Page 95 - Sharp Winter 2023

JOHN LEGEND DOESN’T MIND THAT YOU KNOW HIM FOR
his ballads. Speaking over Zoom a few days after his perfor- mance at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards — where his new song “Pieces” offered an appropriately mournful accompaniment to the in-memoriam segment — the 43-year-old singer-songwrit- er is characteristically good-humoured about the suggestion that he’s a musician people look to when the moment calls for gravitas. Legend takes the implication that he’s the industry’s go-to funeral accompanist in stride. “I think part of it is just my roots,” he reflects, treating his continued success as a balladeer and tone-setter for sombre occasions, in spite of cheekier hits like “Number One,” as an honour. “I grew up singing gospel music. I would sing at a lot of funerals and other events where people needed inspiration. And so these types of events are part of my musical heritage.”
Heritage is important to Legend, who burst onto the scene in his twenties as one of the most coveted rising talents in R&B, and who became the second-youngest winner of the coveted EGOT before he turned 40. It’s something to stay true to wherever his career and his politics take him, a thread he comes back to whether we’re talking about his music or his activism, both of which he sees as rooted in his upbringing in Springfield, Ohio. Shortly after the release of Legend, his first double album — which he cheerfully notes was narrowed down from 80 to 24 songs — Legend is as happy to muse
about the career retrospective Las Vegas residency he closed this past October as he is eager to promote his new album.
As an artist in his prime, Legend has a quality of the statesman, with an air of seriousness about his public image. Legend is at ease with the possibility that his ballads have won the day in the public’s perception of him, even though his albums have always contained more irreverent tracks like “Used to Love U” or the new album’s sensual “Honey.” He seems secure in the knowledge that the nature of streaming and his residency keep his back catalogue, in all its contradictions and variety, alive. A fresh-faced old soul, Legend is the picture of mid-career contentment: aware of his plum position in the industry, energized by the chance to revisit his songbook, and secure in the knowledge that he has plenty of tracks left to record.
Though the playful eponymous name drop of his eighth album suggests an artist intent on legacy-building, Legend doesn’t seem all that concerned about how the new work might go over beyond the things he can control, like sequencing. He slickly breaks down Legend’s 24 tracks into two acts like a maitre d’ previewing a menu, offering tasting notes as he describes the first side’s upbeat “Saturday night” jams versus the second side’s more relaxed and intimate “Sunday morning” vibes. He’s unbothered by my suggestion that with the album’s length, he’s placing himself in the pantheon of artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, and OutKast, pointing out that
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