Ne-Yo Thought His Name Was Cheesy
1:38 Monday, October 13, 2008
Ne-Yo, whose real name is Shaffer Chimere
Smith, recently talked about his initial aversion to his stage name: he
laughed at it like it was a joke! A producer had said that he was like The Matrix character Neo, and things snowballed until the "corny" name started to catch on. Ne-Yo explained:
"The name was a joke at the beginning. A producer friend of mine said to me one day 'you're like the Neo of the music industry. In The Matrix movie Neo can do things that other people couldn't do so he was basically saying that within the music industry I can do things other people can't do. [...] I didn't want that to be my name but one person calls you something and then another person and eventually it becomes your name."
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