Rolling Stone Menu Maxwell Wasn’t Sure He Wanted to Be a Star. ‘Urban Hang Suite’ Left Him No Choice Twenty-five years after his debut, the singer-songwriter-producer and key collaborators look back on an album that proved R&B tradition could still thrive in a hip-hop world By Elias Leight's Most Recent Stories Saad Amer In the early 1990s, Stuart Matthewman, the writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist known for his work in Sade, heard a remarkable demo: a ballad that stretched out over nearly seven minutes, making room for daredevil falsetto and a bass line as elegant as a spiral staircase, building to a description of a sexual liaison so ecstatic that it lasts for days and eventually brings police to the door.