Latest Release
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- AUG 2, 2024
- 1 Song
- BLACKsummers'night · 2009
- Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite · 1996
- Life (Music Inspired By the Motion Picture) · 1999
- Now · 2001
- Now · 2001
- Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite · 1996
- Girl On Fire · 2012
- Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite · 1996
- BLACKsummers'night · 2009
- BLACKsummers'night · 2009
Essential Albums
- “The Urban Theme,” the opening track to Maxwell's debut album, has no words. It's a nearly three-minute-long jazz jam featuring crisp drums, funky guitars, and sensuous saxophone lines that immediately sets the tone: This record is not just about the singer's voice or vivid lyrics but musicality as a whole, the sublime sum total of its individual parts. It remains a triumph of craft and patience. Maxwell was only 23 when Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite was released in 1996, and it’s hard to overstate the courage and maturity it took to create such an album at that time. The subgenre that would come to be known as neo-soul (much to the chagrin of some of its proponents) was still nascent, and this sounded unlike anything else from its era—due, in no small part, to collaborators like producer-arranger Leon Ware, who had worked with Marvin Gaye on I Want You; guitarist Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin, a member of Motown house band The Funk Brothers; and Stuart Matthewman, a key player in Sade. “What I feel most proud of is that the record dictated to the masses, and the masses then responded to the record, and it had nothing to do with me,” the singer tells Apple Music. He gives additional credit to his diverse supporting cast as well as his A&R at Sony, who he says allowed him the space to make the record he wanted to make, free of expectations for commercial or radio viability: “That was completely unique and rare, because most artists don't get a chance to have a voice and their vision.” With its spellbinding aura and lush, all-encompassing soundscapes, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite bears the markings of each person who touched it, a collage of time and texture that renders the elements of love and romance as both ordinary and transcendent. It traces the evolution of a relationship from butterfly-filled courting all the way to the altar. Vulnerability and reverence underscore his approach as he moves to honor the object of his affection in an act of emotional submission. Singles like “Sumthin' Sumthin',” “Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder),” and the ultra-lusty “...Til The Cops Come Knockin'” brim with desire that never spills over into entitlement; sex functions as consummation, not destination. Upon its release, the album took a bit to catch on—a slow-burner much like the tracks that make it up—but it has since come to be a bona fide classic, inhabiting its own niche space, enmeshed in several strands of soul music history. “It's like an automatic writing thing in my mind, but I do keep journals. I do write long, lengthy conceptual things. Movies play a major role, and also the music of our ancestors—people like Marvin Gaye, of course, who was the theme-album king; Al Green, theme-album king. Curtis Mayfield,” Maxwell says. “I just wanted to make a record that had that sense of a 'put it on, leave it, and you good.'”
Albums
- 2017
- 2017
- 2016
- 2016
Artist Playlists
- Cerebral grooves from neo-soul's leading light.
- His cool R&B is saturated with both romance and politics.
- Soul jams that explore the deepest human emotions.
- 2021
Live Albums
More To Hear
- Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
- Maxwell talks to Ebro Darden about the album on its 25th anniversary.
- 'Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite' celebrates its 25th anniversary.
- Elton John calls the show’s most-played artist of 2018.
- Why the neo soul singer takes breaks.
- More music from Kwabs, plus classics from the Bee Gees and Maxwell.
More To See
About Maxwell
An R&B auteur with a supple voice, Maxwell has been one of the leading lights of neo-soul music since his mid-’90s emergence. Born Gerald Maxwell Rivera in 1973, the Brooklyn native grew up on the slick pop-soul of the early ’80s as he taught himself music’s ins and outs. He wrote and gigged around New York constantly and was signed to a record deal in 1994; two years later, his debut, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, came out, becoming a commercial success thanks to singles like the swooning “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder).” The next year, he released MTV Unplugged, which showcased his musicianship and wide-ranging tastes on revamped versions of his own songs as well as Nine Inch Nails and Kate Bush covers. Embrya, issued in 1998, was a high-concept, meticulously arranged foray into progressive soul; its follow-up, Now, included his reimagining of Bush’s “This Woman’s Work,” which quickly became one of his signature tracks. After a years-long hiatus, Maxwell released BLACKsummers’night, the first album in a proposed trilogy, to widespread acclaim and commercial success in 2009; with tracks like the stunning “Pretty Wings” and the simmering “Bad Habits,” it re-established Maxwell as one of R&B’s leading songwriters. The second piece in the trilogy, blackSUMMERS’night, came out in 2016, with the gleaming “1990X” and the flinty “III” further showcasing his musical and compositional swagger. Maxwell is an artist who works at his own pace, but patience has always paid off.
- HOMETOWN
- Brooklyn, NY, United States
- BORN
- May 23, 1973
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul