Michael doesn’t shy away from talking about the difficult stuff in his music or in day-to-day life. Today he chats from his home studio in a small town about an hour outside Minneapolis. He’s got that Midwest lumberjack look - the cap, the beard, the plaid shirt - but most striking about Michael is his curiosity. He spends the first few minutes interviewing me, so it’s easy to see why his music connects with so many people. It’s just an extension of his empathetic nature. Once the interview is flipped in the right direction, Michael is incredibly open. He tells me he decided to focus on making music after his beloved father passed away from pulmonary fibrosis when Michael was 25. “Watching my dad go through that, I realized time is the only thing that billionaires can’t buy any more of,” he says. “And I just knew I had to be very selective with my time on this earth.” -Alice Austin "Stylistically, he is difficult to pigeonhole because his sound amalgamates many different flavors, blending R&B, pop and blues into awesomely immediate melodies, evocative lyrics and contagious rhythms. Michael Shynes really has it going on." -The Huffington Post