Are you involved with any of the anticipated projects like Drake, Kanye, Kendrick, or Rihanna?

Ne-Yo: I did a few sessions for Rihanna a little earlier in the year. That’s not to say that anything we did is going to end up on the album, but you never know what’s going to happen until it hits stores. I know the album is not fully complete, so maybe I’ll do a few more sessions for her, but who knows?

What song or body of work of someone else’s, or your own, are you most proud of?

Ne-Yo: I’m a huge fan of the way Beyoncé’s last album rolled out. She’s kind of breathes fresh air into the minds of artists and record labels creatively. I don’t know if there’s too many other artists that can get away with dropping a surprise album with no promotion, but with her, it worked.  Then she shot a video for every song on the album, and as an artist, I can imagine how tiring that must have been. In order to put yourself through that, you really have to give a damn about your fans, because that’s who you’re doing it for.

For me, I’m proud of Non-Fiction a lot. I did what I wanted to do, despite some people telling me otherwise. Robert Downey Jr. said, “Smile, nod, act like you agree, and then do what you were going to do in the first place.”

Was there a song you wrote that you gave to an artist that you almost wish you had kept for yourself?

Ne-Yo: No, I don’t really think like that. Even if it’s a song that I really, really like, and consider keeping for myself, if it did go to another artist and became a hit, I feel like that’s a telltale sign that it’s exactly where the song was supposed to go. Who knows what would have happened if I had kept “Irreplacable,” which was initially mine. I wrote it for myself, realized it wasn’t going to work on me, and then decided to sell it to a female artist. Beyoncé got it, and the rest is history.