma me love Al Green, ma me love 'Here, My Dear.’ ”</p><figure class="article-fig size-medium article-fig--pull-right"><a href="><picture><img class="size-medium article-image" src=" alt="Maxwell (Cliff Watts)" loadg="lazy"/></picture></a><figptn class="article-fig-ptn">Maxwell (Cliff Watts)</figptn></figure><p class="">For the album, Maxwell assembled an all-star team of micians, cludg Stuart Matthewman who played wh Sa, the late guarist Wah Wah Watson, and Leon Ware, the late songwrer and producer known for makg magic wh Gaye and Michael Jackson.</p><p class="">Maxwell wanted to honor those micians, who he nsirs the greats, bee as tim change, those legends often get “put out to pasture,” he says. But when he flew out to Los Angel to meet Ware, he says Ware was "perplexed that a 20-somethg kid wanted to wre a song wh him."</p><p class="nt-medium">“Not sample his song, which is fe wh me bee I love hip-hop,” Maxwell says, “but the fact that I wanted to let him know that his impact to me was so important that I wanted him to be clud.”</p><p class="">At that time the mid-1990s, Maxwell says there was also “a movement of micianship” happeng the Uned Kgdom wh artists like Sa and Mi Paris. That sound also spired his but album, he says.</p><p class="nt-medium">“There's somethg about that Ain, soul, European, English, Southern, Black, hip-hop, street, urban element that I wanted to sort of enpsulate to the first rerd,” he says.</p><p class="nt-medium">“Urban Hang Sue” ma Maxwell famo and cemented his place Black culture and soul mic tradn.</p><p class="">But Maxwell started out the mic dtry as an aspirg songwrer, and that’s where he wanted to stay — behd the scen. He shied away om the public eye at first bee of the scty that often wh beg the spotlight.</p><p class="nt-medium">"I didn't thk my sk was thick enough for that," he says.<br />But he says when he got the offer to make “Urban Hang Sue,” he realized somethg.</p><p class="nt-medium">“When I got the offer to be signed, I went home, eaked out, number one. But then I also went home wh the notn that I uldn't live the ‘what if,’ ” he says. “If I didn't do this, then I would have a whole life of what if I did that? What if I actually stepped out? Am I that sred? Can be that sry? It was a blsg om God, you know? And I jt went ahead and I did .”</p><p class="">Maxwell wrote and produced all 11 tracks of “Urban Hang Sue” — and that “what if” garnered a Grammy nomatn 1997 for bt album.</p><p class="">The rerd starts and ends wh two versns of the same stmental — “The Urban Theme” and “The Sue Theme.” The first sgle was a song about police knockg at the door of a uple so enraptured, they stayed holed up their apartment for days.</p><p class="">Blenr magaze named “Till The Cops Come Knock” one of the "greatt make-out songs of all time.” Maxwell was adamant that this song be his but sgle bee he says he was tryg to make a thematic, ncept album about Black love.</p><p class="nt-medium">“I jt feel like the relatnship that we have wh the police is always beg Black is the problem and the fact that a song uld talk about Black love beg the reason why there's a disturbance that we need to kd of look to,” he says. “It was so important to be able to sort of exprs that aspect of who we are as people, the part of beg Black that is Black love.”</p><figure class="article-fig size-large"><a href="><picture><img class="size-large article-image" src=" alt="Maxwell (Saad Amer)" loadg="lazy"/></picture></a><figptn class="article-fig-ptn">Maxwell (Saad Amer)</figptn></figure><p class="">Maxwell’s send release, “Ascensn (Don’t Ever Wonr),” marked his breakthrough to the Billboard Top 40 Charts. But even wh this succs, Maxwell felt like an outsir the dtry, he says. He rells nstantly tryg to make sense of who he was — a Brooklyn kid wh a Haian mother and Puerto Rin father — a world that largely se thgs black and whe.</p><p class="nt-medium">“I would hear all the time, all the time om people the neighborhood like, 'Oh, you’re the island guy,' ” he says. “You jt didn't feel like you were Black enough to people.”</p><p class="">And that’s where the mystique om: The reluctant star who chose not to have his face on the ver of his first album.</p><p class="">At the same time, Maxwell was also nstantly pared to other artists, “like the phenomenon that is D'Angelo,” he says.</p><p class="nt-medium">“He's born Richmond, Virgia. He grew up the church. He's got, all the box are checked for him,” Maxwell adds. “And I felt kd of a ltle b of like an outst.”</p><p class="">But through the procs of makg “Urban Hang Sue” and later albums, Maxwell says he found that nfince and toughns he didn’t thk he had.</p><p class="nt-medium">“The thick sk that I didn't thk I had, was there,” he says. “And wasn't there bee I had . It was more so there bee the mic was dictatg the sty that I was supposed to get to eventually.”</p><p class="">Sce “Urban Hang Sue,” Maxwell says the mic dtry has grown to embracg artists wh multiple inti who highlight “the different facets of what beg Black is.”</p><p class="nt-medium">“I don't look at makg songs as like, well will I be No. 1? How many sps have I got? In this prent day, how many streams do I have?” he says. “It's a tradn that has given an abily to sort of e together as people and to make the chang and to even theraptilly get through the hard, harsh days of what is to be Black Ameri.”</p><hr/><p class=""><em><a href=">Samantha Raphelson</a> produced and eded this terview for broadst wh <a href=">Eileen Bolsky</a>. Raphelson also adapted for the web.</em></p></sectn><sectn class="article-sectn--story-group article-sectn--centered"><p class=""><em>This segment aired on May 7, 2021.</em></p></sectn></article><sectn class="article-sectn--story-group article-sectn--centered"><hear class="zone"><div class="zone-ner"><h2 class="zone-hdr">Related:</h2></div></hear><ul class="article-story-group"><li class="story-group-em"><a data-ec="Article Related Lks" data-el="Sufjan Stevens Releas 'Convotns,' A New-Age Journey Through Loss And Joy" data-ea="Click" class="story-group-lk" href=">Sufjan Stevens Releas 'Convotns,' A New-Age Journey Through Loss And Joy</a></li><li class="story-group-em"><a data-ec="Article Related Lks" data-el="Pop-Rap Boy Band Brockhampton Drops New Album, 'Roadnner: New Light, New Mache'" data-ea="Click" class="story-group-lk" href=">Pop-Rap Boy Band Brockhampton Drops New Album, 'Roadnner: New Light, New Mache'</a></li><li class="story-group-em"><a data-ec="Article Related Lks" data-el="50 Years Later, Why Marv Gaye's Semal Album 'What's Gog On' Endur" data-ea="Click" class="story-group-lk" href=">50 Years Later, Why Marv Gaye's Semal Album 'What's Gog On' Endur</a></li><li class="story-group-em"><a data-ec="Article Related Lks" data-el="Catch Some Tun — And Zzzs — At Lullaby Club On Clubhoe" data-ea="Click" class="story-group-lk" href=">Catch Some Tun — And Zzzs — At Lullaby Club On Clubhoe</a></li></ul></sectn><sectn class="article-sectn--story-group article-sectn--centered"><div class="ntributor has-photo"><div class="ntributor-profile"><figure class="ntributor-profile-em ntributor-photo"><a href="/si/staff/tonya-mosley"><picture><img src=" class="lazy rd-image" alt=""/></picture></a></figure><p class="ntributor-profile-em ntributor-b"><a class="ntributor-name" href="/si/staff/tonya-mosley">Tonya Mosley</a> <span class="ntributor-tle">Corrponnt, Here & Now</span><br/>Tonya Mosley was the LA-based -host of Here & Now. </p><p class="ntributor-more"><a class="ntributor-lk ntributor-b-lk" href="/si/staff/tonya-mosley">More…</a></p></div></div></sectn><sectn class="sectn--bo sectn--bp"><div class="uw bp--rponsive"><div class="bp-ner"><p class="bp-label">Advertisement</p><div class="bp-ntent bp-ntent--centered"><div></div><div id="adslot-122855"></div></div></div></div></sectn><div></div><div class="global-d-ponents onmand--is-playg"><div class="global-player"><d preload="to"></d><div class="global-player-bar"><div class="global-player-bar-left"><button class="global-player-bar-ntrol"><i class="in-play in-play--global-player-bar in-play--psed"><span class="in-play-shape"><span class="in-label" data-note="for-screen-rears">Rume</span></span></i></button><div class="global-player-label global-player-label--live"><div class="global-player-channel"><span>Listen Live</span></div><div class="global-player-tle"><a class="global-player-label-lk" href="/">Loadg...</a></div></div></div><div class="global-player-bar-right"><div class="global-player-x"><svg class="in in-close" viewBox="0 0 24 24" aria-labelledby="tle"><tle id="tle">Close.