Ne-Yo

CTL-E-5728 · Person · musician · 1979–present (birth year contested)

STRONG EVIDENCE evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-02541 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-0752 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5728. Master record source: Soul Train Awards build 2026-10-16 — sourced from Wikipedia ceremony pages.

Ne-Yo, born Shaffer Chimere Smith on 18 October in Camden, Arkansas, and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, is an American singer and one of the defining R&B songwriters of his generation. He broke through as a writer, co-writing Mario's "Let Me Love You" (2004), which led to a Def Jam deal; he went on to write Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" and Rihanna's "Take a Bow." His debut album In My Own Words (2006) reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 behind the Hot 100 No. 1 "So Sick," followed by Because of You (2007) and Year of the Gentleman (2008). He has won three Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album for Because of You and two awards for "Miss Independent." His birth year is contested across sources — 1979 in the current reference record, 1982 and 1983 in others — and is carried here as unresolved rather than blended.

The record

• Also known as: Shaffer Chimere Smith, Shaffer Smith
• Role(s): recording artist

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 7; first packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Ne-Yo entity in the live graph at 3,443 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5728 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 201 (R&B Singers list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black American R&B figure. Vital status: LIVING — touring logged through 2025–26, including an October 2026 Cape Town date reported sold out. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Three Grammy wins, including Best Contemporary R&B Album (Because of You, 2008 ceremony) and two for "Miss Independent"; "So Sick" No. 1 Hot 100 (2006) — Wikipedia/AllMusic, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and label/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5728-ne-yo.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject; the three catalog string-hits for "Ne-Yo" resolve to Nina Simone and John Coltrane rows, not Ne-Yo billings); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )

Relationships

• Beyoncé — collaborated with
  Ne-Yo co-wrote Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," a documented songwriting collaboration.
• Soul Train Music Awards 2007 — honored by
  STRONG EVIDENCE

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Ne-Yo" — born Shaffer Chimere Smith, 18 October 1979, Camden, Arkansas; "Let Me Love You" breakthrough; In My Own Words No. 1; three Grammy wins; 29 million RIAA certified units — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne-Yo (build store)
• AllMusic biography via Power Orlando — Camden/Las Vegas upbringing; first three albums platinum — https://www.powerorlando.com/lsp/artist/bio/ne-yo/ (primary source · build store)
• BET photo gallery — gives a 1982 birth year, the conflict source carried on this record — https://www.bet.com/photo-gallery/mozskw/get-on-board-ne-yo/mkxmnb (build store)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Soul_Train_Music_Awards (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Won The Coca-Cola Classic Award for Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist at the Soul Train Music Awards 2007 — per the published Soul Train Music Awards winners lists (per-year lists fetched in full during recovery Phase C, 2026-10-17)

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Record CTL-E-5728 · Combined Graph record U-02541 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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