Sixty minutes of love-making music
Don’t ask Brian McKnight where he’s been. That question is really telling, he says, because his true fans know where to find him.
“That question tells me you don’t really follow me on Instagram and you’re not really in tune with where R&B is today,” McKnight said. “If you’re listening to where they play music today, you’d know I have a Top 10 single on that chart. If you’re an avid concertgoer, you’d know I do 150 shows every year. I’m here. You just have to know where to look.”
During a recent tour stop in New Orleans, the 17-time Grammy-nominated artist sat down to discuss his latest project, Bedtime Story, and his thoughts about music today.
“It’s 60 minutes of love-making music,” the crooner said, with a smile, about the new release. “I don’t know what anybody else’s situation is, you might just need seven minutes or 12 minutes or 20 minutes, but I’m giving you 60 so that you can just press play and let it flow, let it happen.”
McKnight, 50, has been serenading fans for nearly 30 years and he has been asked over and over to make an entire record dedicated to love. “We’ll see if those people, who think they’re genius and know what I should be doing, know what they’re talking about,” he said. “It’s been fun and a challenge to make because all the songs are about the same tempo, and how do you make a whole record this way and not repeat the same idea without being redundant?”
The album, featuring the hit single When I’m
Gone, follows his 2017 release Genesis, which had three Top 15 singles.
“I feel very fortunate after all this time that there are people in this world who still want to pay to hear me sing songs that I’ve created, some more than 20 years ago,” McKnight said. “My joy comes from seeing their faces when I sing a song or I’m about to play a song I wrote and they recognise it.
“When someone is paying to see me, I want them to think when they leave that they didn’t pay enough,” he said. “I want them to leave knowing I played everything they wanted to hear, that I sang as well or better than they thought I would, that I was funnier than they thought I would be and that they leave saying ‘When he comes back, I’m definitely coming back to see him again’.”
McKnight’s career began at 19 when he signed his first recording deal with Mercury Records subsidiary, Wing Records. In 1999, he released his most successful album to date, Back At One which went on to sell over 3 million copies.
About current music popular with young audiences, McKnight is glad young people have found a voice. “It’s really just these kids expressing themselves through the lives they’re leading with the tech that’s been given to them. I would say to the old heads out there, ‘Let these kids be kids. It’s their time now’.”
My joy comes from seeing their faces when I sing a song.