In Sunday’s New York Times, Jon Pareles profiles Maxwell, who’ll headline the Essence Music Festival Saturday on the main stage. In the piece, he writes about Maxwell’s almost 8-year-long sabbatical from his career:

Hod David, the guitarist who has been Maxwell’s collaborator since the early 1990s and who produced the new album with him, said that Maxwell made a deliberate decision to withdraw. “He wanted to live a little bit.” Mr. David also said that in the early 2000s he and Maxwell were contemplating R&B and hip-hop in “the bling era” and trying to figure out where they might fit in. Over years of on-and-off songwriting and recording they never did.

“You wonder, is there a place for me?” Maxwell said. “And that would be a bit of a writing block experience for me.”