The uncompromising career of soul singer Maxwell is defined not by his commercial success—which has been significant—but by the powerfully resonant connection he has with his loyal listeners. If you freaked out when you heard his recently recorded cover of Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful”—a classic track he’s sung live many times—then consider yourself part of that following.

Some of us wish he’d released more music over the years, and so does he. “There’s so much I wish I would have done but for so much of my life, I just needed to live more,” Maxwell tells the Weekly. “I wasn’t driven by the attention fame can give you, I was driven by creativity, and by earning my space through the work I did.”

He’s currently wrapping up the Serenade Tour and Las Vegas is one of the last stops. And he’s not excited about it ending, so maybe that means more music and more live performances will be on the way. “I can’t imagine not having done this tour,” he says, “and having all the things it’s told me about myself and the audience, the possibilities of music, how far music can go, and how many generations we can touch.”

Speaking of connecting with generations, you’ve been doing this long enough for your fans to grow up and bring their kids to the show. What’s it been like to see that happen?

It’s definitely a broad spectrum; I think it goes all the way into the aughts, people in their 50s. So when we’re in that room and asking what generation they’re from—“Where’s the ’80s babies? Where’s the’70s babies?”—and you hear the screams, and more screams, it’s like, wow, okay, this is not what I ever would have thought would happen. But I’m very grateful. I think we made the right choices creatively to reassure it, but to see it play out is humbling.

Touching is maybe the best way to describe it. It means your work is not about your generation or a timestamp, it sort of seeps into other people’s consciousness. It’s always been a goal of mine to make emotionally intelligent music so it could just work for whoever feels it the deepest, in any way, shape or form.

You did NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert recently and you took an early break to say how nervous you were to do it. I feel like that kind of open communication is what endears you to those fans.

I appreciate that. I still have not seen the Tiny Desk to this day. I’m too afraid to watch. I just can’t believe we did it … I’d been hearing about their desire for me to do it and I was very apprehensive. I didn’t know if I was ready. But the audience was so nice. If people really liked it, that’s all I need to know.

How do you decide to create and release music at this point? You’ve never been an artist who cycles through albums and tours. Do you feel like your fans have expectations of what comes next?

I just always want to be able to have something to say, and I don’t want to be repetitive or formulaic. I want to actually evolve and grow as a human and represent that period of time, whatever it is. I wasn’t really interested in being commercial … I always wanted to culturally affect people, not commercially affect them, becausethat doesn’t mean you have staying power, it just means you have a hit record that works for now. I just wanted to have a tapestry of music that represented who I was and what I experienced as a person of color growing up in Brooklyn and then traveling the world.

I think I’m in a rare stage where I don’t think there’s expectation that I do this or that. The people who listen to what I do, they don’t have prerequisites. I think they’re happy for the things that might be unexpected, and they’re getting the idea that I operate from a different place. … They accept me for who I am on my own terms, and because they’ve afforded me that amount of grace, I feel obliged almost to just release as many things as I can so they can just enjoy the music and hopefully fit it into their lives as they have in the past.

MAXWELL With Jazmine Sullivan, October London. October 26, 7:30 p.m., $50+. PH Live, ticketmaster.com.

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