Image Courtesy James Dimmock/Atlantic Records
(NEW ORLEANS) — Trey Songz rarely talks about his father, Claude Neverson, Jr. It’s because the R&B singer hasn’t spoken to him in more than four years. Still, he recently opened up about his absent dad.
“I didn’t have a male figure in my life so I had my mother, I had all my aunties. The strength of them gave me a certain strength that I probably still wouldn’t have if my father was in my life,” Trigga told reporters after he kicked off the Essence Music Festival 2015 Thursday night in New Orleans at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Trey is one of the many headliners at this year’s festival. On Thursday night, he was joined by Gospel singer Lecrae and comedian Kevin Hart. The three performed to a sold-out crowd of mostly black women, which left the singer gushing about them.
“I love black women to death from their hair, to the way they smell, to their eyes,” he said. “What’s amazing about that is having been to Africa now, South Africa…it’s a beautiful thing to see just the differences in us all — from…the texture of our hair, to the color of our skin. There’s so many different beautiful things about black women, I don’t think I could think about it all right here, right now.”
The Essence Music Festival continues throughout the Fourth of July weekend in New Orleans, featuring performances by Kendrick Lamar, Common, Erykah Badu, and Usher, among others.
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
