Friday, February 15, 2013 11:16am ET by  
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Ne-Yo: 'I started writing songs when I was 10 and they were usually love notes to girls'

R&B hitmaker Ne-Yo has revealed that he began writing songs when he was just a child and often turned love notes he wrote for classmates into ballads.

Speaking to BANG Showbiz about his initial interest in music, the 'Let Me Love You' star explained that he would turn poems about his feelings into lyrics at just 10-years-old:

"I started writing songs really early, round about ten years old. I would take the poems I would write for girls that I liked but wasn't brave enough to give them, and I would take those poems and put them to a melody and they became songs."

The 30-year-old singer added that at first he thought it was cool to follow the crowd and to fit in, but he grew tired of keeping up appearances to began to march to the beat of his own drum:

"All through high school I was a guy that wanted to be part of the cool crowd, but I realised that the majority of the cool crowd were just following one specific person, and it would only teach me to be a follower."

"So that was a wake up call for me, like I'm not going to follow these people for no reason, I'm not going to spend money on a pair of jeans when I don't have it just to impress you. It was more cool to be me and just do what I wanted. And as soon as I realised that I grew the confidence I needed."

He will kick off his UK arena tour next month on March 6 at Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena with Tulisa Contostavlos as his main support act.

 

 

 

 

Watch a new interview with Ne-Yo from the 2013 GRAMMY Awards here: