I would love to be able to relate some of the jokes that the black comic Mo’nique delivered on the stage of Radio City in New York last month – but I can’t. Not simply because of the “cussin”, but also because she proudly employs the “n” word. Mo’nique, though, is among friends: an almost solidly black audience, fans of Chaka Khan and the neo-soul diva Jill Scott. So when she introduces the first act as “one baaad white boy”, that’s a special welcome.

And Robin Thicke may be the only white R&B star who could get that kind of welcome. Last year he became the first white male artist since George Michael to get to the top of the Billboard R&B/hip-hop chart, with his single Lost Without You. And his last album, The Evolution of Robin Thicke, is a slick, sophisticated and infectious disc that has remained buoyant among the Top 10 albums of that same genre. He has worked with Pharrell, he is working with 50 Cent on his new album, and he scored a popular hit with Shooter, a track featuring the hard-boiled New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne. In America, Thicke (the “e” is silent) has already furnished a reputation, but with the UK release of Evolution and the single Lost Without Uhe is surely going to do the same here.

Our meeting takes place just off Times Square, the day after that Radio City performance. Apparently the night before had ended late, so when Thicke arrives – imposingly tall with poster boy looks – it is accompanied by coffee and cigarettes. But he is very much alive. Clasping my hand in greeting, he flashes a smile rivalled in brightness only by his shirt.

As the child of the actors Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring, Robin was raised in showbiz. He has also married into it, wedding the African-American film star Paula Patton in 2005. Perhaps inevitably, Thicke tried acting, doing bit parts in the long-running TV show The Wonder Years, but it never took off. “I was just ‘boy on street’, ‘boy in car’,” he says. “I was never any good at it.” But he was very good at music and was quickly signed to Interscope. “I was writing and producing for artists such as Brandy and Brian McKnight when I was 16. I was baby-faced but I could just pour out these love ballads! But I was taking the back road as an artist, and then I woke up when I was 23 and thought, ‘Oh God, I’m missing the chance to do what I really want to do’, which is be an artist myself.”

Cherry Blue Skies, which was released in 2002 and rereleased in 2003 as Beautiful World, did quite well in the UK but was too eclectic a mix of rock, disco and soul. Evolution, however, is a brilliant renaissance – a seamlessly produced piece of urban soul. The single Lost Without U shows off Thicke’s clear falsetto. But the album also holds in reserve tracks such as Wanna Love U Girl, a song that features Pharell on vocals and sums up the album’s restrained power, a blend of insistent broken beats and murmuring balladry.

He has some weak points: Teach U a Lesson is a poor attempt at getting down and dirty. On stage Thicke is no more convincing: “I wrote this song with a woman in one hand and a piña colada in the other,” he says, and then, as his crooning begins, his hand starts to sink down the microphone stand to waver uncertainly near his belt buckle. But his heart is just not in it – he may be baaad, but he’s not really bad.

I put it to him that he had his changes as an artist in mind when he titled the album, but he disagrees. “The job of an artist is just to write about what they are feeling. There just seemed to be a common theme on the album, whether the songs were about relationships or the individual. The first album was about possibilities, about breaking down musical and cultural boundaries. This album is more about the personal, spiritual journey.” You can choose to believe that or not, but on the interesting issue of race Thicke is astute. His massive black following is due, in part, to the restructuring of the music industry in the past decade. The broad markets that once catered to black and white audiences alike, and which facilitated the rise of stars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna in the 1980s, seem to have narrowed.

Does it disappoint him that that mass audience of black and white listeners no longer exists? “I don’t think that it has closed down,” he says. “I think that many artists have ended up working with all the same producers, so you are simply churning out a repetitive sound.”

That may be true. We may have seen the rise of white stars such as Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse who have found fame in black genres, but the clever collaboration, the astute duet, is the key to finding new audiences. And after working with 50 Cent, Thicke understands this well. “He’s a smart marketer,” says Thicke. “He has a few different collaborations on his album to stretch himself to different audiences.”

But Thicke is without doubt a canny operator, too. Speaking about his album, he talks soulfully of how he was struggling with career and relationships while he was working on it. And just as we are winding up, I ask him about the rumours that religious faith is important to him. “No, spiritual,” he says. With that, our meeting is over. He smiles, cars are ordered, stylists summoned, and Thicke heads out to conquer the world.

The Evolution of Robin Thicke is out on Interscope Records

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