Singer Maxwell is bringing all the soul and serenades to his Atlanta show

Maxwell stays booked and busy.

The neo-soul pioneer recently wrapped his Silent Serenade Ensemble, a limited run of intimate, orchestra-backed shows in Washington, D.C., and his native Brooklyn, New York. In February, he’ll kick off the third iteration of his Urban Hang Suite Tour (named after his 1996 debut album).

Now, he’s returning to Atlanta for his Serenade Tour, which he started in 2024. He’ll perform Friday at State Farm Arena, and R&B singer Kem will open the show. Tickets are still available and can be purchased via Ticketmaster. Since its inception, Maxwell’s Serenade Tour has featured a strong collection of openers including Jazmine Sullivan, October London and Lucky Daye.

“The great part is when you get out there and you get on the stage and you’re just greeted by people who have spent close to almost 30 years with you, raising you, appreciating you, giving you the confidence to be you, and carrying you through all those different phases of your life,” the crooner told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution over the phone. “I’m really, really grateful to the people who support what I do and to the people who don’t support it too, because sometimes that can be just as beneficial to your growth.”

A: They were really special, creative and emotional and celebratory of culture. … It’s really nice when you’re collaborating with talented people and you’re just sharing and providing a service of creativity to the people who come and there’s no real expectation but to just go on an adventure creatively. And it sort of typified that, in more ways than one. I think you’re at your best when you’re just kind of being as pure and creative as you can be and challenging your personal self, as opposed to how you compare to other people out there in the music world. So this was a really nice moment.

A: I did “(MTV) Unplugged,” and it kind of had a bit of that edge. I played the Kennedy Center. I played it with the orchestra, and I just wanted to kind of do my own version of that, and seek out talent from various locations. And so it was very rewarding … it was not easy, but nothing good is easy. So I was happy that we did it. I can’t wait to do some more, so we’ll see how people feel about it.

A: Yeah. It’s cool. I love the people. I love the challenge. I definitely need things to have purpose and meaning. I was touring during the pandemic. We were all coming out of this climate. I think people think it’s over, just because we’ve moved on, but there’s been real trauma from it. People were inside, and they were really inside. Then, the world opened up again. It was fun to get back to the people, also to your career, to the thing that makes you who you are.

But there was a lot of things that need to be rectified, balanced, getting adjusted to, dealing with the hesitation, the reticence of whether or not you still can do the thing that you did before this thing happened to the world, you know? I feel kind of like I’m at the end of that journey. Walking into these shows has reminded me of, like, what we’re here to do. We’re not here to just like do shows and put songs that get on the radio and get a bunch of Spotify hits. Sometimes, people forget that just even touching one person with a song is the greatest reward (rather) than the stat.

A: At the very core, it’s the essence of what we do. We are just bringing the song to the people. Some of them, obviously romantic, some of them have grief, sadness, despair, loss. I just wanted to feature people that I really admire, have voices that move me and hopefully help me to keep the traditional soul music going in its purest form. In the emotion zone. Not just in the clickbait way. In the like, “Damn, that’s a classic” way. Like The Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Sade.

A: I want people to walk away feeling like, “Yeah, that was dope.” I just want them to go back into their lives feeling like I had a good night, you know, because it’s hard out here. The world is a little bit crazy. So I just want to keep some smiles going and make people feel something.