Justsmile Magazine - With Love, GIVĒON

Exactly two weeks before his 30th birthday, GIVĒON released “TWENTIES,” the lead single from his sophomore album Beloved. Like much of the Grammy-nominated R&B singer’s output, it’s a song about love. But while many of his past hits have reveled in intimacy, this one pushes against it: “TWENTIES” grew out of GIVĒON’s realization that he’d spent the majority of his adult life jumping in and out of romantic entanglements. “There’s so much to learn about yourself when you’re single, even if it’s uncomfortable,” he tells me one afternoon in March. Or, as he croons in the song’s passionate chorus: “I didn’t know I’d be wasting my time / Spending my 20s on you.”

More than a year has passed since that launch. GIVĒON recently celebrated his 31st birthday, go-karting and paintballing with friends in New Zealand. (“I made the mistake of going in a tank top,” he jokes. “I thought it would be cool, but that shit hurt.”) And as he capped off the first full year of his new decade, he continued to reflect on everything he’d blinded himself to in the past. “I’m even more aware of what I’ve been wasting my energy on,” he states. “Sometimes, I will stay around certain people too long.”

Jacket, shirt and tie BALENCIAGA.

‘I’m at this place where I value structure. I value history. I value tradition.’ – GIVĒON

He’s not alone in feeling that way. “TWENTIES” has quickly become one of GIVĒON’s biggest hits, an outcome he seems nonplussed by. “[People] love real substance,” he says. “So the fact that people connect with it, I’m not really surprised by. If I relate to it, I’m pretty sure there’s, like, a million other people that can relate to it, too.”