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-http://www.ebonyjet.com/Templates/DetailsView.aspx?id=19578&terms=keith%20sweat Keith Sweat Keeps It Coming With New Album and Relationship Book By Margena A. Christian, EBONY Senior Writer The music industry is missing two things, says singer Keith Sweat: him and foreplay. After selling more than 15 million albums, the soul balladeer knows a thing or two when it comes to getting people in the mood. So get ready, because on November 8, he’s planning to take you there. He’s going to make you sweat with the CD Til’ the Morning. A single dad, the father of four has managed to balance his career along with single parenting. On weekends, he tours the country performing his classics such as “Make It Last Forever,” “I Want Her,” “Don’t Stop Your Love,” “I’ll Give All My Love to You” and “Keep It Coming.” And since 2007, Sweat has won a loyal following with his syndicated radio show, “The Sweat Hotel.” Heard in 47 markets, its quiet storm format not only offers listeners grown and sexy music, but it also affords them an opportunity to extend apologies or reveal confessions and/or secrets to their mates. Drawing from the listener experiences as well as his own, Sweat has written a book, Make It Last Forever: The Dos and the Don’ts, a conversational guide, if you will, to help couples. Though his own marriage to Lisa Wu Hartwell, a former Real Housewives of Atlanta TV personality, didn’t work, that doesn’t mean he can’t facilitate dialogue for others. After all, nobody begs or pleads a case better. Here’s what the crooner told EBONY.com. EBONY: Tell me about the book. What kind of dos and don’ts are you going to discuss? Sweat: If two people are in a relationship and a woman is not being satisfied by her mate, there’s nothing wrong with her telling her man how to be satisfied even though she feels like she might hurt his ego. Those are the types of things I deal with. There’s nothing wrong with telling your spouse what you like in bed or telling someone, “Look but don’t touch.” If you pay to play before you get into a relationship, you’ve got to keep paying. EBONY: What qualifies you to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do? Sweat: Hey, I’ve been through it. Experience is the best teacher, so when people say, “How does he know this?” it’s because I’m experienced about what you should and what you shouldn’t do. EBONY: Did you ever have to pay to play? Sweat: Oh, most definitely. Most men have felt it. If you’re a real brother, you pay to play in some situations. I didn’t pay to play in every situation, but being real about it, women pay to play sometimes. But you’ve got to understand that the way you’re getting into something is the way you will want it to be or feel when you’re into it, no matter what it is. However you start something, that’s how you’ve got to continue. And that's why most relationships do not work. Because when a man wines and dines a woman to get her, she feels like, ‘Oh, this is great. This is how it’s going to be. We’ll go on vacations, go to different places, go shopping. Oh, this is great. I love this.” Then you get into the relationship and it’s, “Hold up. We’ve got to stop this.‘ Then, all of a sudden it’s, “This is not what you told me or what I thought it was going to be because this is how you won me over.” EBONY: Men are hunters. They go after what they want. Should women do the same? Sweat: Men go after what they want, but women go after what they want, too. I think it goes both ways. I’ve seen women approach men in certain situations, and I’ve seen men approach women in certain situations. It’s always been this way. I don’t really think anything has changed. I think people have different ways of going about it, but I think that the game is still the same. The approach is still the same. I don’t think there’s a difference. EBONY: What’s the book’s tone? Sweat: I want it to be a conversation piece. I want someone, when he or she is reading the book, to really read it. A lot of women and men want to inquire about certain things, but they don’t want to feel like they don’t know. In other words, some women feel like they have to go to their girlfriends to ask them questions. Sometimes it’s better to go to a man and ask him, “Why do you all act like this or why is it like that?” A man knows a man better, just like a woman knows a woman better. EBONY: But men don’t want to hurt women’s feelings. If a woman asks, “Why didn’t you call me?” It might not be cool for him to say, “I didn’t want to call you.” Sweat: I try to keep it real. I think that’s the best way. Don’t sell me no dreams because my attitude is, keep it real with me. Tell me what it really is because then I know what I’m dealing with. I think the problem comes when people start to play games, not being real with a person and leading him or her on. I think once a person tells someone, “This is what I’m looking for, no more, no less,” people can accept that. If you ever dealt with or saw relationship that ended badly, most of the time one of the two will say, “You should have just told me that’s not what you were looking for or what you were looking for in this. You shouldn’t have led me on to believe it was one way and it wasn’t that way.” I think most people just want honesty. EBONY: This is great territory to venture into. Sweat: I’ve been in that territory for years, writing songs such as “Nobody,” “Twisted,” “Make It Last Forever” and “Something Just Ain’t Right.” All my songs, from back in the day to now, have gone into that territory. And because my radio show speaks about apologies, confessions and the maintenance man, I get all kinds of calls. They talk about cheating on their man or how their man is cheating on them. Some talk about how they had a baby with another guy but just didn’t know how to tell their man. I say, “Don’t tell him. He’s going to kill you.” My show deals with all kinds of stuff. Sometimes I’m sitting there thinking, “You really want to tell me this?’ The listeners just feel like they can expose everything or open up to me on the show about everything. EBONY: Are you prepared to be challenged when someone says, “What makes him think he’s a relationship expert?” Sweat: Like I said, I’m basing it on my experiences and the experiences of people calling my radio show. It’s other experiences, such dealing with people getting too comfortable, because most times in any relationship two people get comfortable and they feel like they don’t have to do the things they used to do to satisfy each other or to make each other happy. If I didn’t meet you looking certain way and then I come in the home and you look terrible, it’s like, “Hold on. Wait a minute now. You look totally different. You’re not the same.” People have to understand that you can’t just go extreme on a person. You have to keep things the same as when you met. People don’t realize that it’s very important. When people first meet, nine times out of 10, it’s more physical in the beginning because that’s what attracts you. So you’ve got to keep a little bit of that. EBONY: So if you met a woman who was a size 5, she should stay that way? Sweat: Yeah, don’t get to a size 14, because now you aren’t the same person, and vice versa for men. If a lady met a man and in the beginning he was always in the gym and then all of a sudden he just let himself go, you’re like, “Hold on, baby. What’s up?” EBONY: What’s the key to longevity in this industry? Sweat: In this game and for anything you do, you’ve got to keep reinventing yourself. That’s the key. You can outlast a lot of situations with reinvention.