John Legend is interviewed in the November issue of Clash Magazine. He has just released a new album ‘Wake Up!’ with The Roots’, covering 60s/70s urban protests songs for the 21st Century.
Read the transcript of our interview with him below.
How did the album come about?
It was an exciting and interesting time and a lot of people were talking about the direction of the country and what their idea of change was. We wanted to make a musical statement to fit what was going on in the culture. We elected to do a project of cover songs that spoke to what was going on.
The reason we did cover songs was that we’d just finished my original album ‘Evolver’ and we wanted to do a quick fire release and get it out for the time of the election and try and specifically cover that moment in time. I spoke to the Roots and we chose five songs and then that was going to be that, but we got more and more into it the more we realised that we wanted it to be more lasting and not just a quickie project we’d put together and; two, we wanted to do a real album because we thought the sound was cool and interesting and we didn’t want it to get lost in the marketing for ‘Evolver’. We wanted to make sure that we’d have time to finish it and I was about to go on the promo tour and that whole cycle takes 12-15 months every time we do it. I wanted to get that done and the finish the album and then put it out.
So I did promotion and touring for ‘Evolver’ from the Fall of ’08 through to the end of ’09. Then I came back at the beginning of this year to finish the album and the Roots have been there all along, so we pitched the idea to them and it’s been a really fun collaboration. We picked a lot of the songs back in ‘08 when we coming up with the original idea. We recorded some of the rhythm sections back then and some of the vocals too. Then when we came back to it in 2010 we redid some of the rhythm and vocals and did some overdubbing. I saw so many parallels to what’s going on now, even though the songs were originally written 40 years ago.
Do you feel that there is still as strong a connection to politics as there was forty years ago?
I think that there is less of a connection. One of the things I talk about the most is that there isn’t a sense of connection with the war because there isn’t a draft. I’m not saying there should be a draft but I’m arguing that the side effect of not having a draft is that fewer young people are concerned with what happens with the war. They don’t feel a connection, they don’t feel a sense of fear or danger that the soldiers will feel. So there is less of a connection to that policy and that makes most people feel disconnected to it because they don’t have to feel connected to it. That generates a lower sense of urgency.
Do you think that’s a good or a bad thing?
I think it has consequences which aren’t good. It means that we don’t pay attention when our leaders send our kids off to war. It’s not as wrenching a decision because, for most Americans, it’s sold to us as being free. Bush sent us to Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars at once, and said we still have tax cuts. So not only do a very small percentage of you have to go over there but it’s free as well. He made it a consequence free war, which is not really true, but for most Americans it felt consequence free. Whenever you do that it creates a greater sense of apathy in the public and they feel less connected, meaning you can probably get away with doing more. The bar is lower for convincing the American people to go to war because of that.
Why did you campaign in the 2008 election?
Because I truly believed he was the right candidate, I agreed with his policies, I still agree with his policies, and I thought he was the right man to deliver them. I was already planning to vote for him before the whole movement started. I was early on the bandwagon I guess. From the first time I met him I thought he had something special about him and that he could be a great leader for America.
Are you frustrated with how it’s been going so far?
I’m frustrated with the lack of patience in the American public, they’re already blaming him for the recession when it was a global recession and it started before he was in office. He’s doing his best to get us out of it but these things don’t happen overnight and they’re certainly not magical. He doesn’t have magical powers, especially seeing that everything he tries to do comes with a lot of opposition from the Republicans – even amongst the Democrats. It’s meant that all the reforms he’s tried to put in place have been half steps or sixty percent steps. They weren’t enough in a lot of liberal minds to get the job done. He’s had to fight tooth and nail to get the measures that he got but most economists don’t think it was big enough. He’s trying to do the right thing but each battle is a huge compromise. 40% of congress will block any of his proposals regardless of whether they agree with it or not. It’s a complicated atmosphere to try and get things done, especially with the amount of money that special interest can buy the system. It’s not Obama’s fault, but he gets blamed for it.
Why do you think US politics has a higher level of public participation/ celebrity endorsement than say British?
When you think about what gets decided by politicians, issues that impact on everyone’s lives. In a democracy politics is the people’s business you know? We have to have a say in who our politicians are and what they do on our behalf. Not just celebrities but everybody. More people should be involved.
Would you ever consider running for office?
No, I don’t want to ever run for office but I do want to maintain a voice in politics and hopefully maintain some influence.
Is America a racist country?
I’d say that there was still a lot of racism in America – I don’t know that a majority of Americans are racist but at least a significant minority are. Most people aren’t explicitly racist in that they wont associate with people of other colours but they hold biases or stereotypes, which isn’t an evil thing, it’s just partly how human beings are. We attempt to categorise people in a certain way, based on how they look or what they dress like or what neighbourhood they come from. So to some degree it’s innocent, but then some of it’s more innocent and some of it’s more harmful. We’ve seen a little bit of everything in the Obama campaign. For everyone who was excited to vote for him, and only 52% of people did, there was 48% who didn’t. I’m not saying that everyone didn’t vote for him because he’s black, a lot of people wouldn’t have because they were Republican or conservative and they don’t agree with his proposals on how to run the country. They would have voted against any white Democrat.
But then there was certainly some nasty racial comments that fuelled the opposition as well: emails about him being an African tribesman, him, not being born in America and him being a secret Muslim who was going to try and destroy the country. Some people were going, ‘I’m just not ready for a black president yet’. It was funny because they’d rarely say it in public but they’d say it to pollsters on the phone. Ahmir, ?uestlove from the Roots, was doing the ‘Get out the Vote’ phone operation, you know calling people and they didn’t know he was black on the phone and would say some fairly racist things to him about Obama, thinking they were talking to a white guy. It was pretty amazing knowing that people would say that and not have a sense of shame about it. There’s certainly that element to it. Hopefully it’s 10% and not 40%. There’s certainly a minority who have injected themselves into the public conversation and certainly to the detriment of that conversation.
Do you think Clinton would have got a higher percentage of the vote?
Not significantly. All our elections have been fairly even recently. Obama actually won by a bigger margin then anyone in recent times so he did very well. I think any race issues were among people who wouldn’t have voted for any Democrat anyway.
Looking forward to the gig in London?
I’m excited about it because not many people around the world are going to get a chance to see us play with the Roots. It’ll be a rare opportunity for us to go to Europe to perform together. It’s going to be really exciting and a special treat for the Londoners.
Is this another “Evolution”?
Every artist is a human being,: we go through different emotions and listen to different music at different times in our lives. Some people like to stick to the same formula and other people want to explore and see what it is they come up with next. That’s been my process as an artist and it’s been fun for me. Some fans love this and some wish that you’d stick with the thing that they originally fell in love with. It’s interesting trying to balance those things. People clearly perceive me in a certain way but that perception can become a caricature of who you are and an oversimplified version of who you are and you want to break out of it a little bit.
Did you grow up in a musical household?
I grew up in a very musical household. I was listening to a lot of soul and gospel as a kid. I grew to love soulful music.
What’s next?
We’re going to tour a bit with this album. We wont always be with the Roots but we’ll put together band who can play this music wonderfully. Either way we’ll be on the road a lot for the next twelve months. Then I want to put together my next album, which Kanye’s producing, and we’re excited about that. We’re going to start working on that now so we can get a lot of it done before the holidays. We usually write very quickly so if we can come up with something great it wont take that long and if not it’ll take a little longer.
Words by Sam Ballard
