While Let Me Love You showed a fair amount of lyrical immaturity and almost sophomoric obsession with sex, it was an unadulterated smash and became one of the year's biggest R&B albums.  As that album was climbing the charts, Ne-Yo continued writing for others, and penned a couple of the biggest hits of that year, Rihanna's ballad "Unfaithful" and Beyonce's uber-smash, "Irreplaceable," which spent nearly three months at #1.  He also had his acting debut in the movie Stomp the Yard. 

Over the next several years Ne-Yo continued to achieve commercial success as a singer -- most recently with his 2010 album Libra Scale and its hit single "Closer" -- but even to a greater extent as a songwriter and member of the Stargate production team, working with artists from Beyonce to Rihanna to Pitbull.

By Chris Rizik