You may have seen Algee Smith on screen, but he’s showcasing his versatility on stage, giving fans a taste of his innermost emotions through song.

Blavity caught up with the crooner just as he fulfilled a dream of performing during a festival as an act that graced Toyota’s Music Den during the 2025 ONE Musicfest in Atlanta.

“My heart is full today,” Smith told us backstage. “I just performed at OMF. It was a great turnout. I love doing music. I love getting energy from the crowd, so my heart is full right now.”

“This is my first festival I’ve performed at, ever. So just the feeling leading up to it was crazy. I was a little nervous. We always gotta have those good nerves, but it was good; I can’t wait to do my next one. I had so much fun. I enjoyed it. The crowd was great.”

During his set, he performed songs from his latest EP, Love Lost, released in July, including “Spiraling” and “Magic City.”

When asked if there’s a track that gives fans an inside peek into who he is, Smith admitted he doesn’t know if it’s been made yet.

“Every song has a piece of me, for sure, but fully encompassed? I’m gonna get back to you when I make that one,” he said. “My favorite song, the one that describes where I’m most at now, is probably the song called ‘The Way It Goes,’ off of my latest EP.”

How he caught the singing bug

As someone who grew up in the church, Smith was first influenced by gospel music, which he notes has always been a significant part of R&B’s DNA.

“Growing up in that type of setting and hearing that music, and feeling those feelings that I had, that’s what kind of led me into getting deeper into the Stevie Wonders, and then, obviously, the New Editions, like all the core R&B,” he said. “So, I think it started in church, where I caught the bug.”

Narrowing it down to albums, Smith acknowledges Usher’s Confessions and Stevie Wonder’s As for being the projects that defined who he is today.

“Stevie is so layered, just musically ahead of his time, and I think that one really kind of shifted something in my brain as far as, like, even the way I listen to music,” Smith recalled. 

Balancing two mediums

In 2017, Smith’s role as Ralph Tresvant, lead singer of the aforementioned iconic R&B group New Edition, which he grew up listening to, helped to usher him into fame. The BET miniseries The New Edition Story is still widely praised today.

Beyond that, Smith also starred in the film Detroit, where he delivered a critically acclaimed performance as The Dramatics’ singer Larry Reed, and appeared in movies like The Hate U Give and Judas and the Black Messiah, as well as a stint on the HBO series Euphoria as character Chris McKay.

“There’s obviously sometimes where I can’t do both at the same time, and so sometimes I gotta choose to do a film over doing a show, and sometimes I gotta choose a show over doing a film. I think what I try to do is just find a healthy balance for myself, Smith said. “So if I give music a lot of attention one day or one week, then I gotta make up for that and give acting a lot of attention the next day or the next week.”

What’s next for Algee Smith?

With no plans of letting up anytime soon, the actor/singer said he’ll continue to bear it all through his art.

“This last EP I put out was called Love Lost, and it’s pretty much documenting the phases that I went through after a breakup,” he shared. “The next project I’m doing, I’m thinking about gearing more towards after that breakup happened, where I was at in that space in my mind, so kind of toxic, kind of vulnerable, but y’all will see.”