Eric Benet is enjoying the success of "You're the Only One," his first top 20 R&B hit since 1999's "Spend My Life With You" featuring Tamia. The new track appears on Benet's fourth album, Love & Life, which will be released on September 9th. Benet recently told Billboard about how the song came about, explaining, "I was sitting with my longtime production partner Demonte Posey and my cousin, writer/producer George Nash Jr. We were talking about how well crafted R&B songs used to be; those by groups like Blue Magic and the Stylistics. That conversation turned into this jam. Then the next thing you know, we had a song... a song that sounds like a classic you haven't heard in a long time."
Benet is happy with the way his new 12-track album turned out, calling it the "purest representation of me creatively." He added, "It's almost a journey of the kind of music that made me fall in love with music." One of the songs, titled "Still I Believe," features his 16-year-old daughter India on backing vocals.
Benet's last album, 2005's Hurricane, came out shortly after his divorce from actress Halle Berry. Benet recalls, "To be honest, I was nervous about coming back with Hurricane. It was a departure from my expected genre and some people even described it as a little too apologetic."
His next show is August 16th in Baltimore.
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