After a nearly 30-year career studded with milestone achievements — game-changing pioneer of the ‘90s neo soul movement, a string of gold and platinum albums and singles (“Pretty Wings,” “Lifetime” and “Simply Beautiful”) plus three Grammys, among other accolades — what’s next? If you’re Maxwell, you announce the itinerary and performer lineup for your third annual Urban Hang Suite Cruise. But in advance of that, you amp up your intimacy quotient with a new residency, The Silent Serenade Ensemble.
Inspired by Maxwell’s The Serenade 2024 tour, The Silent Serenade Ensemble is a limited, four-night run of residencies at the MGM National Harbor in Washington, D.C. (Sept. 18, 19 & 20) and the historic Kings Theatre in the singer-songwriter-producer’s hometown of Brooklyn, New York (Sept. 28). Still continuing its run into 2025, Maxwell’s aforementioned The Serenade Tour wraps in October, featuring rotating support on various dates from special guests Lucky Daye, Marsha Ambrosius, Leela James and Kem.
“The ensemble can be anything we want,” explains Maxwell of the concept behind the upcoming Silent Serenade performances. “It can be a choir that sings in doo-wop, it can be all strings including harps, it can be reeds… It can be all kinds of versions and combinations of instruments that you’ve never seen put together before to present and perform songs that people know already and deeper cuts.”
Maxwell fans will recall this isn’t the first time the artist has rendered unique reinterpretations of his music. He performed at several sold-out dates in 2023, accompanied by symphony orchestras in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.
Opening the Silent Serenade dates will be singer-songwriter Yola, of whom Maxwell notes, “I saw her during the pandemic on either Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert, and she was singing a country rock record. I just love what she represents: her Blackness, her broadness, her scope, her limitless sense of things.”
Maxwell will then usher in 2026 by joining up again with Lucky Daye and Kem, along with The Isley Brothers, Kelly Price and more special guests when he embarks on his third annual Urban Hang Suite Cruise. It sets sail on the Norwegian Joy from Miami (February 7-12) with stops in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.
During a recent tour break, Billboard caught up with an exuberant Maxwell. In the ensuing phone interview, he shared more about the upcoming residencies, the ocean cruise and the status of the long-awaited final installment in the album trilogy he launched in 2009.
It’s been eight years since your last album, 2016’s blackSUMMERS’night. When is the trilogy’s final chapter coming?
I’m going to be 100 with you, because sometimes people need to know the humanity you represent, and not just the music and not just the presentation: I had been dealing with a nerve condition. I’ve talked to so many other singers and performers who, over the course of their careers, have experienced this. So I had to take time, sit back and chill so I could deal with it and heal. It was stressful as I performed on tour, recorded [his latest single] “Simply Beautiful” and did NPR’s Tiny Desk [5.9 million views to date on YouTube]. I couldn’t really seem to get ahead of it. I’d be on stage and in absolute agony — but I knew I had to do the shows, because there was the incentive to not cancel given the people and businesses working with me behind the scenes.
If I hadn’t been going through all of that, the final album would have probably been out. But I also needed to be sure that I could get behind promoting and celebrating it in front of people. So until I was sure, I didn’t want to release the album just because of a financial or deadline reason. People don’t realize that when you’re making music, it’s about a feeling. If you’re not feeling well, the music isn’t going to feel well either. I love the craft way too much to make it a 9-to-5, a duty and not a pleasure. I know the music [for the next album] has been written from a place of great vibes and intention.
What else can fans expect at your Silent Serenade shows?
I’m more excited about what I’m trying to accomplish than what I know I’ve done already. Hopefully, these shows will catch fire and people in different places will want to see this. Essentially, I want to present the evolution of Black music as it’s represented through all the different genres that we’ve actually created in America: blues, gospel, R&B, soul, rock ‘n’ roll and jazz. I want people to understand the power of our culture specifically. To give people an experience that they’ve never had before that will hopefully bring them to a space of emotion and feeling at a time when it’s being normalized to not show anything. It’s become all about texting and emojis, but we aren’t really connecting with each other.
I don’t think people really listen to music in the way that they used to. So I want to do something that allows them to be transported into what Black music is. It comprises pretty much at least 70% of all the music that you hear in the world, period. Reggaetón is a form of hip-hop. Rock ‘n roll was invented by Little Richard. And country music is Black music too. I want to represent, show, celebrate and solidify who we are. So there will be some B-sides that people have heard, and maybe part one and part two of “’Til the Cops Come Knockin’,” which I haven’t performed since my beginning days. There will also be other surprises and covers that you wouldn’t expect.
Why do you think your cruise has become so popular, with the first two selling out?
I can’t take full credit for the people who curate it; they don’t tell me until it’s done because I have anxiety [laughs]. However, they know who I love. I’m just happy that I get to be a part of… I wouldn’t say resurrection… but I would definitely say it’s a putting-people-in-front-of-people type of moment again. It’s in the spirit of what I mentioned before with Silent Serenade: celebrating music history I know through people I love in music, and through genres that I know we’ve touched and created. That’s what I’m focusing my actions on for all people who just love music.
So what else is still on your to-do list?
It’s actually coming true, but I can’t tell you what it is yet. But when it happens and everything comes together, including the album, it’s going to be like, “Wow, I can’t believe this is happening.” That’s all I’ve got to say, other than I’m not done yet; you ain’t seen the last of me.
Maxwell
Courtesy Photo
