Eric Benet On Halle And His Skyrocketing Career - Brief Article

Ebony, July, 2000 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

ERIC BENET wants to make music that transcends time, space and history. "I would hope," he says, "that over the next few years the younger people will see it's not about how much ice is on your wrists or your neck or how many shortys are in your stable."

What will last, he says, is where your heart is.

Tapping into the emotion of life, love and relationships has propelled Benet from just another promising young singer to full-fledged star status, complete with throngs of frenzied female fans from teens to boomers and beyond who think anything that Eric Benet does is "the bomb."

Even screen icon Halle Berry was a Benet fan, before he became her man. The couple met two years ago backstage at a concert he gave in Los Angeles, and during the actress' recent troubles following an auto accident, Benet has loyally stood by her side.

"This has been a very difficult time for Halle," he says. "But she's strong and we're confident that her decision to confront this case in the courtroom is the right way to go."

Both Eric and Halle are looking to the future. The two will be married soon, he says, and it definitely will not be a big Hollywood production. "We are going to wait for the right time and it'll be immediate family only," he says. He plans to steal away and tell everybody about the wedding after it happens.

Benet's popularity predates the Halle connection and is based, in part, on his sexy image. But the singer says he was never considered sexy in the traditional sense. His fashion style is laid back and comfortable with a penchant for vintage clothes--he says he used to wear clothes from the '40s. "If you knew me back in the day, you would think it yeas hilarious," he says. "Girls always thought I was interesting and fun to talk to," he says. "Now, it's like everything I wanted then is happening now. It's very flattering and I tell you, I don't think I'll ever know how to deal with it."

Anyone else, especially an introspective guy from Milwaukee, might be totally overwhelmed by it all. But not Benet, who is well on his way to superstardom. After his first album enjoyed critical but less than commercial success, his sophomore solo album, A Day in the Life, went gold and is still doing well after a year on the charts.

Benet has big plans that include a third album, a new production deal, and last but certainly not least, vowing to spend his life with actress Halle Berry. He also has big dreams--and he's on the verge of seeing some of them come true. But he is definitely not on "some old material thing," as he writes in one of his songs.

"If you listen to today's music," he says, "the philosophy lends itself to being a little more trendy." He says his music is definitely not of the "trendy" variety.

"When I record an album, I want it to be a complete body of work and something that is not linear--not keeping the same groove from start to finish," he says. "And I want every song to have a personality and to make a statement of its own while still being cohesive with the whole album." Although many of his songs are used as background for romancing, he insists he wants to be more than "a background soundtrack to somebody's mack session," as he told one writer.

Benet also has a big following of Brothers, who don't have to be coerced to attend his concerts. "I think men often struggle with the right things to say or just how to say it," he says. "A lot of men come up to me and they thank me. Maybe I'm assisting the population boom."

Benet doesn't mind helping the population growth. He says it's good company to be considered in the same breath with Barry White and Marvin Gaye. And like those two masters of the love song, Benet has a few thoughts on the subject himself. "The way to truly experience romance the way God intended for it to affect us is through love. At least that's been my experience," he says.

Benet says that "real-life experience" provides the fuel for most of the songs on his albums. "I keep a journal," he says. "The album title came from re-reading passages in my diary."

Spiritual yet accessible, romantic without being downright nasty, a family man who is a sex symbol, Benet is a bundle of contradictions and a passionate songwriter who longs for the "glory days of R&B." A fan of Ella Fitzgerald, rock `n' roll and Jimi Hendrix, he's what the elders call an "old soul."

Born Eric Benet Jordan, he grew up in Milwaukee, the youngest of four siblings in a home filled with parental love and music. "Everybody had perfect pitch and everybody played an instrument," he says. "My mother wouldn't just tell us what to do," he recalls. "She would sing, `Go and clean your rooom!'"

He started his musical career in a vocal group called "Benett" with his sister, Lisa, and his cousin, George Nash Jr. The group signed with Capitol Records and released an album titled Benett in 1992. But that album was lost in the middle of a corporate upheaval and sold only 70,000 copies. He later signed with Warner Bros. Records and released his debut album, True to Myself, which was a critical success coupled with disappointing sales in the U.S. but big sales in Japan.