We want to do things that are interesting, great storytelling, some of it is gonna be more fun and funny, some of it is more serious and talking about interesting issues that we think are provocative and interesting to us. Kind of on a more political level. But, you know, just things that we find interesting that we think stories that need to be told.
Why wouldn't I help? What good reason do I have as a human being with power and a sense of empathy and morality, why wouldn't I do something?
Some of them [family names] have sentimental value for some reason or another, some of them just sound beautiful. Some of them are because of people that are meaningful to us in our lives. So it's hard to say which one we'll pick. Sometimes they say you have to see the child before you decide. So maybe when we see her we'll make a last-second decision.
I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.
You believe in equality for women and men. And that means that, not only do you believe in it kind of in the abstract but you actively think people should seek it when it comes to the way you hire people, the way you compensate people, the way you treat women and men in professional settings and school, whatever the case, giving them equal opportunities without disadvantaging them because of their, for the fact that they're women. And to me that's what it means for me to be a feminist. I don't think it's that controversial.
I don't think I'm craving any more fame. But success and being recognized for making great work all around the world, I think it's a great thing.
If I collaborate with people, ideas...they take interesting turns and twists, and I'm excited for that and that process and excited to see what we come up with.
Recently, John and I got to go to Selma and perform it on the same bridge that Martin Luther King walked over. Once a landmark of a divided nation, the spirit of this bridge now for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or social status. This bridge was built on hope and welded with compassion. Common
As a nation - and as a world - we need more truth.
That's the evergreen nature of a great song. They can be resurrected. They can be covered. They can find new relevance due to changing circumstances in history.
I think you're always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be "cool" and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. Growing up is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be.
Music business is not for everyone. But if you have it in you, you have that passion, if you have that energy in you that you really want to make something creative and make something that's going to impact the world, then go for it, do it and don't let anybody tell you no.
Fear. People are afraid of talking about their fears and insecurities. They're afraid of expressing emotion beyond anger, dominance, or power, and they're afraid of getting in touch with their feminine side.
If a relationship is going to work, it will require compromise and, even then, it is not always going to end the way you want it to.
You learn so much from taking chances, whether they work out or not. Either way, you can grow from the experience and become stronger and smarter.
I just want it to be timeless and timely at the same time.
I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.
It's really about making the best music you can make. It's really about working hard.
Music wasn't forced on me [in my childhood]. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music.
Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.
Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&B pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.
As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.
Artists in general never stay in the same place, we keep growing. It's still you, you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.
My mother, I want her to like my music, but she's not exactly my target audience. So I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do.
J. Ivy is a brilliant man with an incredible voice and a way with words. I've known him for over a decade and owe my stage name to him believing in me back then before I even had a record deal. I'm excited for him to share his truth with the world.
The weirdest thing about Hillary Clinton's email 'scandal' is finding out some of our senators still don't use email.
No matter how big or successful and famous you become, if you do that, that's the most fulfilling thing, is making music that you love and that you're proud of.
I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That's my main criteria.
Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.
The best way to fight poverty is to empower people through access to quality education
When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.
Musicians are in-season all the time.
I would tell myself, "Love yourself and don't be afraid to take risks." I was often afraid to take risks, socially, because I was young and a little more shy and still figuring out who I wanted to be. Sometimes I look back and think, "I should have just been bolder and more confident."
I don't really marinate in anybody's album because I don't really want to sound like anybody else when I put my album out. So I'd rather not even be tempted to listen to a bunch of other stuff with any degree of emersion in it, cause I just don't want to sound like anything else, so I kinda focus on my own music.
Kind of the critical acclaim of this movie [La La Land] is that it's striking a chord with the public in a way that has been really beautiful and powerful.
I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do. And then also I kind of had this kind of ideal of the kind of music I want to make and what I'm aiming for kind of creatively and just the quality of the music that I'm trying to make. And I have that in my head.
John legend is a nickname that somebody started calling me a while ago and part of it is 'cos I sound like an old man when I sing.
The future started yesterday, and we're already late.
Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections
If you want the film [La La Land ] to represent all things jazz, it does not. You'll be disappointed by that. But, if you just see it as one guy's point of view, one filmmaker's point of view, and one story among many stories that can be told about jazz, then it's not as much of an issue.
I respect people who are willing to deal with everything that comes with being a politician, but I'm not willing to deal with half the country rooting for you to fail. I'm a singer; I deal with enough. But at least half the country's not trying to destroy me.
Music was my life...It was everything to me, even though I was in school majoring in English. I was still very focused on music and always finding ways to perform, so that was what set me up to want to become a recording artist.
Sometimes I just think people are haters. And if they're haters, you can listen to what they have to say but you have to take it with a grain of salt.
There's a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works.
The struggle for freedom and justice is now.
There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.
Black people invented jazz. But this story [in La La Land] wasn't ever claiming to be that. It's just a story about two people from one writer's point of view.
The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful
People tell me all the time that my songs help them express things to loved ones that they may not be able to say themselves.
You can always find a stray negative comment on the Internet. It's like everybody loves to put negative comments on the Internet under the cloak of anonymity.
All men should be feminists. If men cared about women's rights, the world would be a better place
The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice, because it's my point of view.
I don't get to listen to music for fun very often; a lot of what I'm hearing is for work and isn't released yet.
I hear melodies and hooks all day. I've always been that way, since I was a kid.
We're just ordinary people. We don't know which way to go.
My head’s under water but I’m breathing fine
Mass incarceration is a policy that's kind of built up over the last four decades and it's destroyed families and communities, and something we need to change. And it's fallen disproportionally on black and brown communities, especially black communities, and it's kind of a manifestation of structural racism.
I used to work for a management consulting company, so I dressed differently - business casual, probably a lot of things from Banana Republic. My wardrobe now is definitely more expensive, but I always dress for the occasion.
John Legend is a nickname that some friends started calling me, and it kind of grew into my stage name.
A just society is not one built on fear or repression or vengeance or exclusion, but one built on love. Love for our families. Love for our neighbors. Love for the least among us. Love for those who look different or worship differently. Love for those we don't even know.
We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country. It's destroying families, it's destroying communities and we're the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.
Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
I used read about Dr. King a lot as a kid. Independently, from being assigned it or being told by my parents or anything, I was just really excited about him. So I just started reading about him very young and was inspired by his legacy and looked to him as a role model.
Sometimes success is just limited to festival circuit.
It's not enough to say we need to love each other, you have to go behind that and say we need to change these policies, we need to fight, we need to protest, we need to agitate for change.
But in my mind I've always been a solo artist- I've just been working with a lot of great people like Kanye and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z.
I have a great band, with very talented players, and we give everything we have every night.
I was always the front man for what I was doing from when I was 6.
In the 1970s, for all the Stevie Wonders, I'm sure there were five artists that were making forgettable music.
London is a good fashion city. They're a little more daring. There's the element of the aristocracy, which is always interesting.
I don't feel like that many musicians are competitive with each other.
Women are dealing with the same thing: they're dealing with expectations about how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to interact with men. I think we're all trying to figure it all out, especially when we're teenagers, but I think the key is to listen and empathize with one another.
Sometimes there's that perfect moment when the crowd, the music, the energy of the room come together in a way that brings me to tears.
I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.
When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that, or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.
Music, to me, if it's good, it's good. That's all that matters.
To me, as a musician, there aren't any boundaries genre-wise as far as what can you listen to to inspire you.
I think the most important thing is that I'm making music that the people enjoy. So the fans, the people that are out there listening to music and consuming music, I want them to enjoy it and love it. And so that's more important to me than Grammys.
I was the front man of the choir and then when I was 12 and I was the leadsinger of my highschool groups.
I'm craving more soul, I'm craving more truth, I'm craving more socially - just people that are aware of what's going on in the world.
I believed in myself and I am a firm believer you have to think the things you want and visualize.
Critics like to describe and categorize things, and categories often have a way of limiting people.
You see all these things that make you feel desperate or sad, but you realize changes can be made, and it doesn't take a lot of money on our part to make a change in people's lives.
Experience is a great teacher.
Music business is hard. It's very difficult. And it's not for everyone. Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin.
In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.
It's important for us to fight for certain changes that need to happen. And one of those issues that I really care about is education. But also another one is incarceration.
I just want my music to measure up to. Part of it's just thinking about my place in history and how this music is going to be perceived, if it's listened to 30, 40 years from now.
I'm honestly not a great gift giver. I could give better - my girlfriends have always complained about that.
The best training is to play by ear: trial by fire.
For me I'm actually doing what I normally do when I do my solo thing and the other thing is actually more new to me.
I feel like my job is to make impact, spread love, tell great stories, inspire people, that's what I am going to do.
I feel like spirituality definitely comes through in my music, but I don't make any specific efforts to make it that way.
I'm not going to run for office. I don't think that's the right move for me.
Marvin Gaye was one of the coolest. I look to him as a style icon and as an artist.
We're so used to having everything we want at our fingertips so I think that when things get tough it's difficult for people to persist through that.
You have to be careful when it comes to copyrights, whether just sounding like or feeling like something is enough to say you violated their copyrights because there's a lot of music out there, and there's a lot of things that feel like other things that are influenced by other things. And you don't want to get into that thing where all of us are suing each other all the time because this and that song feels like another song.
I wrote the song "Show Me" as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn't limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.
Well, I like songs that have like a little bit of quirkiness to them.
I guess a lot of times pressure is put on something after it becomes big.
It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live.
I like cool jackets - a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you'll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.
I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.
I was a busy kid in high school - a little bit of an overachiever, I guess. Prom king was kind of silly, but the rest of the stuff was important to me.
You can't be a 25-year-old forever.
Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.
I was in an a cappella group in school, so it particularly helped me keep my piano chops up.
I keep learning, listening, growing and experimenting.
I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.
We should care about what is going on in the world.
I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.
I want you to live the best life you can. You can be world-changers. .. Pursue this life of love with focus and passion and ambition and courage. Give it your all. And that will be your path to true success.
I don't like going to football games. I like watching them on television. When you go to a game, it's hard to focus. There's so much going on, and it's cold. I'd rather sit and watch it and get replays and commentary.
I think it's not enough for us to extend the hand of love. I think it's important that that goes both ways. It's important also that we look at policies we need to change as well.
I'm trying to be me and embrace all the parts of me that have grown up, listened to more music and soaked up more influences.
I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.
We all must follow a different path to let our light shine, and that's what makes us so unpredictable and unique.
I played classical as a kid.
I've felt like my last name put pressure on me as an artist. If you're going to call yourself "Legend," you'd better make some good-ass music.
I do believe that part of us ending racism is us seeing each other's humanity and learning to love each other, even if we look different or worship differently or live differently.
At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.
I've always followed politics, and I think politics is everybody's business because we're electing someone who's going to be making important decisions that will affect all of our lives.
I'm used to getting sexy sometimes in the lyrics.
I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks.
My line is probably a little more conservative than some of my compatriots in the business. But again, I think it's all - like, it just - it comes down to me knowing who I am and knowing how I want to be seen in the world, how I want to discuss things.
