Interview: John Legend On His New Album 'Bigger Love,' Working With Nipsey Hussle, VERZUZ With Alicia Keys & More
Joe Pugliese*
John Legend debuted in 2004 with his first ever studio album ‘Get Lifted’ which featured some of the greatest artists known today like Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Lauryn Hill. It was, however, the track ‘Ordinary People’, which is one of the greatest and most timeless songs of all time that got John Legend’s name worldwide recognition. 16 years later, John Legend has lived up to his last name ever since then with one of the most powerful voices on the planet. He is an American icon and the face of great music. John Legend has won multiple Grammys for his singing and songwriting and that doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to what this man has achieved since 2004. John Legend made history as he is one of the youngest winners and the first African-American man to achieve EGOT status which stands for the four biggest awards in the entertainment industry, which means he’s snagged an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award. He’s done it all and he’s not even remotely finished. Just last month Legend released his seventh studio album ‘Bigger Love’ which is an upbeat and uplifting body of work which emits contagious positive energy.
On a cold winter morning here in Auckland, New Zealand, I was able to jump on a phone call with Legend who resides all the way in Los Angeles to discuss all things John. Legend was on such a high, winning his first ever Video Of The Year award the day before at the BET Awards and he definitely brought that energy into our conversation. John Legend and I chatted about Covid 19 in America, we go into depth about his latest album ‘Bigger Love’, including its meaning and the stories behind the collaborations, we touch on the day Kobe Bryant passed which was the same day as The Grammys, the Roc Nation Brunch, collaborating with the late Nipsey Hussle on ‘Higher’, the BET Awards, the VERZUZ battle with Alicia Keys, his time on The Voice and his jealousy over New Zealand’s Covid 19 response. As you can see it is a very full on interview and it was such an honour to get to talk to the Legend himself. Read the full interview below.
Hello Mr. John Legend! How are you today?
I’m great! How are you?
I’m good thank you for asking! So are you guys still in quarantine on your side of the world or are you guys allowed outside again, what’s happening over there?
We are allowed outside but uh, the bars are still closed or well they reclosed because they opened for a little bit and then they reclosed. Um and.. Everyone is asked to wear a mask everywhere they go in public which we do and uh, you’re still being asked to distance as much as possible which is what we do as well. So we rarely have left the house in the last, uh, 3 months and whenever we do, we have a mask on and we don’t spend much time in public at all.
Well that sounds like a very good idea considering everything that’s going on so that’s good.
Yeah well we have not suppressed the disease and unfortunately too many people have- too many states have been lacking the regulations and suppressing the virus and then they’ve also kind of made it a political thing where people who are conservative or Trump fans have decided they’re just gonna ignore the disease and not wear masks and not socially distance and then um, you know, it’s so inconsistently applied that we just haven’t suppressed the virus like you all have and so we’re all very jealous (laughs) of the good leadership and the wisdom of your country and the fact that people actually follow the rules and take it seriously. So you guys are at the point where you can free yourselves up.
Yes it has been nice to be free like that over here (laughs)
Yeah well you have to earn it so we haven’t been able to do that.
Yeah so that’s why it’s good you’re staying inside. So, congratulations on the album release!
Thank you! I’m so excited to have it out
I just love how the songs are uplifting but also very heartfelt and I personally think that’s very needed considering the state of the world today so thank you for putting that energy out there for us to consume.
Thank you! You know, I hoped that it could do that for people because a lot of people have been delaying their releases and are unsure if they wanna put something out in this type of pandemic and there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world and I just felt like um, the kind of music that I had written, granted that I wrote it before the pandemic happened so I didn’t know what world I was going to be releasing it into. The kind of music I had written could be a pick-me-up for people and people could use some joy and some hope and some connection and I felt like this album had a lot of that in it and so I thought it would be good for people right now.
Yeah definitely, it’s definitely such a positive body of work that I think is very needed for the world at the moment.
Thank you.
No problem. So, you have the young singer Koffee (John Legend: yeah!) featured on your album, what attracted you to want to collaborate with her?
Well, I listen to her music. I have been hearing buzz about her where she was the youngest artist ever to win the Grammy for Best Reggae Album. I think she’s the first woman.. And so, you know, people have been talking about her and I knew that I had this particular song called ‘Don’t Walk Away’ that I had written with another Jamaican musician by the name of Di Genius and um, I thought it would be cool to feature a Jamaican artist as well and really represent the culture. So, I did some research and was listening to Koffee and just thought that she would be perfect for the song. I had worked with male reggae artists before like Buju Banton and others but this is the first female reggae artist I’ve ever worked with. I wanted all the guest voices on my album to be women because I thought it would be cool to have feminine energy so Jhené Aiko, Koffee and Rapsody are the only other featured voices on the album and I also have a guitar solo from Gary Clark Jr. but when it came to other voices I wanted, you know, I wanted some feminine energy and so I thought it would be cool to have a dope Jamaican artist who was a woman, and then we found Koffee and I asked her to do it.
Naw, that’s awesome. Honestly it’s such a beautiful album. And I know on the song ‘You Move, I Move’ your vocals fit perfectly with Jhene Aiko.
Thank you! I’m really happy with the way it turned out and you know, when we had to record her part during the quarantine, so I wasn’t able to be in the studio with her, so, instead I just sang what I thought her part should be into my phone as a voice message and sent to her. That was our way of collaborating. Just sending her voice notes and her doing her thing and she did it and it sounds better than I could’ve ever imagined. Her voice just sounds so angelic on the track and the whole point of the song is that there’s this back and forth between 2 people who are in love and they’re in sync, you know, they’re feeding off of each other, playing off of each other and I wanted the vocals to represent that energy and she was able to do that exactly how we needed it to.
Yes, beautifully done. So, the track 'Remember Us’ seems to be a song that commemorates those that are no longer here with us. You and Rapsody pay tribute to both Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle. Were they the inspiration behind creating this beautiful song?
Well, the song is about missing someone. When I wrote it originally it was about nostalgia of a lost love, you know, someone that you used to date, someone you were in love with and it didn’t work out but you still hold on to some of those memories but then as time progressed, I knew that I was gonna ask Rapsody to do a verse for the song. I told her I really wanted her to talk about nostalgia in general and the things we miss in our lives, the things we grew up doing that we don’t do anymore. She talked about you know, remembering someone’s home phone digits, you know, once people used to have home phones and you actually had to remember- before you had a cellphone you needed to remember everything. She talked about some of the cultural moments we grew up experiencing if you grew up in the late 80’s or the 90’s and uh, and then growing up watching Kobe and Shaq together and then also the people we miss like Biggie and Nipsey and Kobe and others that have gone. So, she just wrote the perfect verse to that feeling of missing someone, whether it’s someone you used to date or someone you used to love or someone that inspired you. We tried to capture all of that and that’s why when I listen to it now, it’s the only song on my album that makes me cry because I really think about those moments that we miss and I think about the day Kobe died which was on the day we celebrated The Grammys, umm and uh, we had to all continue on with The Grammys even though we were all in mourning in the place where he used to play so um, it’s still moving to listen to the song and hear his name, to think about that day when he passed away and um, that’s why I still get emotional listening to it
God, that must’ve been such a hard thing to go through
Yes, it was a painful day just thinking about that time period and just how all of us were in shock but uh, you know, what I love about music is that it can help us process grief and help us you know, touch people who are feeling grief themselves and hopefully makes them feel a little better.
Definitely. I recall you meeting Rapsody at the Roc Nation Brunch earlier this year..?
Yeah! So it was the day before The Grammys so uh, yeah every Saturday before The Grammys, Jay-Z and Beyonce host a brunch and you know, they invite all these great people that come, it’s quite star-studded and all these things but uh, I knew Rapsody was signed to Roc Nation and um, I explicitly was thinking I would love to meet Rap when I go to this event because I wanna work with her on this song and, I met her and told her that I really came here cause I wanted to meet you (laughs) and I exchanged info with her, I sent her the song and you know, the rest is history.
That’s so cool. I love that. Also congratulations on winning the BET award Best Music Video for the track ‘Higher’.
Thank you! Thank you very much.
What does it mean to you to win this award especially since you collaborated with the late Nipsey Hussle on this track?
Well I’m grateful we were able to do this song before he passed away. I’m grateful that DJ Khaled brought us together but I’m also still sad you know, he died way too soon. You know, there’s not a lot of silver lining around that no matter what good things have come since then. His family still lost their dad, their partner and son and his community lost him as well so it’s still tragic and still frustrating and he gave so much to his community. It’s all still painful but I’m honoured that we got to do a song together and I’m honoured that the song has won a Grammy and now a Video Of The Year award which I’ve never won before for the BET Awards so, I’m just honoured that we were able to make this.piece to remember him by. I’m really honoured.
That’s beautiful. Also congrats again on your performance of ‘Never Break’ at the BET Awards as well. (John Legend: thank you) No problem! It was very powerful. Who’s idea was it to perform in the damaged warehouse with the choir?
Well the song is about resilience and it’s about- in the context of doing it at the BET Awards just thinking about what black Americans have gone through in this nation and also most recently in the past few weeks and the amount of outrage and grief we’ve felt and the fact that with the Covid 19, it’s hit the black community and the hispanic community harder than anyone else in this nation. The fact that all those things are true and the fact that BET had to go remote and not have an audience.. All these things, all these challenges, all these crises we’re dealing with, um, singing a song about resilience felt like the perfect thing to sing for the BET Awards. Their motto for the awards this year was, “our culture cannot be canceled” and the whole idea was that despite these challenges we face, we’re going to celebrate our culture. I felt like ‘Never Break’ was the perfect song for that. Benny Boom directed the performance video and he’s a prolific director and he’s had a great track record, creating great videos and great television and film. When he came to us with this idea, it felt like the perfect way to embrace that theme of resilience and celebrating the fact that black folks refuse to be broken even by systems designed to break them.
It was very powerful indeed. How important was it to participate in the VERZUZ battle with Alicia Keys on Juneneeth?
It was such a great time for us you know, we wanted to celebrate our music- it was also on Black Music Month so there was something special about celebrating this music on a day that celebrates our freedom as well and doing it with my sister Alicia Keys who I’ve toured with all around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, who I have written with, I have so much respect for her and her husband. It just felt like the perfect thing for us to do and we wanted to do it differently than other artists had done in the past where most of the time what they were doing was just pushing play and they were in rotation and not together so I thought it would be cool for us to not only be in the same room but to do it live, playing on the piano with the pianos facing each other and uh, back-to-back and to really celebrate each other’s music and collaborate together. It was just a magical day being able to do that, being able to play together. Redemption Song was the opening hymn for our gathering and then we just supported each other as we played each other’s songs. It was just a beautiful time.
Yeah it was so beautiful to watch, it was so cool. You also just recently finished up your third season on The Voice. How has that experience of being a coach and a judge been for you?
I love it. I really love working with new artists. I love the fact that I can work in LA which means I’m home for a larger portion of the year and I can sleep in my own bed and be near my kids and put them to bed and.. I enjoy my colleagues, the other coaches, the producers. It’s just been a really wonderful experience for me. I love doing it.
That’s awesome to hear. Not only are you a judge and a renowned musician but you’re also a family man and you did a Father's Day special which I thought was really cool cause you had other famous people there and your own family. Can we expect to see any other specials like this from you in the future?
Well, Chrissy and I did a Christmas special around the release of my legendary Christmas album back in 2018 and then this is the 2nd one we’ve done together. I’ve always loved the idea of the old school variety shows and there’s a show in the UK I’ve always loved which was Later with Jools Holland and some of the other types of shows where there’s talk, there’s a lot of music, cool collaborations and some humour like, I just love that formula. If we can find ideas to do other specials like that we will but these 2 that we’ve done so far have been so much fun for us.
You've performed in New Zealand multiple times. Once COVID clears up and borders open up again, can we expect a 'Bigger Love' tour?
Absolutely and hopefully we can come to New Zealand really soon if you guys will allow us in from our uh, diseased ridden country (laughs). It’s been frustrating seeing how successful you all have been and it’s depressing seeing how terrible we’ve been but you know, much respect to your leadership and to the good people of New Zealand who have done what they needed to do to suppress the virus and hopefully the world will come around sooner rather than later. Maybe our scientists will save us with a vaccine or a reliable cure but whatever the case, I very much look forward to playing live again, I miss it.
Awesome! Well, it was such an honour to get to chat with you, I hope you have a wonderful day and hopefully we catch you on our side of the world sometime soon.
Thank you very much.
Stream Bigger Love out now!
Breanna is a 21 year old uni student who was born in Australia and raised in South Auckland. Half New Zealand European and half Samoan, Breanna is undergoing a Bachelor of Arts, double-majoring in Communications and Sociology. Currently residing in Auckland, Breanna loves hip hop, rap, RnB music and enjoys watching TV shows, movies, travelling, going to concerts and keeping in touch with the latest of pop culture. Breanna especially enjoys writing and using it as an outlet to talk her sh*t. Breanna loves to always integrate her worldview, her background and her experiences into her writing and values your feedback