Maxwell

and was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 39th Grammy Awards, losing the award to The Tony Rich Project's Words.

The album spawned four singles.

Gerald Maxwell Rivera (born May 23, 1973), known mononymously as Maxwell, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Already a fan of what he described as "jheri curl soul", which was the trademark of early 1980s R&B acts such as Patrice Rushen, S.O.S. Band and Rose Royce, Maxwell began to teach himself to play a variety of instruments.

According to him, the R&B of the early 1980s contained "the perfect combination of computerized instrumentation with a live feel", and that the genre's dynamics later became lost due to the influence of hip hop on R&B.

Despite facing ridicule from classmates for being shy and awkward, he progressed and continued to develop his musical abilities, and he also adopted the look of a more bohemian style outwardly in his clothing, growing long sideburns and letting his hair grow out wildly and combed in an extreme style, or sometimes putting his hair in long thin braids.

Initially influenced by early-1980s urban R&B, Maxwell progressed rapidly, and by 1991 he was performing on the New York City club scene.

Maxwell was able to gain access to a 24-track recording studio and started to record songs for a demo tape, which he circulated among his friends.

The demo engendered interest, and his official debut concert performance at Manhattan nightclub Nell's drew a crowd.

During the next two years, Maxwell wrote and recorded over three hundred songs and played frequently at small venues throughout New York City.

Maxwell's performances continued to draw interest and increase the buzz about him, and he was called "the next Prince" by a writer from Vibe magazine who attended one of his shows.

Through the album and its follow ups, Maxwell has been cited—along with Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, and Erykah Badu—for ushering in the neo soul movement and its sensibilities into mainstream popular music during the late 1990s.

Maxwell began working with songwriter Leon Ware and noted guitarist Wah Wah Watson to record his debut Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite in the mid 1990s.

After earning a considerable reputation, Maxwell signed a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1994.

He adopted his middle name as a moniker out of respect for his family's privacy.

Recording sessions for the album took place in 1994 and 1995 at Electric Lady Studios, RPM Studios, Sorcerer Studios and Chung King Studios in New York City, and at CRC recording studios in Chicago, Illinois.

After production for the album was completed in 1995, the finished product was presented to Columbia Records in Spring of that same year.

However, it was shelved for nearly a year, due to issues with Columbia's management, the label's extensive reorganization and record executives' doubts of the album's commercial potential.

Initially, the album was slow to obtain commercial interest.

He rose to prominence following the release of his debut studio album Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996), which received widespread acclaim and spawned the hit singles "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)" and "Sumthin' Sumthin'".

On April 20, 1996, the album made its chart debut at number 38 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

From August to October 1996, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite experienced chart growth on both the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Billboard 200, peaking at number eight on the former and at number 36 on the latter.

It spent seventy-eight weeks on the Billboard 200 chart.

It became a Top 30 hit in the United Kingdom.

The album was later ranked as one of the year's top-10 best albums by Time, Rolling Stone and USA Today.

The first single released, "...Til the Cops Come Knockin'", debuted on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks at number 87 in May 1996.

Peaking at number 79, the single spent 12 weeks on the chart.

The second single, "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)", debuted on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks in August 1996 at number 11, eventually peaking number eight.

It spent eighteen weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 36 on September 28, 1996.

He followed up with his second and third albums Embrya (1998) and Now (2001), both of which received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); the latter became his first to debut atop the Billboard 200 chart.

His 1999 single, "Fortunate" was released for the R. Kelly-produced soundtrack to the film Life, and saw his furthest commercial success as it peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100.

After an eight year hiatus, Rivera returned with the release of his fourth album BLACKsummers'night (2009), which became his second to peak atop the Billboard 200 and won two Grammy Awards—Best R&B Album and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance—from six nominations; its single, "Pretty Wings" was nominated for Song of the Year.

His fifth album, blackSUMMERS'night (2016) was supported by the single "Lake by the Ocean" and met with continued success.

Rivera has won three Grammy Awards, six Soul Train Music Awards and two NAACP Image Awards.

He was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Congressional Black Caucus in 2019 for "his innovative contributions to the music industry as a singer, songwriter, and producer".

Maxwell was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a Haitian mother and a Puerto Rican father.

His mother grew up in a devout Baptist household in Haiti.

Maxwell's father died in a plane crash when Maxwell was three years old.

Maxwell grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York.

After receiving a low-cost Casio keyboard from a friend, the Brooklyn, New York-native began composing music at age 17.