Q&A: Maxwell On Why ‘The Last Thing I Would Ever Want To Be Is A Pop Star’

Since his 1996 debut, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, Maxwell has enjoyed a great deal of commercial success, including four consecutive platinum albums. He’s also won a litany of awards, including a Grammy for Song Of The Year for “Pretty Wings.”

Yet, in spite of all that success, Maxwell is adamant he does not see himself as a pop star. ” For me, the last thing I would ever want to be is a pop star,” he says. He is not knocking anyone who is a pop star.

“No disrespect to anyone who is, God bless you, make your money, be number one forever. But pop can be fair-weather. For me, people come and go with pop. Not in terms of the artists, but the interest of the audience can move so quickly,” he says.

For Maxwell, who very proudly calls himself a R&B singer, anything new he does is about the long-term, about adding to the storied legacy of his more than 25 years as a respected artist. So, for him, when he releases a new album, as he will soon with blacksummers’NIGHT, and plans a tour, which will kick off March 2 in Dallas and run through May 8 in Miami, he is looking to create art that will last through the years and instill in fans the same feeling he had watching Questlove’s Oscar-nominated Summer of Soul.

More than 25 years into a career that has seen so much success Maxwell is driven by much more than fame now. His upcoming tour will be in partnership with The Black Promoters Collective, a collective of six independent concert promotion and event production companies. And he has a new partnership with STATE Optical Company. They have teamed up on new sunglasses, which will be widely available March 1. But more importantly for Maxwell, the sales benefit kids interested in optometry and helps send them to college.

So yes, at this point in his storied career, Maxwell’s aspirations are much greater than hit records. I spoke with Maxwell about his admiration for Janet Jackson and Sade, Summer of Soul, competing with himself, artistic freedom and what the tradition of being a R&B singer means to him.

Steve Baltin: You may not tour all the time, but you’ve always had the choice to do so. When that choice is taken away from you, it definitely makes you rethink things a little bit. So as you get ready for this “Summer Nights” tour, is it something that you feel like you’re appreciating more now because it was taken away from you for a minute?

Maxwell: Yeah, I can tell you, I feel such a respect for the earth, for the planet, for my life, for health, for being able to walk down the street. It’s a very unique feeling because coming from New York, everyone’s on top of each other. Then it stopped being so busy and people are very cautious and obviously everyone stayed in and didn’t go anywhere. And of course we know last December, Omicron just blew through this entire city and everyone caught it. And it’s a little depressing to open the year knowing that here we are still, but again, you just got to count your blessings and be grateful that you get to survive.

Baltin: Are there older songs that maybe you had a chance to revisit and appreciate in a new way? Because 99 percent of f artists don’t go back and listen to their own music, unless it’s for a tour or something like that. Did you take that time though to go back?

Maxwell: It’s interesting that you definitely know your stuff. Kudos. For me, when the song is unreleased it’s mine and I could listen to it and sculpt it and/or just leave it as it is. And then I have the memory of why I wrote it and I have the memory of how I wrote it and who was in the room helping me produce it and create it and bring it to fruition. Once released, it doesn’t belong to me. And then all those memories of how it was created and what brought it about, the memories change, they become memories of how the song affects the people who hopefully like it, the people who hopefully celebrate with it. So that’s why I hold on to a lot of the music a little bit longer than most artists, because I just want to remember what it was like when it was just mine for a minute. And then when it goes to the world, like “Pretty Wings,” totally different memories for what it was when I was recording it and writing it than now when it’s out. Cause I associate the audience and couples and people who have tried to get married to that song, which is kind of interesting ’cause it’s not lyrically a song about getting married, but people can do what they want.

Baltin: Have there been responses you’ve heard from people that have really stood out to you or that make you hear the song in a different way?

Maxwell: I guess the best way to answer that is that it belongs to the world after you release it. It’s almost like a child, it’s 18, it gets to make its own decisions. You can’t really tell it what to do, date, who to be with, how to identify, how people are affected by the song is up to them. A lot of people sometimes want me to explain the meanings behind the music, and I’m always apprehensive in doing so because I think that it’s better to give the audience the respect to make the song become their own personal thing, than me pushing my agenda about what I want them to feel the song is. And then at the same time, you want a song that you can do when you’re 50 and 60 and 70. So that’s a really tight rope to walk on, because there are very trendy things that are happening. Then there are very sort of shock and awe music and things that get people ‘s attention but not their respect. I’m more interested in making songs that get people to respect the craft and the tradition than just to get them to remember me. So it’s a very weird environment to figure out when we’re trying to decide. That’s why it takes forever, ’cause I’m always trying to figure out what songs are gonna be hopefully classics more than pop, which is to me a four-letter word.

Baltin: When you think back to being a kid and those songs that made you remember and appreciate and understand the craft, what are the one or two where you first started to understand  songs can have this lasting impact?

Maxwell: It’s funny, I was watching Summer of Soul yesterday. I finally got a chance to check it out, and when I saw Mahalia Jackson up there and Mavis Staples and David Ruffin, you’re like, “That’s the goal. That’s where you wanna be.” For me, the last thing I would ever want to be is a pop star. No disrespect to anyone who is, God bless you, make your money, be number one forever. But pop can be fair-weather. For me, people come and go with pop. Not in terms of the artists, but the interest of the audience can move so quickly. So when I was looking at Summer of Soul, I was just like, “Wow, look at these songs, I know these songs and I wasn’t even alive in 1969.” That’s the impact that I always hope to try and reflect, something that’s gonna be timeless, something that’s gonna just outlast the trends and would not necessarily be embarrassing to do if I was 60 or 50, which I’ll be in a couple of years. So that’s usually the goal.

Baltin: We cannot talk about Summer of Soul without talking about that Sly and the Family Stone footage.

Maxwell: I am just such a huge Sly fan. For me, when I look at the business of music and I see all those artists and I see how much they’re giving to the world and how the business can take so much from them, I feel very privileged in my position right now. When I make music now, the music is a partnership with BMG. It’s not like I’ve signed my soul to some company that’s gonna keep my masters forever, which of course I’d already went through that process in ’94 when I signed my deal with Columbia, but that was just the way the times were. And I’m so happy for the new artists who get to start their own companies, who can stream their records and be their own record companies and be their own CEOs and have their craft work for them as opposed to just for the corporate endgame. And they can actually be more creative because of it. I’m just grateful, I have a different type of freedom. But I will say this, Columbia gave me and has always given me absolute creative freedom to do what I wanted. Mitchell Cohen is an angel. He was like, “You’re not making an R&B record, you’re not making a soul record, you’re making your record, you’re making whatever record you feel.” There was never a push to be a pop star. I’m quite afraid of that, the whole notion of that because I see how people’s lives just go. It’s just very strange. R&B audiences and soul audiences are so much more loyal. I feel they stick by you a little bit more than pop audience. Because pop audiences are associated with the young. And if you’re like 13 and 14 and you like something, how many things that you like at 13 and 14 that you still like at 17, 18, 19, and onto your 30s and 40s? So I’m just grateful to be an R&B, soul, neo, whatever you want to call it, artist. And for those who know me they do, for those who don’t, one day maybe.

Baltin: Are there people that you got to be around or that you admire for the way that their career has evolved and they’ve been able to grow? You look at someone like Sade who’s just as cool as has ever been and will do whatever she wants, whenever she wants and the whole world would drop what they’re doing if Sade puts out new music or does a tour.

Maxwell:I was literally going to bring her up as an example. I think also someone that I feel who has somehow done the same thing or has impacted our culture in the same way is Janet. I think Janet Jackson has impacted us in a way that we didn’t quite expect. And when I was watching the documentary, I was just so blown away. I don’t think people realize how hard it would be to be just as notable as Michael Jackson. It’s literally the most impossible, insurmountable thing. And without even trying to compete, she has carved her own way. And then of course, she went away for whatever reasons and we all know those reasons, but to see her come back and see the world embrace her work. She’s a very special pop star in that regard, because the world hasn’t decided to say, “Bye, we’re gonna move on to the next young whatever thing, thing.” People respect that body of work. And to your point with Sade, it’s the same thing, I just want people to be able to listen to the music and remember that this is not only just us trying to make songs and make you happy and get you to dance, this is a tradition, this is a long tradition. Especially Summer of Soul really speaks true to the fact that when you see all those people in that park, 300,000 people, I think it was, and that’s how Black people survive, they hum a little tune in their heads during their darkest moments. And I think all people who are marginalized on some level use the arts in a beautiful way to survive, to get through the day. And so I just hope that the music that I do can actually hopefully inspire anyone out there who’s living in their world that could be marginalized or restricted and that they can find freedom in that creativity.

Baltin: What can you say about the new album?

Maxwell: I’m sitting here and I’m working on this album which would be out spring, summer-ish, spring-ish. And I’m like, “I have to make a record that lives up to everything that I did before and hopefully surpasses what I could have ever imagined.” So every time I’m about to begin a new part of the trilogy or an album or whatever, I’m always confronted with this great, huge responsibility of like, “Is this bigger than that? Is this better than the past?” But I have to ex that out of my mind because the thing that makes the past so beautiful is that there’s nostalgia connected to it, there’s the fact that you can never get it again, you can never go back to 1996, ’97 before cell phones, when people actually had to watch the show and pay attention. But you can only remember trying to get the essence of what made that happen and push forward in a new time without compromising your creative integrity on some level. So that’s the battle. The battle is like yourself competing with what you were.

Baltin: What’s the greatest thing that you can hear from people, both fans coming to the show and also the people that you’re working with on these shows, that you can hear after they watch the “BLACKsummers’night” tour this summer?

Maxwell: It’s funny, when I embark on tour, it’s usually like, “Okay, let me figure out what song? What are we gonna do? How is it gonna look? What about the lights?” This tour I want to erase whatever people went through for two years, whatever it was, whatever trauma it was. I just want to give them that sense of new chapters beginning and we can feel optimistic again about the future. That would be the best thing. If I can leave people with that, then I think I’ve done what I came to do, because just like them, I was locked up in a room, unable to go where I wanted to go, unable to do things. I wasn’t really concerned that I couldn’t tour. To be really honest with you, I was happy that I could take a minute, ’cause I had been doing so many festivals prior to that and I wasn’t really ever home. But yeah, when they leave the show I hope that they feel like, “Wow, life might be coming back together again.” I just want to give them something to feel good about. It’s been sucky for everyone. We had 9/11, we had all this stuff. When I think back, generations prior had World War II, World War I and the Holocaust, and the world isn’t always great, the world isn’t always peachy, but it is that indomitable spirit that we have as human beings that overcomes all those problems, and hopefully we can learn from the past and come closer to each other. It brings me joy when I look onto the audience and I meet some of the people who come and they’re like, “We have kids now, our first date was 2001.” I met a couple and they showed me the marquee when me and Alicia Keys were touring, was her first album, and she was a special guest. And then I met this couple and they showed me the picture of the marquee of, “And like this was our first date and we’ve been married for this long and now we have three children.” And not because of me, obviously. But to be associated with that kind of memory, when you can be part of the tapestry of people’s lives that way, there’s no award that can even compare, literally, there’s no award. That’s when you know that you weren’t crazy.

Baltin: Tell me about the STATE collaboration.

Maxwell: What’s great about that STATE collaboration, is that we sent 20 kids to college for the optometry school, they can have their own practice, they can design. I knew college wasn’t in my future, ’cause at 16 I was like, “It’s music and it’s gonna be music.” But for those who are looking to be other things, it’s great to be able to say, “Hey, here’s a chance, you don’t have to worry about student loans.” I just think that education should be something that should be available to people, and accessible to everyone so that everyone can have a chance. So that’s why this partnership with STATE means what it means to me, the Black Promoter Coalition, being able to go on the road and to generate profits and tickets, obviously working with Anthony Hamilton, I love Joe who’s a classic R&B vocalist, nobody sounds like that. This is a different way to work. Before, it was all about profit and then recouping and all those things that come with the past, and now I can actually make a difference, not just be a guy that sings and dances and comes around here and there every now and again. So I’m just grateful that this lasted. I guess it might continue.