Since emerging in the 1990s, Eric Benét has become one of R&B’s most consistent singers and songwriters, earning four Grammy nominations while creating records such as “Spend My Life With You,” “Sometimes I Cry” and “Chocolate Legs.” At 59, the Milwaukee native is still making music, but the public is also getting to know parts of him once kept largely outside his professional life.

Social media has helped change that. Anyone following Benét online lately has probably encountered a version of the singer far removed from the polished romanticism associated with his catalog. He jokes, does impressions and weighs in on whatever happens to catch his attention. The humor has given longtime fans a different look at someone whose public image was established during an era when artists were often encouraged to reveal less of themselves.

His work has expanded in other directions as well. Benét has returned to storytelling beyond songwriting, developing a children’s book inspired by bedtime stories he once created for his daughters. An audiobook is also underway, giving him another outlet for ideas he has carried with him outside the recording studio.

Music, however, remains an important vehicle for what Benét wants to say. His June single, “Who’s Gonna Save Us?,” finds him addressing the state of the country and the responsibility ordinary people have when institutions fail them. Those concerns also inform his continued advocacy for mental health, particularly among Black men.

With his 60th birthday approaching in October, Benét is thinking about what longevity means beyond a career. In conversation with ESSENCE, he discusses finally letting audiences see his sense of humor, writing fiction, his latest single and why he plans on sticking around for a very long time.

ESSENCE: You’re extremely insightful and hilarious on social media. I didn’t realize that was a part of your social media. How has it been connecting with your fans online and showing them this other side of you, man? 

Eric Benét: Man, I love it. I love it because it is the most affirming feeling. I tell this story. When I was first signed to Warner Bros. way back in the day, the publicity department, they heard my music and my music kind of telegraphs a particular vibe and a particular style. And they were thinking like marketing people. But they got the chance to get to know me. They got a chance to know what a goofy comedic dude I was. And they basically were like, “Look, if we going to sell your music, Negro, it’s probably a good idea if you chill on that whole goofy Milwaukee jokester thing.”

I feel like professionally, I kind of curbed those tendencies of mine. Everybody who knows me or spent any time around me over the past, however long I’ve been in this business, they know that about me. They know I’m a cut up. I do the voice impressions and I’m the funny dude. But I think, yeah, man, I think just after a while, it just becomes very difficult for your public personality to be anything other than authentic. And so right around the time I think I started to get more active on social media, right around the time I said, “Fuck it, I’m just going to be as authentic as I can be whenever I decide to post or engage in social media.” And like I said, it was affirming because I think people resonated with me stronger than they ever did in my whole career. So I just remember thinking, “Well, goddamn, had I been doing this the whole time, I might be filling up arenas like white R&B singers do. So maybe I missed out. Maybe I missed out.” Or maybe it was just supposed to happen right now for a reason.

I think that’s what it was. I know when I was a bit younger, as an entertainer, whether it be an actor or a musician, having that “mystique” was better. And then a couple years ago, it kind of shifted where people wanted to see more of your personality. But at first you were supposed to be an enigma. You do your thing and then you go home.

EB: I think what you’re saying is basically the argument that Warner Bros. was telling me. And like you said, it was probably right because at that time in the ’90s, it wasn’t about all your business on the table, all your personality. We had the Prince and the Michael Jacksons who led the way, and they were just one big enigma. And I was like, “We need to hop in on that if we don’t sell this shit.” I was definitely trying to sell some shit because I had a daughter and I had rent do. So I was like, “All right, I’m going to do transformative shit. I need to pay some bills in this house.” So that’s kind of where that came from. But you’re right. I think you’re right. 

You’ve been making music for more than 30 years. What is it that keeps you motivated to keep creating?

EB: That’s a great question. Well, the first thing, I think there’s just this undeniable creative energy that I have and have always had, and if I don’t express it, I think I would go insane because there’s so many creative ideas just floating around in my head and it’s almost like shaking up a bottle of soda. If those ideas don’t get out, it’s just going to explode. So I honestly feel like I’m one of those people where it makes no difference if I’m a recording artist or if I’m not, I would always be creating. And that creativity comes out as music. That creativity comes out as stories. I like to write stories. When I was younger, I used to paint a lot. I used to do acrylics, watercolor. I don’t paint so much anymore. So yeah, it’s just a part of the DNA of who I am.

Can you speak more about your authorship? What creative muscle does writing work for you? 

EB: So I’ve always been that kind of father who loves to tell bedtime stories. And speaking again to that creative energy, I’ve been pretty good at it. And there was one particular story that I told my two youngest daughters when they were five and seven years old, and they just became obsessed with the characters in the story. It’s like this little boy whose mother got him a rescue puppy. And of course it was a story for kids. So shortly thereafter, there was magic or science fiction involved and the little boy and his dog were traveling to different dimensions and saving people. My girls were so obsessed with the story, I decided, you know what? Let me start writing the story down. I always have these stories in my head, but I would tell them in orator form, but I never wrote them down—and this was the first one I wrote down. 

Writing it down means the consistency of the narration. It means you just can’t randomly make up a point or a fact while you’re writing a story. I feel like things need to be connected in a way narratively that they aren’t when they’re just making up stuff. So all that to say, as you asked me, put to use a different muscle of my creativity. It’s one thing to just have a bunch of jumbled creative ideas, but it’s another thing to organize them into something that not only makes sense, but it feels as though something that happens three scenes later or four chapters later. 

I found the process to be incredibly therapeutic. And without me even trying to, I felt myself working out some of my own pain or challenges from my own childhood while writing the story. And I’m really excited about it. And I decided that I would make an audiobook, which I’ve already started and which feels pretty good, which makes me flex yet another muscle because when you’re doing an audiobook and you’re doing all these characters and you’re bringing them to life, I’m basically acting. So it’s one of those things. And of course I’m going to have to write a song or write some music that goes along with the audiobook. So I get to flex all my muscles with this book. So I’m super excited about it. I hope that people enjoy it. 

I’m sure they will. Staying on the topic of writing—your single “Who’s Gonna Save Us?” which you released in June. It has some really powerful lyrics and it asks some really big questions, man. What inspired you to write that particular record? 

EB: I think just the frustration of our very unfortunate reality right now of having leaders that seem to put a lot more energy into dehumanizing people than lifting them up and giving people the leadership that we deserve. It’s usually a leadership of self-servingness for a political party, for the office that they currently hold. And just somebody who I feel like I have at least functional intelligence. And I feel like for those of us who have at least that, it is just so obvious that the concerns of our leaders are not the concerns of the people. And I think that’s a recipe for disaster. I think it’s a recipe for eventual destruction. And so “Who’s Gonna Save Us?” is just from the perspective of somebody who can see what’s going on and somebody who I like to think I have at least a remedial understanding of history. 

And too many people don’t. Because if you know anything about history, you know that we’ve been here before many, many times, many times. We’ve been here before where the powers that be are doing the old shtick of “let me separate, let me pit this group against that group. And while they’re busy hating each other, we’re going to rob them blind and we’re going to be able to enforce our agenda,” which usually isn’t the most beneficial to the people. And so the answer to your question, who’s going to save us is the same answer that history has told us. It’s the people. The people when they realize their power, when they realize their voice is more than just an opinion, it is kinetic energy when you use it collectively. Because one of the tools that politicians love to use is to make you feel as though your vote doesn’t matter, your voice doesn’t matter. 

Or the old, “Hey, the left is just as bad as the right.” I think that false equivalence is part of the recipe. So “Who’s Gonna Save Us?” That’s pretty much where that came from. We are. We’re going to save ourselves if we wake the fuck up. 

I do believe that today’s social and economic climate has been really disheartening and really challenging too, similar to what you were saying what sparked your new single. I think the importance of mental health has kind of come to the forefront because of that. And that’s something that you’ve spoken about a lot. Why has that become such a personal mission for you? 

EB: Well, I feel that as a people, Black people, my people, I feel like there’s something in our historic DNA where we feel like if we reach out for help, that means that there is a weakness in us, especially when it comes to our emotional health—especially Black men. I feel like to survive, we can’t adopt that “I need to only depend on myself and I only,” motto. We think that whatever burden there is for me and my family, I need to carry that, put that on my shoulders by myself. And I think that I understand where the origin of that has come from, but there are tools that unfortunately our people don’t reach out and use. 

Every burden is lightened when you share it with somebody. Ideally, somebody who has had a similar burden and can help you with the load, teach you how they were able to walk up that mountain with the load that they carried. And that’s all emotional health is. Just realizing that at any given point in your life, the load is just too heavy right now. I don’t think I can make it. Let somebody know. Let somebody know before you reach for that bottle of alcohol or some other pharmaceutical device or something else that doesn’t really address your issues, but numbs the pain. So I think it’s really important. 

So I also wanted to jump from the mental to the physical. You have a milestone birthday coming up. Congratulations.

EB: Thank you.

You still have this useful energy. What are some of the health and wellness practices that you do to stay in shape? 

EB: I appreciate you saying that. I don’t think I do anything that anybody hearing this interview or reading this interview doesn’t already know. I mean, I drastically reduced sugar. There’s certain things that are just absolutely horrific for your body. And I think it’s sugar, it’s alcohol, and it’s processed foods. I think if you cut those three things out, the first thing is going to happen, you’re going to be able to sleep better. And second thing that’s going to happen, you’re going to eliminate a lot of the inflammation in your body, so you’re going to feel better. And that’s probably going to encourage you to, “Well, shit, I did those three things. Maybe I ought to do a couple more.” Then you might start working out. Then you might start drinking more water. Then you might be like, “Well, shit, this feels good. I like the results from this.” Then you might stop eating all that meat with the steroids and all that bullshit in it and start eating even more clean—I think people know all this stuff. 

It’s just we’re so bombarded with unhealthy choices and unhealthy choices are just so readily available and they’re often cheaper and they’re often the easiest to come by. I’ll just go through this drive-through and pick something up on the way home. And it does take some effort, but I think the effort is worth it if you like a certain quality of life, not to mention how long you plan on being on this planet. I have a 14-year-old daughter, a 34-year-old daughter, and a 12-year-old daughter. I want to see my 12-year-old daughter’s kids, God willing. I might be able to see her grandkids. So I plan on being here healthy for as long as I possibly can to see and experience as much as I possibly can.