After stepping away for three years, Lloyd made a strong return to the game this year with his latest project ‘King of Hearts’ via his new label, Interscope Records. For the project, the R&B crooner had lined up collaborations with the likes of Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, Trey Songz, Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Keri Hilson, and Young Jeezy, and since then, he has continued to work with some other big names. Speaking exclusively with Singersroom, Lloyd revealed that his holiday single “She’s All I Want For Christmas” features Grammy-winning singer Cee-Lo Green.
Although Lloyd had released only a solo version, it turns out that the collaborative effort had to be put on hold for the BET Christmas special. However, fans can expect to hear the single as it was originally intended soon enough.
“Yeah that’s a surprise. My plan was to altogether release it with me and Cee-Lo from the start, and then BET gave me the opportunity to actually perform it live and kind of premiere it for most of my fans,” Lloyd revealed.
“I thought that was a rare opportunity, and I didn’t want to pass it up. So what I did was that I decided to release it the same time as the performance on iTunes without Cee-Lo at first, just in case people heard it, liked it, loved it, and wanted it to add to their collection. And then, once you start hearing it on the radio and stuff like that, it will be with me and Cee-Lo,” he added.
Upon first listen, many fans and critics noticed that the holiday record had a funky, Michael Jackson-inspired sound to it. Even Lloyd’s stage presence during his performance of the track on ‘A Very BET Christmas’ special was reflective of MJ. According to the ATL native, however, this was all intentional.
“When we made the song, I actually said to D. Smith, who produced the song, ‘This sounds just like Jackson 5 man. Crazy!’ From the horns to the drums to the way that we wrote the melody over the verses, it had that feel from day one. That’s fine. That’s cool, because Jackson 5’s “Christmas” was definitely something we were inspired by growing up,” Lloyd explained.
He continued: “We used a lot of what we were inspired by as a group to make something that was our own. We could have never made it without them being around, so I’m glad that you can definitely hear our inspirations in there because they’re definitely just that. They’re our inspirations⦠It’s just like how they say; you are a reflection of your influence. You’re a product of your environment.”
After releasing two holiday tracks this year, fans can hope for Lloyd to drop a full seasonal project next year if all works out.
“As far as the holiday music goes, those two singles were really just us getting our expressions out. We were in the holiday mood, so we wanted to record some stuff. It started out as just one song and it ended up as two songs. We’ve got a lot more ideas, which we may or may not release this year, but hopefully next year we’ll have a whole album,” he said.
However, fans will not have to wait an entire year for some new music from Lloyd. He has recently started the beginning phase of a new upcoming “street” mixtape due out hopefully some time in 2012. Until then, support his latest single “Be The One” featuring Trey Songz & Young Jeezy!
Read the full interview HERE.
