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loyd insists he is ready to leave his “comfort zone,” but today you’d never know it. He is sitting at a table on the outside patio section of his favorite breakfast restaurant, J. Christopher’s, and he couldn’t look more at home. Every morning he walks two blocks from his suburban Atlanta apartment to this trendy breakfast spot (imagine Waffle House meets The Four Seasons Brunch) and orders the exact same meal — a grilled chicken breast, cheese grits, scrambled eggs, bacon strips, and one pancake. He knows all the waitresses by name, and they all know exactly what he wants when he asks for “the usual.” Sitting at a table across from his closest friends and manager on a sunny Wednesday around his way, there is no reason Lloyd shouldn’t be comfortable—but he’s not. In fact, he is far from it. The 22-year-old singer has recorded charttopping singles, and sold records all around the world, but he still feels uncomfortable with his position in the game. Plagued by an insatiable hunger which can’t be cured by any bacon and eggs, the Lessons in Love instructor is longing for more. He won’t be full until his song catalogue rivals The Beatles, and he is looked at as the greatest performer since Michael Jackson or Bobby Brown. But right now it’s time for him to eat.
When I was pulling up to the restaurant your single, “Girls Around the World,” had just come on the radio, so that must be a sign that this is going to be a good interview. (laughs) Every time I see you, man, something crazy happens, like the time we did the interview at the hotel, and my cousin wrecked the Benz right as we were pulling in. So hopefully nothing too crazy will happen today. Yeah, hopefully. That song is a hit though; it propelled you to a top ten debut, man. You can never go wrong singing about the ladies. Yeah, and I really do want all the girls. I wanna make all the girls my girls. I wanna have 3 million girlfriends at one time and have all of them be cool with each other. Seriously, when I walk in the club, I want all these other R&B dudes to be irrelevant. All these other niggas shouldn’t even matter. My shit should be the hottest. Damn, so right now, at this point in your career, do you feel like you’re the best? I feel like I’m top five in the game for R&B singers, hands down. I feel like I’m building a nice catalogue of music. One day I’ll be able to rock for 2 hours straight on they ass, but I do think that top 5 ain’t good enough. The rest of this interview is featured in OZONE Magazine’s September issue.
“We some country boys,” he says casually, right before he orders his carnival of calories. “We gotta start the day off with a little pork on our forks.” And for Lloyd it’s always pork, never beef; and perhaps that’s what has hindered his career thus far. “This music [industry] is all about drama,” he laments. “That’s probably why I haven’t sold those 2 or 3 million albums—I don’t really like to deal with drama.” Today is a little different, however. His third album, Lessons in Love, has just been released, debuting at number 7 on the Billboard 200 chart. Although Lloyd is content with the song selection and overall album, he still desires to grow as an artist, and even suggests that his label, The Inc., has hindered this growth. Lloyd is more than ready for his robust musical taste, which includes such genres as alternative and electronic to reflect more in his own work, and maybe it’s time, he feels, to stop being so damn cool with everybody. OZONE | 19