Johnny Gill couldn’t have chosen a more prescient title for his latest album, Game Changer. The set -- the first under his own label J Skillz Entertainment -- just spun off its third top 10 Adult R&B airplay single, “This One’s For Me and You,” featuring Gill’s brothers in song New Edition. Jumping 6-4 this week, the tracks follows predecessors “Behind Closed Doors” and the title track.
The multiple Grammy-nominated artist behind such solo, New Edition and LSG hits as “My My, My,” “Can You Stand the Rain” and “My Body” says adding label CEO to his skill set is “beyond challenging but fun on top of it all.” Released in 2014, Game Changer owes its staying power to Gill’s still deliciously sensual vocals and a suite of strong songs delivered by such songwriters as Babyface, Chuck Harmony (Jazmine Sullivan), Gregg Pagani and Wirlie Morris (Charlie Wilson) and Claude Kelly (Tamar Braxton).
Come next month, Gill and New Edition will join Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Wilson, Sullivan and more on Tom Joyner’s annual Fantastic Voyage cruise (April 23-May 1). Reportedly in rehab, Bobby Brown won’t be joining New Edition on the cruise. “It will be just the five of us,” says Gill. “I spoke to him about a week or so ago. In this business, you realize that getting your life together is more important than anything.”