Ne-Yo -- still warm from the Spankin' New stage lights after his TRL performance with Plies today -- made room for us on the couch in the MTV Studios green room, where he talked hats and hat boxes, Barack and Jay-Z, post-feminism, and schooled us in the rules of being a true gentleman.
Ne-Yo: Am I Buzzworthy? Really?
Buzzworthy: You totally are, Ne-Yo. Nice shoes by the way! Are those customized Filas or something?
Ne-Yo: Thanks. No, they're Dolce & Gabbana. I don't get customized anything!
BW: What? That's ridiculous. Anyway, you've got a new album coming up soon. Why did you name it Year of the Gentleman?
Ne-Yo: I named it Year of the Gentleman after what started as an assessment of the business became an assessment of men in America in general. Just looking at how the essence of what it is to be a gentleman is very much lacking nowadays. Someone said to me the other day chivalry is dead, and I hated to have to agree, but it's true.
BW: What do you attribute to that?
Ne-Yo: As men, we just kinda got to the point where we didn't care no more. I don't wanna blame women or anything like that, but maybe the feminist movement had something to do with it, where women wanted to be viewed as equals to men. So men were like, 'You wanna be viewed as equal to me, then open your own damn door.' But I still don't view it as an excuse to be an a**hole. The essence of being a gentleman is to understand the way you're supposed to treat a respectable woman. So this album is me trying to lead by example. I always refer back to the days of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, the Rat Pack. Back when everyone wore a suit because that's what it was to be an entertainer. You were stylish and you were fly, and it was an effortless fly. It wasn't 'Hey everybody, look at how big my chain is.' It was 'I'm charming in my swagger so you're gonna look at me anyway, so I don't gotta try so hard to get your attention.' You don't really see that effortless cool a lot these days.
BW: Who are some of the biggest gentlemen in the business?
Ne-Yo: Jay-Z is an absolute gentleman. Jay-Z possesses a trait that not a lot of men posses. He can go from the ghetto to Wall Street in a snap. He knows how to play both sides. That's a very powerful trait to have. You get respect all the way around the board, and that's another element of being a gentleman -- to demand respect, which he absolutely does. Kanye is the epitome of what a gentleman should look like. That's not to say that you always have to put on a three-piece suit. But a gentleman knows the strength of looking the part. If you walk into a room with your pants hanging half off your butt and a shirt three sizes too big, people are going to have a perception of you before three words come out your mouth. Kanye understands this and the strength and power of being well-kept and neat.
BW: Speaking of dressing the part of a gentleman, how many hats do you have?
Ne-Yo: Oh man! It numbers somewhere in the thousands! I have one that makes sense with pretty much every outfit that I could think about putting on.
BW: Where do you keep them?
Ne-Yo: All over the place. I have a very, very, very large closet at home. And I have a bunch of different hat boxes so my hats travel with me in comfort.
BW: That's gentlemanly! The old-school hat boxes!
Ne-Yo: Oh yeah!
BW: Your album's probably going to come out close to the election. Now, Barack Obama is pretty much the quintessential gentleman. Are you pulling for him?
Ne-Yo: I am absolutely a Barack Obama follower. No disrespect to any of the other candidates. It's my personal opinion. I just see more of a leader in Barack. And I made sure that if I was gonna go for someone this time around, that I wasn't gonna go for Barack because he's the black guy. I was gonna go for Barack because I believed in what he was talking about and I believed him. A lot of time -- especially my generation -- doesn't get into politics because we don't believe anything you're saying and we can't understand what you're saying because we ask you question and you tap dance around the issue so much that we forget what we asked. Barack doesn't do that. He's gonna give you an answer and a reason and you're gonna understand it, and you're gonna be blown away by his charm and charisma. Again -- elements of a gentleman.
BW: Speaking of gentlemen, you collaborated with Patrick Stump on the new album, right?
Ne-Yo: I did but I don't think that song's gonna make the album. But we did develop a very very cool working relationship, like that's a very cool dude, so be looking for something in the future.
+ Check out Plies and Ne-Yo's live performance of "Bust It Baby (Part 2)," and check out photos of today's show, get more backstage interviews with Tyga, Lil Wayne, and Colby O'Donis and Akon, and don't miss tomorrow's show with Ashanti, Katy Perry and Metro Station.