Perhaps no artist has had as fitting or as prescient an introduction to the world as Brian McKnight did.

McKnight’s first hit single was the bittersweet 1993 ballad “Love Is,” a duet with Vanessa Williams on which he and the former Miss America trade verses that detail the ways love can either lift you up to heaven or tear your life apart.

Intentionally or not, “Love Is” set the tone for McKnight’s career.

In the quarter-century since, McKnight has fulfilled the promise of that song’s premise, with standards about the joys of love and knowing who you’re meant to be with (the exceptionally devoted “Back at One”) but also the heartbreak that can result when things don’t work out (the teary “One Last Cry” and “Anytime”). His smooth, emotive and versatile tenor became one of R&B’s signature voices in the mid-’90s.

He brings that romantic voice back to Honolulu next week for six shows over three nights fronting his group — The Brian McKnight 4 — at Blue Note Hawaii in Waikiki.

“The Brian McKnight 4 is just another way of playing the singer-songwriter show,” McKnight said. “I bring three of my band guys with me and we actually can play the songs almost the way I always envisioned them. … It’s a way to play the songs in their rawest form.”

McKnight plays keyboards and (of course) sings, accompanied by band members with their own impressive resumes: bassist Chris “Big Sexy” Loftlin; guitarist Tariqh Akoni; and drummer/percussionist Gregory Daniel.

MCKNIGHT HAS made his performances in Hawaii approximately an annual occurrence since he started dating Leilani Malia Mendoza of Maui in 2014, but these will be his first shows here since they tied the knot in December.

“My wife being from Maui, it’s just great to bring her with me,” McKnight said, responding from Italy. “Leilani loves being home, loves being back on … any of the islands really. It gives us an opportunity to spend time together and just know where she comes from and the heritage of this wonderful place that I get to know from her and get to share with her.”

Being so deeply in love has surely helped McKnight, 49, keep the theme of love running through his music.

He has a new album coming out around year’s end, “Bedtime Story.”

“It’s a collection of love songs for all the lovers out there,” McKnight said. “I’ve already recorded it, and I’m really excited to hear what people have to say about it.”

The first single, “42 (Grown Up Tipsy),” is due out Tuesday.

While some touring artists coast along on the hits in their catalog, McKnight has put out new albums each of the past two years.

Inspiration to is all around, he said, and the music itself motivates him.

“There are still great songs to be written,” McKnight said. “I have a very short memory. If I had a hit last week, I need a new hit this week, and there are still so many stories to be told.”

His last record, “Genesis,” was an attempt to go “back to what got me involved in making music in the first place,” he said — to recapture the feeling of making his first album, “but doing it in a way of 2017.”

“Genesis” incorporates electronic sounds similar to contemporary EDM — if a toned-down version — while maintaining McKnight’s organic soul sound.

HIS APPROACH to singing is straightforward.

“You can do all the vocal acrobatics and gymnastics you want, but if it doesn’t start with having great pitch and being able to stay in the key, the listener — no matter how sophisticated they are — they know when you’re not doing that to the best of your ability, so I start with that.”

Though pop radio has changed over the past 20 years, McKnight is not one to play the game most play of knocking the music of succeeding generations.

“A while ago I would have had that view, but I think that view has changed. … These young artists are just expressing themselves the best way they know how, with the material that they’ve been given, within the spectrum of what the music industry is dictating,” he said. “You know, my parents didn’t like the music that I listened to, and in some ways these kids that are coming up, those of us that are older don’t understand why they’re listening to that, but that’s THEIR music and they’re doing it THEIR way.”

Even as he gives a nod to a pop music landscape dominated by hip-hop and EDM, McKnight, who can play nine instruments, continues to do music his way — with an emphasis on vocals and musicianship.

His voice is as smooth as ever, and he said he is always learning about his craft, finding inspiration in disparate genres, from legendary soul singers such as Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye to classic rock voices such as Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry, and even female gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson and Kim Burrell (“the greatest physical singer in the world, maybe who ever lived,” he opined).

“I’ve listened to just about every singer who’s ever sung,” McKnight said, “and I try to take something away from each and every one of them, male or female. … I try to listen to everyone, take from everyone.”