(AllHipHop News) Maxwell is ready to return after his highly successful fourth album Blacksummer’snight was released in 2009. In a recent interview, Maxwell spoke on how vocal surgery delayed his album, questions he had about continuing his career and more.
In 2012, Maxwell planned to perform his entire discography back-to-back during shows in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Newark, New Jersey. Maxwell had to cancel the entire tour due to vocal injuries and admits to thinking the injury could be the end of his career:
You know, you always think about it. I thought to myself, “Damn.” But luckily my doctor, Dr. Jimmy Morales, who works with so many people — from rappers to public speakers, it’s insane who he’s involved with — he assured me that it was not major, that it was something you must deal with now. It’s better to deal with it now and cancel these dates, which, you know, even when I canceled the dates, I paid my entire staff — the musicians, the crew, everything. Literally out of my own pocket because everyone has families, so I didn’t want them to be restricted because of the experience I was going through. So, I took care of them, and I think it was good karma in itself. [It] kind of helped with the healing process, so, you know, I was back in motion.
Maxwell stated that his cousin died of an enlarged heart and a heart attack earlier this year, forcing him to delay recording his upcoming album even more. According to Maxwell, his cousin’s death made him come to terms with a phenomena that has characterized artists during sadness:
Being an artist, it’s like, “Damn, why do I need to have f##### up things happen for things to sound so nice for people?” It’s weird. It’s so weird, bro. I don’t even get it. I take it as it comes and I go, “This is what you’re here to do. You’re here to take on your life and what you go through — mostly the worst part of it — and make it into something nice so people feel that they can relate and they can overcome certain experiences.” So that’s what I’m doing now.
Maxwell is set to embark on a 40-date summer tour starting June 14th.