Glenn Lewis

Posted in MusicWorld on April 30, 2002

Canadian r&b crooner Glenn Lewis is on a mission to rescue contemporary pop from its lusty doldrums. "Seventy-five percent of current black music is 'I want to get you into bed'," Lewis recently told Vibe magazine. "Twenty-five percent of it is about feelings ... I'm not worried about putting on some fake, hard-core exterior."

A similar confidence and insightfulness animates Lewis's debut CD, World Outside My Window. Sharing the same retro-soul sensibilities as D'Angelo, Maxwell and Erykah Badu, Lewis has drawn favorable comparisons to '70s funk pioneers like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway. The singer's debut single, "Don't You Forget It," possesses the head-bobbing bounce of a modern r&b classic, while other tracks like "Simple Things," "Something To See" and "This Love" make his debut album a special event.

Months before his album was released, Lewis had already created a deafening buzz. He won valuable exposure as the opening act on Alicia Keys's early-2002 tour, and soon thereafter critics weighed-in with ecstatic reviews. Entertainment Weekly included the singer on its "Must List" of up-and-coming stars, while Interview magazine noted Lewis's "elastic voice and gently funkified beats."

The only child of performing parents, Lewis went straight from high school to the stages of the Toronto, Canada club scene. Signing with Epic Records, he made an immediate splash with his single "Don't You Forget It." In fact, Stevie Wonder himself invited the newcomer to visit his Los Angeles radio station. "My heart stopped when he walked in that door," Lewis says, recalling his experience meeting Stevie. "He said it was a pleasure to meet me and that he loved 'Don't You Forget It' . . . then he just started singing it right there! I was blown away."

SOURCEMusicWorld TAGS Pop R&B Musicworld Hitmaker Artists Glenn Lewis