Singer/actor Ne-Yo has a busy year planned. Deadline reports he will star alongside Serayah (of Empire fame) in the BET holiday movie Sound of Christmas.
Based on the book The Replacement Wife by Tiffany L. Warren, the film follows “a down-on-her-luck woman facing eviction just before Christmas who must navigate budding romantic feelings for a handsome but grieving billionaire when she takes a job nannying for his two children right before Christmas.”
“Natural-haired beauty” Montana (Serayah) has broken up with her boyfriend because she doesn’t want to “live in sin,” but luckily one of the church’s matriarchs has a billionaire son (Ne-Yo) who needs a nanny. The “nanny who falls for her boss” is a classic holiday movie trope, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t know how this one ends. The official synopsis says Montana is “equipped with the power of music and a loving heart,” which means we’ll almost certainly get a duet between Serayah and Ne-Yo. There’s no release date yet, but let’s assume it will be sometime in November or December.
But before Ne-Yo starts ringing in the holidays, he’s set to heat up summer as one of the headliners at Baltimore’s AFRAM Festival. According to CBS Baltimore, he’s joined by soul icons The O’Jays, R&B legend El DeBarge, actor/singer Rotimi, gospel star Le’Andria Johnson and rapper Yung Bleu. With Ne-Yo and Yung Bleu both scheduled to appear, it’s a safe bet fans might get a special performance of their recent collabs “Walk Through The Fire” and “Stay Down.”
Surrounded by City Councilman Robert Stokes, City Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton and City Councilman James Torrence, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said: “If you’re old school like us…we want to have that mixture so everybody in African-American culture and our Black culture here in Baltimore has a reason to come to AFRAM.”
The free festival is returning to an in-person celebration Saturday, June 18, and Sunday, June 19, at Druid Hill Park.