R&B heartthrob Trey Songz is known for swooning the ladies with his sexy song lyrics and steamy music videos. But this week, the 32-year-old US singer/songwriter exposed his more vulnerable side as he spoke candidly about love, relationships and what his new music really means to him.
The charming hitmaker, whose highly anticipated seventh album Tremaine is out today, returned to London where he held an intimate album listening party for selected fans on Tuesday.
However, before the plethora of screaming girls took over, Trey sat down with GLAMOUR's Sagal Mohammed for an honest chat about his new music, those dating show rumours and why he likes the women in the UK...
It’s a little more vulnerable - Trigga was very brash and you know, a lot of bravado. This one is a little more personal. Even if you listen to the first single, Nobody Else But You, you’ll see it explains how it is trying to maintain a relationship and still be surrounded by women all the time.
It’s been something that my fans have always been interested in – my love life and what’s going on with me, relationship this, relationship that. So this album is very much about my thoughts on love, my thoughts on family.
Not to say that there won’t be some fun or some up tempo records, there are records you can dance to as well. But it’s an RnB album that people know me for traditionally outside of what Trigga was.
I do, but there’s only one. It’s my artist, Mike Angel. He was featured on my Anticipation III mixtape and he was probably on about eight songs on that project. A lot of my fans want to hear more work from him and we had a bunch of songs together that we didn’t put on the mixtape. One of those songs was very special – it’s titled Crazy Little Games. He’s on the chorus and he has an amazing voice so I’m excited for people to hear it.
No rapping on this album. I mean, in this day and age some people may consider Animal [Trey's latest single], a little rapping but it has melody to it. These days with rapping and singing, a lot of people merge them together so closely but you know, this album is more traditional RnB than anything else.
It takes the commitment. Anything you want to do whether it be a profession or whether it be a dream, you have to focus on making yourself who you need to be for that situation. Sacrifices need to be made and the things you do for yourself you may now have to do for the other person.
And to be honest, outside of my family and friends, I’ve been thinking about Trey Songz. My career, the music, the fans and it’s been all about having fun and whatever I've wanted it to be about for so long. So in order to be in a healthy relationship, I think you’ve got to learn to put the person before yourself.
Ah man, there are so many favourites. I could go on and on and on (Laughs) .
I love them all, but some are more special than others - Gotta Make It, of course because it was my first ever single, I Can’t Help But Wait which was my first number one single, Can’t Be Friends, Heart Attack,Neighbours Know My Name,Say Ah, which was my first big club record. So many records that are special for so many reasons.
I would love love in my life. But like I said, I think the biggest thing about it is preparing yourself for it and making sure that you’re ready for it and ready to receive love.
If you are fortunate enough to have somebody in your life that loves you or somebody that you’re in love with, just make sure you do everything you can to make that person happy. Being responsible for somebody else’s feelings has always been a lot to carry for me. I take care of my whole family and I run my own business, so it’s just something I have to create space for.
To say I’m looking for love is one thing, being ready for love is another. I try to prepare myself to be ready for it by getting a lot of things out of my life that may prevent it.
Somebody that loves God and somebody that’s strong - in order to be a strong man you need a strong woman. I need somebody that’s intelligent, somebody that’s aware of social issues, somebody who’s a positive person and very uplifting. And somebody that can cook and loves to have fun.
A woman who can be sexy but also be a tomboy at times so we can go to the gym together, go to movies together, you know, all that type of stuff.
(Laughs)
No, never.
I actually kind of like the rain sometimes…
No I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say that if I lived here that’s the thing about it (laughs). It’s kind of you know, the aura and the mood that it brings.
Outside of that, I just love the demeanor of Brits. Everything is just so proper – the way you guys speak, the way you guys carry yourselves.
And the women here, if you’re not from here I don’t think you see how many beautiful black women there are and the different cultures.
Just so beautiful, you know, kind of like you…
There are so many natural girls here, I love it. And I’ve never seen so many girls with the big curly hair in my life than I have on this side of Europe. Not just specifically the UK, but especially Amsterdam and places like that - I love that.
No I haven’t been lately actually. A fan had tweeted me like, ‘have you heard this or have you heard that’ but a lot of the music out there I don’t hear. And some people may look at that and think that’s weird but the thing is, I’ve been working on my album for like two years and as music changes and people have this on demand service, there’s so much music available that sometimes you can get overwhelmed or confused by it all.
So I’ve stayed to myself musically, which is something I don’t usually do. I normally know all the new stuff and what’s going on but with this project, I named it after myself and I wanted to kind of get engulfed in my own music and what I wanted it to be.
For you to achieve anything you’ve got to believe in yourself more than anybody - more than your momma, more than your manager, more than your friends. And you have to see it clearly when you speak your vision to people who don’t understand it or don’t see it. You have to know and be so confident in it. Your work ethic needs to be strong and you need to be able to take constructive criticism as well.
We have all of these platforms that weren’t available when I was aspiring to be who I am today. We have Soundcloud, YouTube, etc. So many different things you can do to get your music out there.
It’s going crazy here in the UK with the grime stuff at the moment and there are so many other things that are coming, I just think it's dope.
Tremaine The Album is out today Friday 24 March, 2017.
