Dwele is a man of many pursuits. Aside from being a Grammy-nominated R&B singer, he's also a painter, a videographer, a DJ and a bit of a pool shark. His most recent obsession? Biking. While on tour in Australia last year, Dwele was having trouble sleeping, and found himself perusing the Internet in the middle of the night. He saw a bicycle he liked, remembered he hadn't ridden one since he was a kid and ordered it to be shipped to his Corktown loft. By the time he got home, it still hadn't arrived, so he went and bought one. Then he bought another one, and another one. He now owns six bikes. So go ahead and add avid biker to his resume. "I keep a lot on my plate," says Dwele, relaxing last week in the lobby of the Westin Book Cadillac in downtown Detroit. He laughs. "Maybe I've got ADHD."
But he can still buckle down and focus his attention when he needs to. Earlier this year, he holed up in a Greektown studio and recorded his fifth album, "Greater Than One." The set will be released on Tuesday.
The album finds Dwele — born Andwele Gardner on Valentine's Day, 1978, on Detroit's west side — in a 1980s space. He noticed the '80s influence seeping in around four songs into the album, and decided to keep it going. He describes the album, which was originally titled "Greater Than One, Less Than Three," as "where I'm at right now."
"I'm 34, and I definitely feel comfortable right now," says Dwele. He's sporting a salmon colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and a pair of black Air Jordan retro 3s. He's sipping on a glass of Detroit tap water he describes glowingly as "flavorful."
"I feel like I'm coming into my name with this album," he says, a tiny patch of gray hair peeking through the front of his 'do. "I feel comfortable, I feel cool, I feel grown. I think that's what this album is: It's cool, it's grown, it's comfy."
What it's not is trendy or desperate. Dwele's smooth R&B with a hip-hop edge helped pave the way for current artists like Frank Ocean and the Weeknd, who comfortably straddle the R&B and hip-hop landscapes. But Dwele isn't reacting to the world around him or trying to keep up with the kids — he refuses to dye that patch of gray hair, even though it's given his management team a few gray hairs of their own — and instead stays locked into his own groove.
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