Trey Songz Essentials

Any artist who calls himself “Mr. Steal Your Girl” must be confident about his charms. But Trey Songz has always balanced his displays of brashness—that nickname is one of many memorable boasts on 2010’s “Bottoms Up”—with more tender expressions of vulnerability. Born in Virginia in 1984, the future slow-jam master then known as Tremaine Neverson grew up on military bases before his talents landed him a record deal as he was finishing high school. While his early albums cast the R&B singer as a kid brother to Usher, he came into his own in 2009 with his third, Ready, a showcase for his yearning tenor and his ability to ratchet up the heat. On his hit match-ups with Drake on “Successful” and “I Invented Sex,” Trey Songz further smudged the increasingly blurry line between bedroom-friendly R&B and club-ready hip-hop. His fourth and fifth consecutive albums to hit the Top 3 on the Billboard album charts, 2014’s Trigga and 2017’s Tremaine, as is 2020’s Back Home, are further testaments to his growing maturity—even if sultry hits like the dancehall-styled “Na Na” prove he’s always ready to play the role of playboy.