John Legend Quotes
Singer
Dr. King was unpopular while he was alive - he's only popular now because he's dead and not a threat to anyone.
Well, Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range, amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have, and he passed at a very young age.
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.
Experience is a great teacher.
I sang 'All Of Me' at the wedding. I sang 'Stay With You' from my first album. And then Stevie Wonder came up and sang 'Ribbon In the Sky.' It was impromptu... It was cool... He's always been a friend and a mentor to me.
I ate some pretty funky, authentic Chinese food in Hong Kong. There was an egg from some bird that's not a chicken. I can't remember what it was, but it was green and brown and not very tasty.
My style is pretty clean, classic, and elegant, with some elements to make it a little funkier. If you see me on a normal day, I'm usually in a T-shirt and jeans, maybe with some cool sneakers, but I'm pretty basic.
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 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.
Shoes are important, of course. I love my Lanvin sneakers - they go with a lot of things. And then I think a nice bag is great, so you carry your computer or whatever else in style. I've been carrying a Tom Ford backpack lately.
I like things that feel like they're timeless and really well made and tailored... things that make me feel confident when I leave the house.
As a kid, I wanted to be a musician but also aspired to be Andy Griffith's lawyer character, Ben Matlock.
If you look at what happened with Underground Railroad, there is so much action. There is so much intrigue; there is so much of historical importance.
I signed with Kanye back in 2003, and at that time, 'The College Dropout' hadn't even come out, so he was still relatively unknown compared to where he is now. He wasn't a household name; people were still calling him 'Kane.'
I was playing the piano when I was three, writing songs when I was ten. I had a lot of experience before I got to college. I knew I wanted to be a singer, so anyone who met me, I didn't let too much time pass before I showed my talent.
I think the thing about love is that even though the things around us change, we as human beings, a lot of the ways we interact, and the ways we love each other is timeless. It requires trust, honesty, commitment, romance, and physical chemistry.
I was homeschooled for several years.
I remember when I first came out as an artist, back in 2004 or 2005, the record label used to take me to all the radio stations and just have me sit in, like, their lunchroom or their conference room, and play for the whole staff. Just to introduce them to me so they would play my records.
I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.
With Tinder and all these other things, there's always this kind of illusion with infinite choices. There's something very cool about saying, 'Oh, I actually really care about this person, and I want to commit to loving this person and being loyal to this person.' You can't get that from the kind of infinite multiple choices that are out there.
My first big break came with Lauryn Hill on a track called Everything is Everything, I played piano on that track way back in 1998.
I think they need to get a more reliable way of watching television on the laptop. Because I travel so much, if I want to watch my favorite sports team it might not be showing in that place, so I want a reliable way to watch whatever I want to watch on my laptop.
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.
Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.
The prison-industrial complex, poverty, and the school system has more effect on a young black male in America than Jay-Z does, by far. And that's not a diss to Jay-Z. The crime rate in the black community was high before hip hop. Rapping about it is just a reflection of the life a lot of people are living.
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.
We have this film that we hope to finance, it's called 'Southern Rights.' It's a documentary about segregated proms that are still happening in the South of America. So there's a black prom and a white prom, so we hope to finance a film soon about that.
I was an English major in college who concentrated in African-American literature and culture. So I read quite a few slave narratives and stories of escape, and I grew up in Ohio, which was a common stop on the Underground Railroad.
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.
I always figured I would live long enough to see a black president. The movies predicted it. Usually, Morgan Freeman.
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.
There's nothing that can shock me anymore, but at this point, Trump's made it very clear how his temperament is, how his personality is, what his level of intellectual depth is when it comes to policy, and he's made it abundantly clear that he's utterly unqualified to be president - no matter what your political views are.
Musicians are in-season all the time.
Some artists I know, they would rather not see the audience or envision them. But for me, I'd rather see them. I feel like part of the reason I perform is to feel that connection. It's the reason I love it so much.
I was around a lot of gospel as a kid.
I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.
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.
When you're releasing an album, you never know how it's going to go. You never know how a critic is going to receive it or how much it's going to sell.
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 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.
There's a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works.
I don't think it's an artist's responsibility to be political all the time. I think your first responsibility as an artist is to make music that people will listen to and enjoy. However, I think that when you are able to say something that is moving and put it in a great song, then that is even better.
To have the chance to see your music be elevated and to have almost universally positive response to that music, makes me feel better every day. I feel more confident and inspired, and that's fun.
I'm honestly not a great gift giver. I could give better - my girlfriends have always complained about that.
I don't have a real recipe with measurements for my chicken stew. I just kind of make it up as I go. I made it for the first time one Christmas when I came home from college. It's guaranteed to cure a cold.
I've fundraised for Hillary, and I'll be voting for her. I don't think we should be electing Donald Trump as president, and I'm supportive of Hillary's campaign.
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.
As a politician, you have to deal with someone wanting you to fail every day. I think I prefer being in a situation where generally people are rooting for me, and if they aren't rooting for me, they aren't out there to see my downfall. I respect the people who have the stomach for it.
I've always had an interest in story-telling and history and just film and art in general, but particularly when it comes to storytelling, I think the reason why we became involved in film is because we wanted to get some great stories out there.
I know how it feels to be a singer who wants to get discovered.
You know, my family is very musical, I was surrounded by it. And from four years old I was the one that asked my mother could I take piano lessons.
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.
I was a huge 'Breaking Bad' fan. I just loved the whole thing. Always interesting, always urgent. The stakes were always high.
Hip hop is usually a bunch of guys talking to a bunch of guys, in my experience. It's homosocial, not homosexual, in that it's almost always all one gender in a room where it's being created. That locker-room environment has an impact on the language. I think the music suffers 'cause it allows an almost cartoonish level of misogyny.
Being married is not the same as having a kid because being married to another adult who can take care of themselves to a degree is different than having a kid that is completely dependent on you.
I want to move people.
I've never put out a song that I wasn't completely proud of and that I didn't love. In that sense, I've never felt like I sold out in any way.
I think I'm happier, not just because of winning Grammys and selling records, but because it's really fulfilling to have all these things happen with something you love to do.
For me as a songwriter, I love when other people cover my songs.
In terms of the technology I use the most, it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.
I think every film is made better by having smart music supervision that's really in tune with the spirit of the visual content.
I love to make fried chicken.
The most important thing about technology is that it can seamlessly work its way into your routine and your life.
We should care about what is going on in the world.
I work with a bunch of producers on every album, but the difference for 'Evolver' was that I couldn't get any time with Kanye. I forget what he was doing at the time, but he was all over the place. We were never at the same city at the same time.
I was a wedding singer as a teenager.
Before every show, I eat half a rotisserie chicken.
I am a feminist. Women are discriminated against in so many ways, and they make up half the population.
There are autobiographical elements to the albums, and when I write, I always reference my own life as well as other things, so I'm just like any novelist or any fiction writer who tells stories.
Even with G.O.O.D. Music, we have artists that have done very well, and we've had artists that haven't. Being attached to Kanye is only going to get you so far. You've still got to have the records and the talent and the artistry on your own to carry it.
Instead of investing our resources in locking people up, let's invest more of those resources in our fellow citizens so they don't end up in the system to begin with. And if they do, they can get back on their feet.
Hip hop has the urgency and rebelliousness that early rock n' roll and punk had: a level of rule-breaking and flirtation with danger. It allows you to break the rules.
I like a lot of documentaries, I like political movies and political thrillers. But I also like a good action movie. I like a pretty wide range.
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.
Marvin Gaye was one of the coolest. I look to him as a style icon and as an artist.
Hip-hop is one of the most free art forms there is. There's so many sounds you can use, so many things you can bring in. You never know, man. I bet years ago people would've never said they would hear me with Rick Ross, and we did four classic songs together.
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.
John Legend is a nickname that some friends started calling me, and it kind of grew into my stage name.
The best training is to play by ear: trial by fire.
When we meet people who are astronauts or deal in astronomy, it's always really fascinating.
My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.
In the 1970s, for all the Stevie Wonders, I'm sure there were five artists that were making forgettable music.
I was always the front man for what I was doing from when I was 6.
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.
At work, you want to stand out but not in extra-funky ways. At the core, it's about dressing for girls - who are most of my fans - and you want to dress up for them. You just want to feel like you're on top of your game.
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.
I played classical as a kid.
London is a good fashion city. They're a little more daring. There's the element of the aristocracy, which is always interesting.
Now that I'm coming out with my own record people can see I'm a solo artist.
My first attempt at a kiss was in fifth grade, but it didn't go so well. Later, I used Boyz II Men and Jodeci songs to come on to girls. I had more success.
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.
Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'
As a nation - and as a world - we need more truth.
My dad liked a lot of Motown, but I didn't listen to it until my teenage years.
Well, I like songs that have like a little bit of quirkiness to them.
I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.
We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.
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.
As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.
I don't feel like that many musicians are competitive with each other.