“I love Dallas,” Maxwell says. “I love the musical energy there, the creative vibes that come from there. And the people are just, they're incredible. So for me, when I go there, I just want to give them a thank you, and I want to give them the opportunity to just have a good old time.”
The prolific performer promises an unforgettable concert experience through hit songs, deep cuts and new music. It's rare for a veteran to perform at an arena level after two decades, proving his catalog is timeless.
With the Serenade Tour, Maxwell's accomplished touring schedule will continue. A hugely successful "The Night Of Tour" made him one of the top 20 global tour performers in 2023.
The Brooklyn, New York, native established his presence early with classic love songs such as “Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)” and “Sumthin Sumthin.” Throughout the years, his unique vocal abilities and hypnotizing presence never faded as he continuously carried the neo-soul sound forward. He continues to rule the charts with his latest music.
Maxwell says he's aware that his music has been responsible for love- and life-making moments for fans.
“I just wanted them to have a good time,” he says. “I didn't know they was going to make life out here … I'm just playing. The best records are love records. Romantic records have always been the ones that kind of last in my opinion, particularly the vulnerable ones. I don't know how it all ended up being something that to this day brings me great gratification, lots of validation.
"Especially when I'm in front of the people at the tour and there's [people from] from the '50s to '60s to '70s to '80s and '90s, sometimes the 2000s too are in the audience. It's a validation that I never thought I would ever experience.”
Even though his music is known to create life, he wants it to transcend generations, like many legends before him.
“I've always wanted to make music that went past my era, my age group, and would last and hopefully flourish within other age groups," he says. "And for them to be out there and out there outside, in front of me. Like yesterday was so special. I was doing a show, I was in St. Louis, and it was Sunday and usually Sunday shows are nice, but people got to go to work. So you just got to wrap it up and get to it.”
The fact that his music has been in demand across eras proves its immortality.
“I feel grateful that I made choices that didn't fall into particular trends. As you can see, if you look at how my meteoric rise, I guess as I would say, I wasn't always on the radio like everybody else," he says. "I wasn't really the guy that you are going to see or hear about consistently with the features and expanding my audience to other people's fan bases and so on and so forth. I never played the video game of Spotify.
“I just wanted people to naturally walk over to the music without any strategy behind it. The strategies is the phases of my life and how the phases of my life reflect the current world as I see it. And also those who come from my era and even before. So that's usually my strategy is how can I stay recognizable, fresh, and still give the core base what they want and hopefully not disappoint the youngins out there”
According to Maxwell, legacy means something different now that he has become a star:
“If you don't stay humble, the industry will humble you," he says. "And I'm just grateful again that I get to choose things that sound very familiar to who I really was in the beginning. So that's the greatest blessing is to be able to still stick to what you like and to have it still mean something.”
The latest tour supports Maxwell’s new song, “Simply Beautiful.” The love song reached the top of the Adult R&B Airplay chart this month, giving him his ninth number-one single. The song is a remake of a 1972 tune from legendary singer-turned-pastor Al Green.
“Al Green wrote an incredible masterpiece, and just to be tied to his music in any way is kind of like a blessing,” Maxwell says. “It's almost like its own reward. So grateful for being able to cover it for his permission because it's his song, and also look at what it's doing. So it's a triple threat.”
Maxwell's Silver Bangers
The tour will also introduce emerging R&B sensation October London, who's touring with Maxwell. Signed to Snoop Dogg’s Death Row Records, the singer used powerful vocals and intimate music to break through in 2024. His October Nights album, which includes the lead single “A Beautiful Woman,” capitalized on his newfound popularity. London's latest hits have also climbed the Adult R&B Airplay charts, making him a natural choice for the show."I just like the feeling of what he's doing, and obviously, I love Snoop," Maxwell says about London. “I just wanted to do it. He sounded great. He has a beautiful voice. He's a good guy. His energy is great. In his own way, he's representing the past and trying to lay out the groundwork for the future of soul and R&B music”
While London will provide the shock, Jazmine Sullivan will provide the awe. Her award-winning hits "Hurt Me So Good" and "Round Midnight" have made her a household name, and Maxwell considers her “the greatest.”
“I say it every night; she's the greatest voice of her generation,” he says. “Her pen is not to be played with.”
Sullivan and Max toured together in 2008, resulting in a friendship. As Maxwell marvels at Sullivan's career blossoming, which has resulted in three critically acclaimed albums, the reunion has a lot of meaning to him.
He added: “I’ve worked with Jazmine back in the day. We started in 2008, a year shy of [Maxwell's album] BLACKsummers'night coming out and on the heels of her first release," he says. "So she and I have a special bond in that she's like a little sister, and I'm like a big brother. When I asked her if she was willing to come on the tour, I was just grateful that she said yes. She had become an incredible star, with so many of her songs being iconic at this point.”
The Serenade Tour features a promising newcomer and an award-winning superstar in London and Sullivan. For Maxwell, it represents a rebirth of his creativity eight years after his last album. Since Dallas is important to him, he listens to in-development music and communicates with the band and staff before the concert.
“I feel like this tour has been a rebirth for me in some ways just because I got to sing so many different songs from a lot of my catalog,” he says. “I just try to get sensitive in my mind. I listen to a lot of the music that I'm working on now, especially stuff that's completed. Working with the band, perfecting the show. This one was a special one for me. I really paid a lot of attention about what I wanted to do with the vibe of the whole thing. Obviously getting closer to the musicians and the crew and the people who created the content.”
The AAC has a capacity of 20,000, making Sunday's show the singer's biggest yet in DFW. With social media so prevalent, Maxwell encourages fans to capture moments for later sharing, but he insists that a concert of this magnitude should maintain its mystique.
“It's a bigger show. I'm doing my best not to post too much of the show on my socials," he says. "I know people have them everywhere. Thank God, and thank you so much for filming. But I try to keep the show as mysterious as possible. But it's a big show, and we're excited.”
