READY TO GROW: Trey songz is back with his third album, ready to make some grown-up moves with his music

By Ronda Racha Penrice

Trey Songz has been walking the music tightrope of keeping it R&B while also appealing to the hip-hop crowd since his recording career officially launched in 2005. "R&B with a hip-hop urgency" is how he's described his music in the past, making it very clear that R&B is at its core. Ready, his third album, proves that. Rap's latest prince Drake, Gucci Mane, Soulja Boy and Fabolous guest on just four of the album's full sixteen cuts. So, much of the album is all Trey Songz and it's unmistakably R&B.

"This album is to show people that there's a reason I'm still here," says Songz from Raleigh, North Carolina, hours before his show. "I think this album shows my maturity, musically, vocally, as a songwriter and as a man. I talk about some of the same issues but, in a more mature fashion. I think it just shows that I'm here to stay in this R&B thing."

Recognition of that came earlier this year at the BET Awards when Songz performed alongside Tyrese and Johnny Gill in the tribute to the O'Jays. That performance helped expose him to a new audience as well as surprise many already familiar with him. "That was definitely a great experience," the Virginia singer shares. "I think that opened a lot of people's eyes to what I'm capable of."

Months later, Songz says "it's kind of surreal, even to this day... To be able to be in the dimensions of that, to be on the stage, giving honor and paying homage to the O'Jays is kind of like a dream still. Like, ‘did that happen?'"

It's not completely unplanned, however, because Songz has every intention of having his own tribute one day. "I think if you listen to my first album [2005's I Gotta Make It] or some of the music I've done outside of my albums, I have the ability to transcend audiences, to reach a demographic of my age group or younger or older and I think that can be found in a great artist as well."

Part of that plan became partially actualized when Songz's received a Grammy nomination for "Can't Help But Wait" at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. "To be Grammy-nominated is amazing. It means you're amongst the elite," he says. "You're in the mention with names of legends, living legends and all the soldiers. I think for me, on my second album [2007's Trey Day] to be nominated for a Grammy is great. I think on this album I'll be nominated as well. Hopefully, I will bring something home and that will mean a whole lot more, even though being nominated is something that is one of my greatest accolades to date."

Ready is packed with songs about love. "I Need a Girl," one of the album's first singles, makes it clear that relationships are the order of the day but the album isn't just about wooing love. It's about making it as well as losing it. Songz is really high on "Yo Side of the Bed", which is a Prince-influenced, "Purple Rain" specifically, song full of guitar riffs about missing a lover, and "One Love", where a man affirms his love and commitment to the love of his life. Those songs really dramatize his move into more adult waters. Things get sexy too with the seductive "I Invented Sex" featuring a Drake collaboration that fits the song and track well. All in all, it's a solid R&B album, full of emotion and heartfelt lyrics where making love, not just having sex, as further evidenced by such songs as "Jupiter Love", is the order of the day.

"Good music is timeless. Good music, meaning not trying to be trendy," explains Songz. "I think what was great about music of the older days was that it was very organic; it felt very live, the musicians and the artists. You heard the passion in their voice. If they were talking about love lost, you felt like they lost love. If they were talking about making love, you wanted to make love with them or they gave you that emotion," explains Songz.

In his evolution as an artist, Songz is also moving towards touring with a live band. "A year and a half ago was my first time going on a tour with a band," he says, "and that went well. The energy that I received from having a band on stage is great. So when I go back on tour we're going to have a band and it's gonna have that adult feel to it and that very organic, very real music feel with a hip-hop chord to it because I do have a hip-hop base as well as an R&B base."

With Ready, Songz has picked up the R&B torch, departing from the norm of hip-hop beats and love-less lyrics. There's no doubt that Ready will find a home at many adult contemporary stations; let's just hope he can keep the hip-hop audience with him too.