Drink Champs - Episode 446 w/ John Legend

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs. In this episode we chop it up with the legendary, John Legend!John discusses his journey in the music industry, emphasizing that there's no such thing as an "overnight success."He shares insights into his career development and experiences.John shares stories of creating classic music and much much more!Lots of great stories that you don’t want to miss!Make some noise for John Legend!! 💐💐💐🏆🏆🏆 *Subscribe to Patreon NOW for exclusive content, discount codes, M&G’s + more: 🏆* https://www.patreon.com/drinkchamps *Listen and subscribe at https://www.drinkchamps.com Follow Drink Champs: https://www.instagram.com/drinkchamps https://www.twitter.com/drinkchamps https://www.facebook.com/drinkchamps https://www.youtube.com/drinkchamps DJ EFN https://www.crazyhood.com https://www.instagram.com/whoscrazy https://www.twitter.com/djefn https://www.facebook.com/crazyhoodproductions N.O.R.E. https://www.instagram.com/therealnoreaga https://www.twitter.com/noreagaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. And it's going to take us to heal us. It's Mental Health Awareness Month, and on a recent episode of Just Heal with Dr. J, the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey. I never let that little girl inside of me die. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hear insightful, entertaining discussions on today's important health and wellness topics on the Health Discovered podcast from WebMD.

Through in-depth conversations with experts, Health Discovered covers everything from tips for healthier living to the latest on therapy and mental health. My goal is to really de-stigmatize mental health treatment and looking at it from a whole health perspective. Physical health and mental health can be intertwined. Listen to WebMD Health Discovered on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And it's Drink Chats motherfucking podcast. Make some noise! He's a legendary Queens rapper.

Hey, hey, Segre, this your boy N.O.R.E. He's a Miami hip-hop pioneer. One of his DJ EFN. Together, they drink it up with some of the biggest players. You know what I mean? In the most professional, unprofessional podcast. And your number one source for drunk facts. It's Drink Chats motherfucking podcast.

Where every day is New Year's Eve. It's time for Drink Chats Drink Champs, motherfucking park. Where every day is New Year's Eve. It's time for Drink Champs. Drink up, motherfucker. What it good be? Hope it is what it should be. It's your boy, N-O-R-E. What up?

It's DJ E-F-N. And it's the military crazy war. Yabby Abbo makes up. No! When we started this show, we said we wanted to interview legends. This man here is a legend. This man is an icon. He's the only person I know with an EGOT.

I didn't even know what a fuck an EGOT was. I dropped out of seventh grade, god damn it. This motherfucker got an EGOT. He won NAACP awards, nominated at least 30, 49 Thousand times 13 goddamn Grammys This motherfucker's a legend

On a legend And his name is a legend And in case you don't know Who we talking about We talking about the one The only The impeccable John Motherfucking Legend

Yes Damn You can take a drink before me You beat me to the point That's the intro I like to hear, man. So what's going on? What brings you to Miami? Man, I came to see y'all.

Oh, yeah? Oh, shit. Let's make some fucking noise. I was in New York doing press, and they were like, do you want to come down to Miami and do Drink Champs? Yes. I was like, it's about time. Let's come and do Drink Champs.

Yeah. So recently, you learned your skills and you sang for the fire department, but not only was it a normal fire department, this was a fire department that was in prison. Yeah, so I wasn't there to sing. I was just there to highlight what they're doing, to thank them. Because these guys, they're currently incarcerated. Right. And they volunteer for this program to fight fires in California,

which California has a lot of fires. And so they train. They go hike up the mountains, go up and back and forth and up and back and forth. And it's a crazy training program, but they grow so much through it. And they end up getting time taken off of their term in prison. And it improves their lives a lot. But we wanted to highlight what to do and thank them and also advocate that they get paid better, that the conditions are still better for them. And they get more opportunities after they leave prison so they can actually work as firefighters when they leave and other things like that.

So I was there just to talk with them. I sat there just building with them for like an hour. And then at the end, I sang like a verse of Ordinary People and everybody's like, Young Legend just went and sang Ordinary People to the fire people. Like that was all I was doing there.

No, I went there to talk to them, highlight them, thank them, advocate for them. And they were asking me questions at the end about my life and getting advice from me. And then at the end, they were like, John, will you sing for us? So I sang a little Ordinary People. Some of the toughest people in the world love R&B. That's a fact. The thugs love R&B.

That's right. So let me ask you something. To me, you're a humanitarian. You're a people person. How did you develop that type of, you know what I mean? You put people before you, from outside looking in to the inside. Well, I always thought that I wanted to be an artist. I always thought I wanted to sing for a living.

But I also always thought that the greatest artists that I looked up to were the ones that gave back. And if you look at Stevie... Sidney Poitier? Marvin Gaye, Sidney Poitier, Paul Robeson, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Harry Belafonte, all of these artists, they were successful as artists. They were huge artists, sold a lot of records, sold a lot of concert tickets. And then they were also funneling money to Dr. King

to make sure that the movement was going forward. They would fly and meet him at these marches and bail him out of jail. And so I always looked at being an artist as partly not just being an artist for myself, but using the platform to give back and to be humanitarian. I mean, I'm going to get straight to it. It was like Trump was your nemesis. I feel like he's the nation's nemesis. He's not mine. Because when he ran against Hillary, he was on Hillary's side.

Yeah. He ran against Kamala, and he was on Kamala's side. Ran against Biden, I was on Biden's side You know If Trump is running There's a good chance I'll be against him Do you think he follows you

On Twitter secretly? Well I'm not on Twitter anymore Okay good Yeah Alright cool I'm on black Twitter It's not good It's gone

It's horrible It disappeared No whenever I'm having Too much of a good day I just go on black Twitter And I just let them He loves Twitter. You got to jump on fan base.

You got to get fan base. Fan base, yes. Fan base. The OnlyFans cousin. Isaac Hayes' son. No, Isaac Hayes III. He has a fan base. He started.

It's a black owned. There's a couple other ones that are, but all of them are kind of smaller than Twitter used to be. And then a lot of people left Twitter. I left Twitter. And I think a lot of people are gone from it. So there's not really one place where everybody is. I do most of my communicating on IG, but even that, I don't really do as much of what I used to do on Twitter. Right. But you think, you think Trump secretly follows you on IG? Well, I would say he was, the only time he really acknowledged us when he was president, the first time, I did this criminal justice reform event at Sing Sing in New York.

And yeah, so we went up there to the prison and we're meeting with the inmates and we're just having a conversation about reform and everything that we work on. And for some reason, on a Sunday night, the president of the United States was watching the show and he was mad that we didn't say enough about him, give him enough credit because he passed one criminal justice reform bill and he was upset. And so he was like, that boring singer John Legend and his filthy mouth wife Chrissy. Oh, really? Damn. And Chrissy wasn't even there, so I don't know why she catches strays.

But I'm like, why are you watching this show? You're the president. Don't you have something better to do? But no, he likes to watch cable news. I don't know what he's doing on Twitter, but I think he's on his own app. He got his own app now. Yeah, he has his own app.

Yeah, he did. I'll be seeing him on X a lot. Well, his boy owns it now. I'm sorry to get political, because I'm going to bounce around. Yeah, we'll talk about everything. But here's what's crazy, right? Years ago, rest in peace to Irv Gotti.

Years ago, Irv Gotti, J Prince, Suge, and I forget who was the other. It was one other. J Prince, Suge, Irv. Suge, Irv Gotti. Was there somebody else? I don't think there was. Dame. Dame.

Oh, was Dame in part one? Yeah, huh? Yeah, I believe Dame was down and these powerful black men that was getting together people automatically said this is Illuminati right now right now in our face they met in private

just because they couldn't get it together from what I heard but you seeing Eli Must with Dana White with Joe Rogan, this is fucking an over 90 if it's not the fuck. And your fucking face. And that meeting in public that Mark Zuckerberg, he was down with a Democrat,

and he done switched over. He done changed his watches and everything. And he went over to that other side. Well, I think they saw what Elon was able to do. He was able to donate over $200 million to the campaign, and he basically bought a presidency. So he bought the right to ride shotgun with Trump and be his co-president. And so now he's running through the government doing what he wants to do because he bought the right. You shouldn't be able to buy the right to do that, but he did it out in the open.

He bought it, and Trump is letting him be co-president with him. Right. Because what's the thing you just said? That's a different Twitter, Isaac Hayes' son?

Fanbase. That one's called Fanbase, but there's Blue Sky, there's Truth. What's Blue Sky? Blue Sky's another new one. Threads is part of Instagram. Okay, Threads,

I know about that. And you can invest in Fanbase, too. It's open source where you can invest in it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, so what if we all got together? That's what Isaac's trying to do. He's definitely trying to do that.

But there's a couple others that are trying to do it as well. And it's just, what was the other one? There was another black owned one. I can't think of the name now. God damn it. Everybody's trying. But it's hard because you've got to get everybody in the same place for it to work, you know,

because it don't have the same energy that Twitter had at the beginning because everybody's not in the same place. I think the reason why I like Twitter, to tell you the truth, is because, like I said, when I'm having a good day, they will humble me.

You're saying that's the worst of humanity? Yeah, like, I could, you know, I could post the most positive thing in the world and somebody could be like, fuck that. By the way, it works for me because I'm like, alright, cool. It keeps you humble. I'm off my high horse. No, you want to be like, fuck you right back. That's what you want to be.

The IG comments are the same though. No, no, no. IG is kind of nice to me. I heard you say something about that. I'm going to get to that. When you was 15, you wrote an essay of exactly who you was going to be when you grew up. So I wrote an essay. This was like a Black History Month essay competition. McDonald's was the sponsor. And one of my teachers was like, John, you should enter this. You would be good. And so the question was just, how do you plan to make Black history? And so I said,

I'm going to be a famous artist. I'm going to be a famous singer. And then I'm going to be a famous artist I'm going to be a famous singer and then I'm going to use my success as a platform to help my people to stand up for what's right stand up for justice and that's what I've been doing wow I manifested I manifested

I know you did that I know you did that for school but do you recommend that kids that age 14, 15, 16 years old write an essay not in school, but write an essay of who they should be in the next 15 years? Absolutely. Start setting intentions for yourself at that age. And, you know, we as parents can start encouraging them to think about that.

You know, I don't ask my eight-year-old what she really wants to be when she grows up. Like, we say it, but we don't really know that they know what they want to be yet. But I think once they get in those teen years, like start having them set intentions for what they want to do in life. And when you set those intentions, you start to put yourself in that path to do it. And I think that's what I was thinking. And that's what I started doing. Yeah. I did a vision board with my six-year-old this year, my wife. And you know what a vision board is? Yeah.

The same thing as manifesting. But it's a kid level, but you start doing little things like that with them, they start to understand. Yeah. And once you say it, it makes you want to work to it too. And so I think it's a good thing. And you were what they call a prodigy. Yeah. A child prodigy.

Yeah, I skipped a couple grades. So I graduated high school when I was 16. I graduated college when I was 20. You saw some Doogie Howzers? Yeah. They literally called me Doogie in high school. So I get to high school, I'm 12 years old, everybody else is 14, they start calling me Doogie.

But, you know, I was a nerdy little kid. I wanted to read everything, do everything, sing everything. And went to Ivy League College afterwards. And, yeah. Yo, I watched you on Oprah when you went to your old block. Yeah. I was literally cold. Yeah.

I was like, oh, my God, you had so much snow there. Springfield, Ohio, man. Do you still fuck with the snow? I can't fuck with the snow. I'm good with it. You're good with it? Yeah, I fuck with it still. It's snow. I was just in New York. I love New York. You're from New York. Yes, I don't

go there until May. I mean, I earned the right not to go there. I earned the right not to be like, fuck that. I literally kept rewinding your shit, and I was like, oh my God, I'm so cold. Like, I can't see. Do you fuck with snow?

No. I live in Miami and LA. I got enough right here. It's all good. I grew up in Ohio. I live in LA now, but when I go to the snow, like, I enjoy it.

So you miss the snow. Sometimes we intentionally will go somewhere cold for like Christmas, because I want that Christmas snow feeling, you know? It makes me feel at home. Not me. Nah, he's like, I'll see you in May. Snow looks nice, but I don't know about trekking through it and shit.

Did you watch the Grammys recently? I was there. Oh, yeah, he performed. Oh, shit, I'm bugging. Yeah, so I just play piano. So if you miss me, I don't blame you. I was just playing the piano. We were supporting the band Dawes.

Dawes, their lead singer and their drummer were with us on stage and they performed I Love L.A. and it was a whole tribute to L.A. to open the show. And they lost their homes, literally. The lead singer and the drummer lost their home. Their family was from there too. They lost

home and they lost a lot of their studio and music equipment. So they lost a lot. And so the Recording Academy, we have a lot of folks that live in L.A. And we wanted to show love to all those musicians that lost something. And so Dawes was the lead performance of the show. And they had a bunch of us other artists come and support them and play. I played piano. Brittany Howard from the Alabama Shakes played guitar.

Brad Paisley played guitar. St. Vincent played the keys. Sheryl Crow played the bass. And then we just supported this band that had lost so much in the fire. They did a lot of fundraising during that whole thing. Yeah, they raised like $25 million. I hope that the money really gets to the people who need it. $25 million raised, and it's going to go to help a lot of people.

And, you know, Music Cares is a part of the Recording Academy, too. And Music Cares is basically the music community supporting each other because not all of us you know we're not all millionaires right a lot of our musicians like they fall on hard times they're dealing with addiction they're dealing with loss something's happening in their lives and they need help so music care supports them all throughout the year every year so let me ask you, right? In Miami, they got this scheme that they do, right? When it rains.

A scheme? Yeah, that's what y'all be doing out here. I'll be watching y'all. You talking about like, oh, they do it like climate change. Like when it rains, they'll let their car get flooded or whatever, and then they'll claim it. Oh, you're talking about insurance fraud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who done that that you see?

Hey, man. I know these guys. I know some people, right? But in their insurance, it's a difference between hurricane insurance and flood insurance, right? So is that a difference? And there's fire insurance as well. That's what I'm asking because a friend of mine left his car out in a hurricane and he didn't have

flood insurance. So they said that it wasn't caused from a hurricane. It was caused from a flood. So he just lost his car. He tried to be slick. He should have checked

his policy before doing that. This is Miami schemers though. Insurance companies, their job is to find a way to not pay. That's their job. So you got to check the fine print. You got to check everything with insurance, health insurance, everything.

Their job is to find a reason to not pay that. So with these California fires, do you think people were insured? What do they have to have? I think a lot of them were. But even if you are, they only insure the actual home. So not the land. Oh, oh. So.

See, it's always a fucking loophole. So definitely. But theoretically, it makes sense because if you lose your home, you still own the property and you can build it back. So they'll reimburse you for building it back, but they won't buy the land from you. So it basically requires you to stay there or sell the land to somebody else to really make your money back.

I heard a lot of people lost their policies. They were canceled before. Yeah, so some of them got canceled before and maybe they didn't check their mail. They didn't notice that they got canceled. And so they find out after the fire, they don't have a policy, which is crazy. And then all the conspiracies come out of those things. Yeah, and the thing is,

what's going to happen more and more in Florida, in California, in all these places, it's going to be hard to insure a house. And so a lot of people are not going to be able to buy a house, and it's not because of the mortgage. It's going to be because they can't afford the mortgage and the insurance. Right.

So, you're in the fire, right? I'm not there. You're not in the fire. No, no, no. But you got one bottle of water, right? Let me tell you. Okay. Let me tell you.

You're in this bottle of water. Let me tell you how we experienced the fire. Like, we landed on January 7th. We had just been on family vacation. We heard, oh, there's a fire in the Palisades. We didn't know it was going to be huge. Because it's pretty normal for these fires. We have fires all the time in that area, especially Malibu.

Palisades is—Malibu is my favorite place. Yeah, so Malibu is right around the corner from the Palisades and Malibu gets a lot of fires. Palisades, not as much. But so we land and we see smoke pluming from that area. You didn't think it was weed? I was like, is Nori here? Yeah. That's what I'm going to do.

I get it. I get it. And we literally saw the flame. Usually when there's fires in LA, I don't see the flame. Like I see the smoke coming from it, but I don't see the flame. Usually when there's fires in L.A., I don't see the flame. Like I see the smoke coming from it, but I don't see the flame. But I'm looking in the hills and I'm like, oh, that's an actual flame. And so we're driving back to our house. It's in Beverly Hills.

So it's between the Pasadena fires and the Malibu fires, Palisades fires. And we're like, should we leave? Should we get out of here? And we never ended up in an evacuation zone. But when there was a fire in the Hollywood Hills, that felt a little too close for comfort. So we were like, we're getting out of here. So we left. We went down to San Diego for like a week and then we came back home after a week. So we didn't lose anything. Some of our very good friends lost their home and had relatives lose their homes. And a lot of people just, it just got wiped out.

And it all happened, most of it happened in that first day or two. Because if you looked at the video, it was a hurricane of fire. The wind was blowing as fast as it blows down here during a hurricane. It was 80, 100 miles an hour. There was tornadoes in that motherfucker. Yeah, it was literally whipping the fire around. And it looked like a movie. It couldn't be real.

And it was insane. And it took over entire areas really fast. And I never seen anything like it. The tragedy, it was crazy. I hang out with a lot of conspiracy theorists. Yeah. I don't believe anything. I have some in my family.

We all do. Yeah, I don't believe them, but I love to listen, right? I mean, some of these things end up coming true later on. You're like, oh, you're right. But a conspiracy theorist of mine said to me that these were caused, by the way, this is not me. I understand. Yeah, not me. These were caused to areas of the rich so that they could rebuild L.A. and have this smart L.A.

That's what he thinks, right? What do you think of that? No. Because they said the fires didn't come to the hood. Is that true? Or the fires did hit the hood? Well, it hit a black neighborhood. It hit a black neighborhood.

Altadena. So Altadena was one of the first neighborhoods in Los Angeles that allow black people to actually live there. Well, not Baldwin. I didn't know about this until the fires. I didn't know this area. Altadena is not really close to a lot of portions of L.A. It's kind of far northeast near Pasadena. But there was a black neighborhood there.

And a lot of the folks there are like middle class, working class. So not everybody was like Hollywood celebrities. But the Palisades, that's an expensive area. Malibu, extremely expensive. Some of these are like $50 million, $75 million homes. I love Malibu. And so definitely a lot of rich people got hit. But I have a hard time believing that

somebody intentionally did that. Intentionally did it to build smart LA. What does that even mean? They're saying the same thing, the same conspiracy that happened in Maui. They said it's a laser that hit to take that property over. Yeah. I wish I would have heard that one. I'm always skeptical.

I'm always skeptical. I'm always skeptical. I always feel like usually the most obvious explanation is the real explanation. But I could be wrong sometimes. It was probably because man-made, which most of the fires happen accidentally.

Yeah. Or even on purpose. Sometimes it's on purpose, but the wind and the dryness just accelerated everything. We hadn't had rain since like last fall. But it never rained in Southern California.

That's what they tell me. That's what they tell me. But we literally, we normally would have like, they said five or six inches between October 1st and when the fires happened, we had 0.16 inch. So that on its own was an accelerant. And then the wind was something we almost never see, the Santa Ana winds

at that speed. So you combine the speed of the wind and the dryness, that's why it happened. Were you out there? We landed after it started. Wow. But we never were in the fire, so we didn't see it up close and personal, but close friends of ours were

and they lost their homes. They didn't make you evacuate? No, we were not in evacuation zone. We were between evacuation zones. But we left anyway, just for a little bit. Yeah, those people had lost everything. I'm going to be honest. I thought New Yorkers were stubborn until I moved to Miami.

Yo, they won't move for nothing. They're like, no, the hurricane ain't going nowhere. They'll be like, yo, The hurricane is going to kill everybody. They don't really tell the truth. Everyone is going to die. In Miami, they'll be like, it's okay, I'll get soft. We think it's a conspiracy to go to Home Depot in public. No, no, no.

They're about to get you wet, and then the shit goes that way. Yo, listen. Yo, but y'all take it too far. As soon as there's a hurricane, they rack up on all the toilet paper. We have hurricane parties. Yeah, you have hurricane parties. The liquor store is gone. They're used to it the toilet paper. And we have hurricane parties. Yeah, you have hurricane parties. The liquor store is gone. They're used to it here, man.

They're used to it. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, John Legend. You look like you never had a bad day. I'm going to be honest. I'm a little jealous, man. I look at you and you look stressed fucking great. You look like nothing bothers you. I have had bad days, but I would say I am probably one of the most kind of like even kill people you'll ever meet.

I don't have a lot of, I don't get really angry very often. I am as chill as you think I am. Goddamn Mason. And he compares me, Hasan compares me to Seinfeld because there's this episode of Seinfeld. Tell me the episode. I'm ready for it. Where they say

everything always evens out for Jerry. Oh, yeah, because he do the $20 bill. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Don't test me on Seinfeld. And so Hasan, Hasan. Don't test me on Seinfeld. Hold on, hold on.

Exactly. All right, don't test me on Seinfeld now. That's when he threw the $20 bill. Hassan always calls me Seinfeld because he's like, everything always evens out for you, man. You got something happened, for some reason, it just always evens out. So I don't know.

We just discovered you the black Seinfeld. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Hang out with you then. That's my, you ever watch Kirby Enthusiasm? Yes, I love it. Oh, God. Oh my God. Hang out with you then. That's my, that's, you ever watch Curb Your Enthusiasm?

Yes, I love it. Oh, that's my favorite shit. Yeah, I love both shows a lot. I've seen every episode. Okay. Yeah. Which one you will pick? Curb or Seinfeld?

Curb. Curb. Yeah. I mean, two. Yeah, Curb. Most people would say Seinfeld because Seinfeld. I fucking love.

I'm sorry, man. I love Larry David, man. I fucking love Larry. I love him. I love him so much I don't want to meet him because if I meet him and he be like,

hey, what the fuck? I'll be like, oh, man, that my whole shit is fucked up. But that's the thing. His whole persona is that he probably wouldn't be nice to you

when you met him. It's kind of right. And so you're like, maybe I should meet him. Like, that is being nice. Him being not nice to you. Like, I would like... There's this restaurant

called Club... I mean, Hotel Costi's in Paris. Oh, yeah. You been there? I've been there. I love it. They're very nasty people. Like... They're like a little nice to like i was like it's this restaurant called club i mean hotel coasties in paris oh yeah you've been there i love it very nasty people like they're like a little french rude yeah they're french rude and one time i went there on my birthday and they were nice to me and i was like this is not what i paid for it's sexy though it's sexy you're like be rude to me like they got a cigarette when i used smoke cigarettes, they had the cigarette section and all that.

And it was nice to me one time, but they didn't like it. Yeah. Yeah, pull up. Yeah, I was on Larry David's show. I did a guest appearance on it. Oh, he's jealous. And he was nice then, but I hung out mostly with Jeff and Susie. Yeah, the couple.

Yeah, yeah. Susie Espin. Yeah, the lady with the bad mouth and the manager. Yeah, so. Sozy Espin. Yeah. The lady with the bad mouth. Yeah. And the manager. Yeah. So what episode was this? This was the bat mitzvah. I was singing at the bat mitzvah for their daughter. Uh-huh.

And the conceit of the show was that I was one of Jeff's clients. Right. And he got me to sing at the bat mitzvah, so I sang a song there. This was early, like 06, early in my career. Right. But that was cool. Yeah. And I just sat there and talked to Jeff and Susie the whole time, and they had me cracking up. Oh, they liked it?

Yeah, they were funny. Okay. Yeah, they were really funny. Now, you also got to do a movie with the late, great Bernie Mac. Yes. Soulman. Yeah. You know, one of the best lines I ever heard in the world is in that movie.

Yeah. When Bernie Mac moves into the old folks' home, and then Mike Epps says, you know, because now you can spend some time with the kids. And Bernie Mac looks at him with all honesty and says, fuck them kids. Fuck them kids. I said, oh, man.

That's an iconic line. That line has been used since then. I have never heard nobody say that. But how was me and Bernie Mac? Oh, man. He was funny, too, in person. You know, some comedians, they're not funny in person because it's like they're

saving it for the stage. He's himself, you can tell. It's like they're saving it for the stage, but Bernie was really funny in person. Jeff and Susie were very funny in person. And then some people, they clam up and they don't give you no jokes until you see them on stage. Oh, shit.

You ever met Prince? Yeah, I met Prince. I met prince a few times i didn't i didn't love stories that's kind of my i was about to ask you did he float did he float when you met him um i was starstruck this was one of the first big celebrities i met that i really like truly was starstruck when i met him um ass out prince or no ass out his ass was in his ass was in i'm sorry no no no he was really close so at the time he was signed to the same label I was. He was at Columbia, Sony Urban. And we had the same exec, Lisa Ellis. And he was doing a concert at MSG.

And Lisa was like, you want to come see Prince? I was like, yeah. Yeah. And then he did an after party at BB King's. And Prince is the craziest musician because he'll do the whole show and then go play the after party. He would do a three-hour show and then go play at the after party. I've never seen anybody that just loved playing music and kept playing music, kept playing music like he did. And it was amazing seeing him.

The first time I met him, he was just like, you know, he was on that protect your rights, make sure you get your masters back when you can, all that. And then the next time I saw him, he had one of those after parties that he had after the Grammys or the Oscars in LA. And it was a jam session. And a bunch of artists were there. And I got up on stage and jammed with him.

And Stevie was there, and it was fun, man. Woo! Goddamn, make some noise. That's great. Now, before I get to the EGOT, Michael Jackson, you ever met Mike? Yeah, I met Mike. I met Mike in Bahrain. Put him back on my seatbelt.

In Weir? So this is where he was living. International Mike. So he was dealing with all his legal things. And he was living in Bahrain for a while over in the Middle East. I'm sorry, where's Bahrain? It's in the Middle East. It's over by Saudi Arabia.

And they were having an F1 event over there. And they had like a celebrity invitational. And they were like just trying to get celebrities to come to the F1. And I was a new celebrity. I was like, yeah, I'll go to Bahrain or whatever. I heard Michael Jackson. We might get to meet Michael Jackson. And then the Crown Prince has a dinner at one of his homes,

and Michael Jackson just walks in. And I sit there, and it was like a few round tables. And I'm sitting at the round table where Mike's sitting. And we're all just sitting there talking. Talking about music, whatever. You don't remember the subject? We talked about music. We talked about, you know, life.

I don't know. Is it true about his voice? They say that when he was talking talking normal He doesn't have the same High pitched voice It was still pretty High It wasn't deep Nah it wasn't deep

It was You know He ain't Crip Walker night You know there's Pitches with Michael Jackson With a Crip The stories about him He fought Tupac

All kinds of crazy Yeah the stories about Michael Jackson get crazy I'm glad I didn't Y'all hear a lot of Conspiracies They're fun Am I here to debunk Conspiracies Vikings get crazy. I'm glad I didn't meet him. Y'all hear a lot of conspiracies. They're fun. Am I here to debunk conspiracies?

This is my job. We'll do a new segment with you. Yeah. Fact or Fiction with John Legend. It does. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me,

writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello, Malcolm Gladwell here.

On this season of Revisionist History, we're going where no podcast has ever gone before. In combination with my three-year-old, we defend the show that everyone else hates. I'm talking, of course, about Paw Patrol. There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks.

My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it. Everyone hates it. Except for me. Plus, we investigate everything from why American sirens are so unbearably loud, to the impact of face blindness on social connection, to the secret behind Thomas's English muffins, perfect nooks and crannies.

And also, we go after Joe Rogan. Are you ready, Joe? I'm coming for you. You won't want to miss it. Listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app It's really, really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. So, John Legend, we want you to know, man, our show is about giving people their flowers. Appreciate you. You can smell them. I love the show, by the way.

Yes, yes. Thank you. So we want to give you your flowers because you are a legend. Appreciate you. I love the show, by the way. We want to give you your flowers. Because you are a legend. Thank you. Thank you. It matches my wine bottles, too. This is my LVE wine.

And it matches perfectly. So it's not love, it's LVE. Yeah, we call it LVE. We've been calling it love this whole time. You can call it love, too. You ever drank Whispering Angel? Yeah. Is this Whisperin' Angel killer? It's better. That's what I'm saying. It's the killer. It's the killer. It's the killer of Whisperin' Angel.

So if you've been drinking Whisperin' Angel, you better cross over. Cross over to LVE. I've tried it plenty of times, and ours is better than theirs. Yes. Just facts. Just to say, where did you drink with a dry in France? I drank like the Hamptons, Miami.

All right, cool. Rich shit. Let's go. Let's go. Rich shit. In France, I try to do French, you know, brands out there. What do you do? Bonos?

But now we're doing LVE, man. That's the only one we're doing. Ours is French, too, though. What do you drink in France? What is it? Well, I. What do you drink in France? Well, I drink a lot of the Burgundy wines. So my partner in this wine is a Frenchman. His name is Jean-Charles Boisset.

He sounds rich. He sounds rich. He grew up in Burgundy in France, and so his family has been making wine forever. So he's my connect in France. So how did you come up with the wines? Let's talk about that.

That's a Cabernet? Yeah, that's a Cabernet. We got a Rosé. We got a sparkling Rosé. We got a sparkling white. We got Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc. We got a nice range. No Pinot Grigio?

We do have a small run of Pinot Grigio. Not a lot. And no Juisio. Not a lot. She called it Innogrigio. What? Inno. That's the... Innogrigio. So, look, we're going to explain the rules of the game. Quick time? You guys ready? Are you ready? Let's do it. You got to ask him

what he would like to drink. What would you like to take? Please. I'll stick with vodka. What we got? I'll do vodka shots. That's fine. You want a chilled? Yeah, I'll take mine chilled What we got? Yeah I'll do vodka shots That's fine You want a chilled too? Yeah, I'll take mine chilled Alright, remind me the rules of the game Okay, let's go

So we're going to give you two choices This is to bring up any stories you got with anybody But if you pick one we don't drink If you don't pick, we drink Oh, okay So you say both So I just got to commit one way or the other Yeah

We drink with you We don't leave you out there Yeah, we're having fun So here we go Alright, so I got to set it way or the other. We drink with you. We don't leave you out there. Yeah, we're having fun. So here we go. All right, so I got to set it off? I'll set it off. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. We got to wait for my shots, though. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I think I said it. Go ahead, go ahead. All right, cool, cool, cool. I like this. You ready with the shots?

She's coming. Okay. Chris Brown or Usher? Oh. I'm going to say Usher roller skates because of the roller skates both of them are like supremely talented um but i was on tour with usher um me and kanye were opening for usher this is like this is the confessions era Usher. This is right after College Dropout came out and right before Get Lifted, my album,

came out. Usher's on top of the world. Eight million albums sold. He's touring arenas for Confessions and we're opening for him. I'm seeing the work he's putting in every day, getting the show right. I see that same level of work, ethic, and effort, and then just pure talent from him.

Still 20 years later. So I'm an Usher fan for life. Yeah, you don't got to take a shot. Because you picked. But let me ask you a question. This is off catalog. Yeah. Your lady asks you to go to Usher concert.

And Usher comes over Like Kiki Look at him How he does that How's he do it You know how he does Usher's out here Ruining relationships He's out here

Feeding grapes and shit And strawberries He walks in the house He says to your lady Are you getting Is John legend Well the thing is I slow dance with women on my stage.

Oh, you slow dance too? Oh, you slow dance too? I understand the game. I respect the game, you know? He's like, it's show business. It's show business. It's show business. It's cool, but you...

It's cool. She's not coming home. I'm not volunteering her, but... I respect the game. Because he literally ruined Shorty's relationship. Yeah, yeah. When Homeboy left, he sung this one Kiki. It was Kiki's baby's father, and they weren't married, but he wasn't happy.

Right. She was having too much fun. Whose side was you on? Was you on his side or Usher's side? Because you like, oh, shit, Swiss Beats. Tell Swiss I said what up. I just saw him Sunday. But listen, like I say, that's the game.

It's a show, man. Like, he did it in front of everybody. She ain't sneaking up to his hotel room. This is like in front of everybody. This is funny. It's good. Y'all did it in front of everybody. She ain't sneaking up to his hotel room. This is, like, in front of everybody. This is fun. Right. It's good. Y'all R&B niggas.

Don't leave your girl around me. He said it. He said it. He said it in the song. He did say it. Okay. Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte? I got to go with my guy, guy Harry because I was close with him before

he passed away. I didn't really, I met Mr. Poitier, but I spent a lot of time with Mr. Belafonte. I like how you call them both Mr. Yeah, we really call him Mr. B. He was the example of how to be an activist and an artist.

He took a lot of... A classy dude, too. Yeah, a classy, extremely talented. And he was the biggest selling artist of his era. When he was big, he was bigger than everybody. And so for him to take that and then put it on the line so he could support Dr. King and do everything he did, I always look up to him.

That's who he picked. Yeah. Yep. Okay, Patti LaBelle or Tina Turner? Miss Patti. That's right. Yeah, I mean, Tina was extremely talented, but I just like Miss Patti's music more.

It's like more of my speed, yeah. And she alumnized Drink Champs. And I love Miss Patti. She came on Drink Champs. And I love Miss Patty. She came on Drink Champs with her own glass. Legendary. Yes. When you spend time with her, she's so real. She was so real.

Yeah, like I love her. I really love her. Jada Kiss or Nas? I'm ready to drink. I'm going to say, this is not easy actually. No, it's not. I'm going to say, this is not easy, actually. No, it's not. I'm going to say Nas. Okay, we ain't drinking at all today.

I respect that. I've done records with both of them, and I love both of them. I think I just like Nas' voice just a little better, just his flow and his voice just a little better, but Jada's incredible. And y'all, you, Nas, all of y'all go to light-skinned karate class. I know about y'all.

They have light-skinned meetings. They have light-skinned meetings. Y'all kick Drake out, y'all fucked up. That's a foul dude, man. I'm messing with y'all. Aretha Franklin or Nina Simone? Ooh. I might drink on this one.

I don't know if I can pick. These are two of my favorites of all time. I'm going to say Nina Simone. Oh, you still want to drink? I'm still going to drink, though. Okay, all right. A shot, though? Take a shot.

Let's take a shot for Nina Simone. These are the smallest shots I've ever seen. Usually, it's a lot of shots. It's a long game. We didn't think, we thought you was going to be like very politically correct. No, man. I'm telling you my truth. He said it.

That shit was hot as hell. Yeah, you want it? Whitney Houston or Amy Winehouse? Whitney. That was easy. I should take a shot for knowing that answer. I love Amy, though. I love her music.

I met her. I met Amy when she was brand, like, when that Back to Black album. So she had already had another album that didn't really pop. And then the Back to Black album was about to come out. And I was on Later with Jules Holland, which is a British show, which I love. And the show is just different artists in, like, the round. And so one band will play, and then another band band will play and then the other band will play. And they're all five or six bands in this room together in this big studio in London.

And Amy and I were both on the set. And so she had a couple of her songs. She did Rehab and something else from that album. And then I did a couple of songs from my second album. And she walked up to me like she was a brand new artist, like handing me her demo and handing me Back to Black, which ended up, you know,

taking over the world right after that. But at that point, it hadn't done that yet. And it was about to. That's dope. But that's when I first met her. Wow.

Yeah. Sam Cooke or Teddy Peningrath? Mmm. Mmm. Taking a shot? Mmm. It's not easy. Sam Cooke or Teddy Peningrath? Taking a shot? It's not easy. I'm going to say Teddy. Just because there's more jams that I love. You seem like a Teddy Peningrath, baby.

That's a Philly man. Fly Eagles fly. Is this going to air after the Super Bowl? Yeah, this will be after the Super Bowl. Who knows what will happen? I'm over the Chiefs. You know, if I got to choose. You Patrick Mahone cousin. How dare you? How dare you? I got family that look more like Jalen

Hurston. But I went to school in Philly. I went to U-Penn. That's right. That's right. Yeah, so I got, you know, I got love for Philly. Yeah. Yep.

I got love for Philly. Okay. All right. Jesus, man. Philly. Gilly the Kid going to like that. Yeah. Biggie or Big L?

Biggie. I never was, like, completely into Big L. Like, but I was definitely into Biggie. Okay. DJ Khaled or DJ Drama? Ooh. I got to go with Khaled, man. I did like 20 records with Khaled.

And a legendary record with Nifty Hustle. Exactly. I believe that was his last video. And to take it all the way back, we did a record with good music me yay uh consequence we did a record called grammy family yeah with colin that's a big record that was like when that was the early days when colin first started making those compilation albums and uh he didn't win a grammy colin didn't win a grammy so we won it win a Grammy until we won it together with Nipsey for Hire.

Oh, wow. And that record was called the Grammy family. And the early record was called Grammy family, but years later, we won his first Grammy together. All right. I need to, this is any criteria you want. Okay. Yay or Pharrell? Hmm.

I say yay. Okay. Yeah. Right? All right. Okay. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I just started working with Pharrell recently. Lou Vitale?

Yeah. On music. Really? So we stepped in the studio and we started working on some new music. Is that your first time working together? We'd only done a couple songs together. Okay. But, you know, obviously Ye and I have done a thousand records together. And I'm truly a fan of Ye as a producer and an artist over the years too so but i love both of them they i mean just think how influential both of them have been to all of

our culture not just what we listen to what we wear everything sounds like we're taking a shot no i picked yay you picked yay okay okay okay It's not like we're taking an honorable shot. Let's me and you take a shot then. Alright, let's do it. Cheers. Oh, shit. Okay, yes. Take your shot, Chico. LA or Miami? Miami.

Well, I live in LA and I think miami i enjoy partying here more than i do la but i live in la it's like you know my kids go to school there la that's a long way of saying that it didn't seem like you wanted to say miami's more miami's more fun in doses. And then L.A. is where I stay. Okay. It was all you.

All right, this is me. Seinfeld or Kirby Enthusiasm? We went through this. We've established this. Kirby. Yeah, yes, Kirby. But let's explain to the people why. Well, I think the fact that it's on HBO gives it more leeway to like say all the jokes you know say all the fucks they

want to say and everything else but also I think us getting to know Larry who was the creator of Seinfeld exactly uh I think that was a revelation so I think that's what makes Kurt better is his his personality because George was always a really funny part of Seinfeld anyway but having the real George having Larry there is like it makes it better all right now I want to ask you what is your favorite Seinfeld episode and what is your favorite curb episode now this is this is not with drink chance but one in one I don't know that's a good one I like the one where they uh doing the the the contest in Seinfeld that's a good one. I like the one where they're doing the contest in Seinfeld. That's a good one where they're, like, seeing who's going to jack off first.

Oh, yeah. And then Kramer. Kramer's like, I'm out. Yeah, yeah. Kramer was out. You realize JB's move is Kramer in the theater? Yes, he's very much like that. Yes, he's like the black Kramer.

I forget. So you went with the jerk-off episode for Seinfeld. It's called the contest. It's called the contest. It's called the black. You went with the jerk off episode. Yes. It's called the contest. It's called the contest. It's called the contest. My bad. My bad. Now, your favorite curve.

Oh, my favorite curve. Oh, man. I got to think about that that I don't know I really have to think about it You know what my favorite curve is? Oh yeah When they He hired the people

To be Christians In front of the house Oh yes And then The nativity scene Yeah Yeah yeah yeah Sounds funny

Cause you know He's Jewish So he hired Christians But his wife is Christian His wife is Christian So he hired Christians And I think he didn Christian. His wife is Christian, so he hired Christian. And I think he didn't feed them or something. They went terribly wrong.

So that's my favorite. If you think about it, we'll come back to it. Go ahead, E. You want the next one? Swiss Beets or Timberland? I'm going to say Tim. It's fucked up because I know all these people very well. So I'm going to see.

They did the game too. Yes. I'll say Tim, honestly. Okay. There's more Tim records that I'm like are some of the greatest records of all time than I think of Swizz. But I love a bunch of Swizz records too, but I'm going to say Tim. Okay. Most Def or Black Lee Carlisle?

Most Def or Black Thought? Black Thought. Okay. I just think if Most was still giving us material, then it would be closer, but I think because Black Thought's been so prolific and consistent and prolific, you got to show up.

It's showbiz, man. If you show up and you're making records, then, like... There's more to pull from Black Thought. There's points for that, you know? Like, continue to show up. Okay. Analog or digital?

Well, we run everything through analog before we put it on digital. You still got it still to this day? Yeah, we run it through analog before we put it on digital. Get the fuck out of here. Still to this day? Yeah, we run it through tape. Really? Yeah. When I make a record, we run it through the tape first and then put it to digital.

When you say tape, you mean rail? Yeah, though. Get the fuck out of here still. Old school, yeah. Yo, let me make some noise for you. I didn't even know you could do that. That's some genius. I didn't know you could still.

Even Cartel said that yesterday too On the rail Yeah Oh shit Yeah you can run it to tape Before you put it on digital Oh man So there's best of both worlds

It just gives it that flavor That hum But you picked digital I'm going with analog Oh you're going with analog Thank you That's what I go with all the time Marvin Gaye or Al Green

Marvin Damn this is easy He's just flying through I'm just willing to commit You know what I go with all the time. Marvin Gaye or Al Green? Marvin. Damn, this is easy. He's just flying through these. I'm just willing to commit. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to make a decision. Even if I might have second thoughts later, I'm going to decide. Dre or Quincy Jones?

Ooh. It's like apples and oranges, but I'm going to say Quincy. Okay. Just the range of musicianship, you know, because you think about Quincy's career, he was producing and arranging and composing for Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles in the 50s and 60s, and then giving us Thriller in the 80s and Tamiya and everybody else and all the R&B artists he produced over the years. Nancy Sinatra, he did everything.

So just the breadth of work he was able to do. MTV, VOD Magazine. Yeah, he produced Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Roots, Color Purple. He just gave us everything. There you go. Next one. Get Lifted or My Favorite Dream?

Get Lifted. That's a good segue. Let's promote Get Lifted. 20 years. That's right. Make some noise for that. So this is the 20th anniversary of Get Lifted right now. We just did a deluxe edition of the album with the original album first,

but then a whole extra album. You did it all over. Yeah, a whole extra album of remixes. So I did an Ordinary People with Tems, an Afrobeat version. I did an Afrobeat version of Refuge with Semi. Both of them are from Nigeria. And then I did a couple hip-hop remixes. I did Black Thought

on Used to Love You with 9th Wonder on Making the Beat. You said you're making the beat? 9th Wonder. And then on Let's Get Lifted Again, I had Killer Mike and Lil Wayne each do a verse. And so the remixes

are dope. But we have the original versions first, and then at the end of the album, you. And so the remixes are dope. But we have the original versions first and then at the end of the album you can listen to the remixes. That's fine. MJ or Prince? Just fucking with your childhood, Katow. This is a shot, Rick.

What do you think? Ah. Ah. You got four shots Might as well do this four times at least I'm going to say Both MJ

If I'm just going record for record Like the songs that Had the most impact in my life I feel like MJ Had more They say MJ Is like MJ had more. They say MJ is

just as famous as Jesus. Do you believe that? Now? At his peak. At his peak, yeah, I'm sure. But if you ask a kid now, I don't know if a lot of kids know. But during that time, he was everything. The first

merch I ever had was a Michael Jackson Thriller folder for school you had the zipper jacket? yeah I had the zipper jacket too you look like you had the glove I was born in 78 so

my first time going to school was mid-80s, and that was everything. No, yeah. When Thriller, when that video came out, that was it. My parents were very religious, so they thought Prince was a little too wild. He was wild enough. Yeah. He was. So he was like forbidden fruit at the house for a while.

But MJ, we can get away with that. Which is great because both of them had very religious families. Yeah. And Prince was very religious. Yeah, Prince became even more religious. I think he was Jehovah's Witness. Yeah. Yeah, our Seventh-day Adventist.

Stevie Wonder or Smokey Robinson? Stevie. You know Snoop Dogg said that Stevie Wonder FaceTimes him? Yeah, Stevie. We have all kinds of stories. Stevie FaceTimes me too. What? What?

I was waiting. I knew it. Which is the one that George Clinton, George Clinton said that he saw him cross a busy street. No, that was Rick Charles. Everybody's got, everybody's got Stevie's not blind.

Give me, give me a, everybody's got, everybody's got Stevie's not blind stories. What did Shaq say? Shaq said he's seen Stevie get in the elevator and said, what's up, Diesel? And then press the button. I don't remember that button bar. I don't remember that bar.

But we need to hear your Stevie story. Come on. I mean, everybody's got him. But I went to his studio. You seen him rolling up? And he was just walking around like he was seeing everything. But it was also his studio. You seen him rolling up? And he was just walking around like he was seeing everything. But it was also his studio. So like he's

been there a lot. Yo, you heard what he said? He said he's walking around like he was seeing everything. He's legally blind, but he's actually not 100% blind? I don't know. I don't know. I never asked. You know how there's legally blind where you can kind of see. I never asked I never asked I never asked

I never asked him Because man The stories are crazy I know Stevie Family Be calling him like Yo drink champs Love you Yo we talk about him

Almost every episode But he likes to make jokes About it too Like he makes Blind jokes all the time He has blind jokes? All the time He'll just say like

Yeah I'll drive over there I'll see you when I And yeah, I'll drive over there. I'll see you when I... He'll drive over there. Because Oprah brought him a Maybach and he said he was going to drive me. Exactly. He says it all the time. He'll joke about it all the time. Wow.

We would love to have him on. But I've never asked him, Stevie, be real with me. Are you really blind? What? I see him pulling out his glasses and looking at you. You know what's crazy? Most blind people, they feel your face to see how you look. I've never seen Stevie touch anybody's face.

I've never seen... I'm just being loud. You've seen him as a famous person. He's had someone next to him be like, you're about to see somebody. He's always got somebody next to him. That's true. If I'm betting

I'm betting he's blind Okay Isley Brothers or The Parliament? Isley's Just more records that Resonate with me Tony Tony Tony or BBD? Tony Tony Tony, same answer

More records that resonate with me I'm close with Raphael too And he's produced a couple of my albums. Raphael Sadiq. Raphael Sadiq, the lead singer and one of the great producers. He just won Album of the Year with Beyonce for the country album. Oh, he was a part of that? Yeah, he was a part of that and a part of Renaissance. Wow.

And he's a part of everything that you don't even know. I bet. Like D'Angelo, Lady, Untitled by D'Angelo, some of the great R&B records of all time, he's behind. And then all those Tony Tony records are amazing too. Yeah, great. Okay, new edition or BBD? No, no, Jackson 5.

Oh, Jackson 5, my bad. Jackson 5. Okay. This guy's from Boston. He's mad. Tony, Tony, Tony or BBD? I know we did that one. We did that one? Alicia Keys or Rihanna? I'm going to say Rihanna.

Alicia's my friend too. But as a fan just listening, I probably listen to Rihanna more and again more records that I'm like in love with of hers y'all got couples beef or something you just Swiss and nah man I literally

love both of them man truly love both of them they're like wonderful people I'm just speaking as like a non-biased fan and they both drink Chance the Loan when I show up. Soul Man or Coming to America? Oh, Coming to America.

This is Coming to America 2 they put. Yes. Oh, Coming to America 2. Well, Soul Man. We'll give it to Soul Man. Both Malcolm Lee movies? I think those are both Malcolm Lee movies. I think those are both Malcolm Lee movies. Let's take a shot because you switched.

Cheers. That's my guy, Malcolm Lee. He just texted me this week. All right, this is the last question, then we'll get back in an interview. Loyalty or respect? I'm going to say that's a good question. Respect. And the reason why I will say, I think,

I think we should want respect more than we want loyalty from people just because first of all, respect will come with loyalty anyway. Right. But I want, sometimes loyalty can bleed over into being blind loyalty and people not telling you what you don't want to hear, et cetera, et cetera. Like, yes, man. Yeah, so I would rather have respect.

Okay. Let's make some noise for that. John Legend, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not sure if anybody ever told you this. I think you should run for president. No. Someone has told me that before a few times, but I don't think I ever will. Why not?

You look like a young bop. Any political aspirations? You look like a young bop. Honestly, I love being involved in everything, and I'll stay involved. But I just feel like I would not enjoy running for it or being it. Let's just say you did. You woke up the next day, tomorrow, and it's like, fuck it, I'm going to run for fucking president.

Who would be your vice president? Who would you pick? I don't know. Not yet? I don't know. Shit got real? No, seriously, who would you pick? Who would it be?

Ask him right now, like tomorrow. I don't know. Ask him right now tomorrow. I don't know. What a loaded question. Wouldn't it be dope if you was to pick Borat and say, yo, Obama, come back as my vice. I was like, Borat? Yeah, my bad.

I fucked up. I fucked up the way I pronounced it. Barack Obama. Barack Obama. Sure. I'll see. Would that be crazy? John Legend running for fucking president?

Yeah. And then Borat come out and he crip walk or something? You know what I'm saying? He do something crazy. He's not coming out to be vice president. He keeps calling him Borat. Yeah, yeah. Barack.

My bad. I'm all over the place. I'm excited. I'm excited. You're excited for that team? Yeah, this is what these Lexi kids do. I'm excited. Yes, yes. You're excited for that team. This is what dyslexic kids do. I'm excited. But who would you pick?

Who would you pick? You know, I feel like it shouldn't be a celebrity. No, no, no. Whoever. If it's going to be me, I feel like it shouldn't be a celebrity next to me. It shouldn't be a politician either, though. Yeah, maybe so. So let's get wild.

Let's pick George Clinton or somebody. George Clinton. I'm just playing. It's your choice. I'm sorry. Kerry Washington. She's an actor. Okay, yeah.

Is she playing a presidential? She was in Scandal. She was in Scandal. Okay. Well, the thing about Kerry is I've seen her behind the scenes, and she's really politically aware, and she's like really politically aware and she's really great at organizing

and motivating people and she would be amazing at it. And she's a great communicator. Okay. See? He thought that through. And you didn't give him much time.

I was thinking Pharrell. I was thinking he's going to pick Pharrell. You want to make the best beats for the White House? God damn it. Let's make some noise. You even talked make the best beats for the way out? God damn it. This makes a noise. You even talked a little bit.

This is me being wrong. Yes. Okay. All right. 2019. How many haters did you get because of this cover? So many. Let me see.

Let me see. See, now this is when if I was on Twitter, I was on Twitter back then, and I made an intentional choice to not check my Twitter. You wasn't on black Twitter when this came out? I did not check my Twitter when that cover came out. You knew it was going to be black. Because I knew it was not going to be nice. Right. Because there's no win situation for you because some people are like, yeah, great.

But most people are going to be like, fuck him. Somebody else should have won. And then they list all the other people that should have won. So I'm like, fuck y'all. I'm not reading y'all's tweets. But how did they call you for this cover? My publicist called me and they were like, we got big news, John. Let's take a shot for your face.

I'm sorry. It's not a part of the show no more. I was going to take a shot. The sexiest man alive. Jesus. Holy shit. They said, we got big news. And I was like, really?

And I was already thinking like, oh, man, I'm going to get so much shit for this. But I was like, all right, let's do it. And so then they set up the photo shoot. They did the whole thing. Did it at our house and, you know. You did the photo shoot at your house? Yeah, at the house. So come to me.

Did you charge them for that? We usually do charge like a location fee. Okay, God damn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's some money. You got to double dip. You got to double dip. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network,

hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and MeatEater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello, you get your podcasts. talking, of course, about Paw Patrol. There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it. Everyone hates it, except for me. Plus, we investigate everything from why American sirens are so unbearably loud

to the impact of face blindness on social connection to the secret behind Thomas' English muffins, perfect nooks and crannies. And also, we go after Joe Rogan. Are you ready, Joe? I'm coming for you. You won't want to miss it. Listen to Revisionist History on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21stisodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This has kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We got to talk about EGOT. Yeah. All right, listen, I'm going to be honest with you.

You're probably the only EGOT award winner I'm ever going to meet in life. Well, you could meet Jennifer Hudson. I met Jennifer Hudson. She's an EGOT. Yeah, she is now. She might not have been when you met her. Well, definitely the first here on Drink Champs. And then Whoopi.

Whoopi was the first black person to become an EGOT. I was the second. I was the first black man. And then J-Hud and now Viola also is an EGOT. Viola Davis. Viola Davis, yes. Okay, so alright. Let's explain some more. You gotta sound off. What's an EGOT? Sound off of an EGOT.

EGOT is an Emmy. A Grammy. Oscar. An EGOT is an Emmy. Booyah, guy. Bangada. A Grammy. Yeah. Bangada. Oscar. Yeah, yeah.

Bangada. And I forgot what the last one is. A Tony? Did you say Grammy? I don't even know what a Tony is. I'm a nigga, nigga. It's for Broadway. It's for Broadway. It's for Broadway.

It's for Broadway. Oh, that's what we're niggas going to play. So we produced a play. We produced a play called Jitney, and it won a Tony. And so that's my tea. Ooh. That's awesome, man. Congratulations.

That's very hard to get all of those. So which one did you get first? The Grammys. So my first Grammys were three Grammys for my debut album, Get Lifted, 20-year anniversary this year. Goddamn, explain that again. So I won Best New Artist, Best R&B Album, and Best R&B Male

Vocal Performance for that album and for Ordinary People. And then since then, I've won 13 Grammys. 13, goddamn, explain that. And then I won an Oscar for Glory with Common. We wrote that for Selma. And then after that, I won the Tony for Jitney, which is a play written by August Wilson. And we produced a revival of it.

And we won Best Revival on Broadway. And then only needed the Emmy and NBC called me up and asked me to star as Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar live production that they did for NBC and that play that musical was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. And all three of us only needed an Emmy to get to EGOT. And we all won it at the same time when we won Best Lives Music Special. That was a hell of a party. Yeah. Is there a point where you're getting closer,

where you're like, now you're shooting for it? You're like, let's do this to get this. My team knew that all I needed was an Emmy. And they were like, and I have a production company and we produce TV and film. So like if anything we produce would get an Emmy, then I would have an EGOT.

So they're like, man, we're going to get you this EGOT. So we produced Jesus Christ Superstar Live and it won the Emmy. Dope. Yeah.

Well, I'm going to tell you, well, first of all, let's make some noise for that. Well, I'm going to tell you something. You know, I'm an artist first and i believe in i'm pro artist yeah super pro artist right so we've been doing this nine years eight years like nine years like nine years right and do these nine years no one has ever sent us a writer. You are the only one

who sent... Let me just tell you, I was so happy. Yo, let me tell you, as the artist in me, I was like, get everything! He was about to send us a writer. It's funny because I haven't even been to the dressing room so I don't even know if I have a writer. I was... Yo, let me just say something.

The artist in me, because I, cool, this is one thing, right? And I lost money on you too. I bet you was going to be on time. We always bet. I was here at 2.09.

No, no, no. You said 2.09. You came here 2.16. Oh my God. Yes, I lost. They literally bet. No, we literally bet. And I bet my mind. I was like, no.

I called you Mr. Legend. I was like, Mr. Legend will be on time. And he's going to be our president. He's going to be our president. He's going to be our president. He's going to be our president. He's going to be our president. But, um,

holy moly guacamole. What was I saying before that? you were saying that he was late the rider, the rider that shit touched me so bad because we got like small riders and then big riders you had specifically purple grapes in there that day

I like grapes I like grapes I love that we have the streamlined version and then we got the full version for the show and everything I apologize I love it

do not apologize your team is dope let me just tell you something I was on tour in Japan Let me just tell you something. I'm just like, oh, sorry, man. Somebody want to go to a grocery store? I was on tour in Japan, right? And every city that I went to, the promoter was like, he just kept hugging me because my rider was just like Hennessy at the time. Blunts. Heineken.

Maybe Heineken. Like I had no fruit. I had no water. And I said to him, I had like a 24-city tour with him. So I was like, yo, why do you keep hugging me every time that I go in the dressing room? He was like, because I just had LL. Do you imagine where LL's rider was? Like, in Japan, he wanted green apples.

I don't even think green apples go past East Coast. So he was just happy how simple your rider was. How simple I was, and I didn't even think green apples go past East Coast. So he was just happy how simple your writer was. How simple I was, and I didn't realize it. So this whole nine years. LL, you know, he's Hollywood now. I believe LL only wanted yellow Skittles. He wanted them to open up every bag. I'm just playing.

That was all Violator, right, bro? This was all Violator. Remember, I booked you out here for the first time, and I got your rider. My rider was crazy. And you had like two pallets of Snapples or some crazy thing. And I was like,

the fuck is that even going to be able to drink that shit, dude? By the way, do you make your own rider? Because I don't make my rider. I have input, yeah. Okay. I like when I don't like where we are with it. Because maybe I wanted this two years ago, but I want it now. Then I'll go back and go through it and edit it.

So the last tour we went on, I went through and edited it. And I haven't had to say anything since then. You know what we should have? We should do a documentary of music people writers. Yeah. Because different people like different shit. Hey, Revolt, they listen to my writer, unfortunately, when I got the,

what was the drink I got? Fireball? Fireball. Yeah, you drinking Fireball, that's like a frat boy. No, usually, I was like, that's a Jägermeister. That's a Jägermeister.

They actually gave it to me like, here's your writer. I was like, oh, shit. And then it went all downhill from there. By the way, I'm sorry to switch the subjects up but if if if god came to you right now and god says john legend you i need you to make one record to save humanity and you got one feature and you got one producer dead or alive the feature and the producer dead or alive. The feature and the producer, dead or alive.

We got one record. This record that you make, John Legend, is going to save humanity and put people on motherfucking Mars. To live. Yeah. He said he don't want to work with Elon. No, Elon don't own Mars. I'll pick somebody I haven't worked with that I love,

that I shouted out today. Timbaland, producer. Timbaland will be the producer. You can have a feature if you want. Dead or alive. We talking like a singer or a rapper? Whatever you want. This is John Legend World.

We saw him with a banjo. Let's do Timbo and Hov. I was just listening to Dirt Off Your Shoulder in the car. That's a crazy record. Yeah. Nasty. Timbo and Hov. I just saw a video of the first moment he showed Hov

that video. Timbaland was eating the banana. It was awkward, but it was dope. It was dope. It was dope. It was real. He had the banana in his mouth. He just held it. It was big. It was real. It was real. It was real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had the banana in his mouth. He just held it. It was big.

It was big. Big Timbaland. Yeah, yeah, big Timbaland. What do you like more, performing or making a record? I like to make the record. Meh. I love both. I'm going to say my favorite part is writing

writing yes for other people or yourself writing for myself but I mean and for other people too but

I love starting with nothing and ending the day with something new that could change my life that's a special the pull of the ether yeah it's like

hey that didn't exist before today and we made it and it's amazing you always think The pull of the ether. Yeah, it's like, hey, that didn't exist before today. And we made it, and it's amazing. You always think it's amazing the first day, and it's not always amazing. But that feeling, there's nothing like it. All right. Okay, let's take it back to the beginning. How did we start?

So I grew up in Ohio, grew up in a small city called Springfield. And my family was very— Is that next to where Dave Chappelle is? That's right there where Dave is. in Ohio. Grew up in a small city called Springfield. And my family is very... That's right. So if he was on SNL, he was talking about my hometown the other day because of the whole eating... Oh, the Haitians. Yeah, the Haitians are there.

And so Trump was making up shit about them on the debate stage. But that was my city. That's where I grew up. So I grew up in Springfield, Ohio. My family's very involved in the church. So my grandpa was the pastor.

My grandmother was the organist. My mom was the choir director. So I just grew up around people who made gospel music all the time. And so I had piano at the house, drums at the house. We put a piano in here for you. All right. You want to jam? Yeah, yeah.

Let's go. But yeah, I just grew up around music all the time, especially in church. And I always loved it. I always wanted to sing. Just grew up around people who loved it, too. And they encouraged me. I took piano lessons when I was four. Started singing in church choir when I was seven.

And, you know, it's been my life. Goddamn it. You love it. I love it. But you said you're celebrating your debut album. But you had music that you had albums before this independently. I had independent albums, a couple of them. They basically were like demos that I was, you know, trying to get signed with.

But I was also selling them at my shows. So I would play. I was living in New York York and I was working in the daytime as a consultant. So like this very like white collar job, um, in the business world, corporate world. But at night I was trying to get signed and I would play gigs around New York. So I would sell my little demos at the shows. And, um, so that I graduated college in 99, moved to New York in 2000. I got signed in 04 and Get Lifted came out in 04. So I had like those four or five years out of school where I was just trying to get signed, but also working a day job. That's when I met Ye, that's when I met a lot of the people that I wrote the first album with was during that time.

Okay, we will get back to that. But is this true? That you have to eat a rotisserie chicken meal before every... That's in my show writer. That wasn't in this writer. We were offended that you ain't ordered a rotisserie chicken meal. That's in my concert writer, yes.

Yes, I do eat that. I don't eat the whole chicken, but I order half a chicken. Okay, rotisserie. Why rotisserie? I just like the feel of it. Let me ask. Boston Market? Is Boston Market accepted? I love Boston Market, yeah. Okay, I foughterie. Why rotisserie? I just like the feel of it. Let me ask. Boston Market?

Is Boston Market accepted? I love Boston Market. Yeah. Okay, I fuck with Boston Market. I fuck with Boston Market, too. Why is it called Boston Market? It used to be called Boston Chicken. It started as Boston Chicken, then it became Boston Market.

Because that's how they chicken. I've been to Boston. I've never seen that chicken in Boston. I'm just asking. Anybody else ask? That's a good question. Yeah, because I've never seen that chicken. Did it start in Boston? Hassan's from. Anybody else ask? That's a good question. I've never seen that chicken. Did it start in Boston?

Hassan's from Boston. That's the reason why. But have you ever had that Boston Market chicken in Boston? Okay, all right. I love Boston Market. He's serious about his shit too.

I respect him. I respect him. So we established you don't get mad. I'm a very mellow guy. Rarely do I lose my cool. I got to ask you this straight up. We had Kanye on this episode.

Yes, I saw. We had two different episodes. Yes. And this is, according to your words, as you're saying it, this is like your mentor, somebody that you looked up to, somebody that puts you on. We made a lot of great music together. A lot of money. We came up together. Right.

Yeah. Sometimes does it disturb you? How did you feel? Absolutely, it disturbs me. Some of the things he says. And I'm not as disturbed for me because what he said about me, I didn't care. I'm like, obviously, it was a good thing for him and for me that he signed me. I wasn't worried about the literal words it's sad man I don't love

seeing it man I don't love seeing it for him because you know him like yeah like uh these people um to most people and I don't want to stay on this, I'll get off. But most people, it's entertainment, right? Yeah, and it's like... But that's your brother. It is outrageous, and sometimes it's funny, and some of my friends will text me, you hear what Kanye said? I'm like, yeah, but part of it's sad,

you know? It's sad seeing it. And I still look at him as one of the most important artists that we've ever had and I still like some of his music is just like truly incredible yeah groundbreaking world changing and still holds up now and and I just feel like it's a shame that that it gets clouded by all the other shit god bless man yeah but but hold up because to go more to the musical side of it like yeah that big that journey that when you guys connected in the beginning what was that like how so what stage of his career and for you like what

was that whole beginning that was good music correct, so it didn't even exist. Good music didn't exist when we met. So, I'm a new artist. I'm, like I said, working by day as a management consultant in New York. One of my roommates I went to college with, his name is Devo. And Devo had a cousin from Chicago that was about to move to the area. And his name was Kanye West. So, Devo. He's not known either.

No, but he had just started working with Jay and Dame and all them at Rockefeller. Okay. And he had just, him and Just Blaze basically did the whole blueprint. That's right. That's right. So when I met Kanye, it was May of 2000, or like late spring or early summer of 2001. And I remember because it was at Jimmy's Uptown and I recorded that show at Jimmy's Uptown in Harlem. Jimmy's Cafe?

Yeah, Jimmy's Uptown. Jimmy's Cafe? Yeah, in Harlem. He's a gangster. He's going to stab you. I'm telling you. He's going to stab somebody. So I'm doing a show there and we recorded it and we actually put out a live record to my fans of that recording.

So that's why I knew when I met him was because it was that day that we record the show. And my roommate's like, you got to meet my cousin. He just moved to New York and he's producing for Rockefeller. And we met and then we started working together a few months later. He was working on his demo, and he was trying to get signed as a rapper. But everybody was like, yeah, you keep making me. They weren't taking him serious. Can I stop you for a second?

Because Pharrell always downplays when me and Pharrell met. Pharrell was cocky as shit, even as a person that was coming up. Was Kanye cocky as shit? Yeah, he was cocky. Okay, all right, all right, cool. It suits him right. He's not the same as he was back then,

but he's always had a strong sense of self-reliance. All right, yeah, yeah. Because Pharrell was like, he was so humble now. I'm like, no, no, no, motherfucker. I remember you in the beginning. But when the guy told you, my cousin, did you already know about his production? No, it wasn't out yet. So the blueprint came out on 9-11.

Remember 9-11? On the day of 9-11. And that's Ye's debut as a producer. That was his first big moment as a producer. So he had H to the Izzo, which was a single, before the album came out. And then he had a few uh cuts on the album and then blaze did the other side so it was just like both of them yeah were the album basically so that soul sample sound was the whole blueprint uh sound and yay and just blaze did the whole thing basically

and he's telling you this and you and you believe him you like i'm like let's meet him like at this point like i'm trying to get signed too and I'm like let's try it I don't know him but we'll see and you never know with hip hop producers because some aren't musical enough because they're more like beat driven and you know I'm an R&B artist I'm more soulful so I want somebody that

still has some musical underpinnings and the good thing about Ye was he was using all the soul samples and the music was very soulful. So it was like the perfect blend of soul and hip-hop for us to work together. So we start working together like late

2001, early 2002. He gets in an accident. So you met him before the accident? Before the accident. I think he was signed by the time he had the accident. But Dame and him, our impression was they signed him just so they could keep him in-house for beats. For beats.

Yeah. Not because they really thought he was going to be a successful solo artist. But when you say our impression, who are you talking about? You, Constantine? Me, Ye, Don C. Like the crew. Don C. Yeah.

So we got this. Dominopoly? Yeah, Konsey? Me, Ye, Don C, like the crew. Don C, yeah. So we got this. Dominopoly? Yeah, the whole crew. Yeah, so we, and I started to get to know them later, but, you know, Devo was working with him, my roommate. He was, like, basically running his production company. And so, you know, Kanye really believed in himself as a solo artist, and a lot of his team did, but I felt,

and a lot of us felt like rockefeller didn't so he gets an accident can i tell you real quick something to add to the story i was working for def jam at the time and they weren't pushing him as an artist yeah he went and sent he got the list of all the street teams sent the white labels of his singles hustling and started a conference call with himself and all the street teams yeah so yo we pushing this like himself yes outside of the infrastructure of the label he was so entrepreneurial he put out his own mixtapes um and um he he got in the accident and made through the wire right um and then he started just camping because he got an accident in la right so he started just camping

out at the w in westwood in L.A. Westwood. Okay. Yeah. And so I would go out there from New York whenever I had time. And we would work on College Dropout with him. And I wrote Used to Love You out there. And some of my songs for Get Lifted.

And that's when I started to see, after the accident, this new sense of, like, this man is on a mission. Right. And it started with through the wire but then i heard jesus walks and all these other records i'm like wow yo this is gonna be and i played piano on lauren hill's miseducation so what what what my two so you played you was on that i played piano on everything is everything on lauren hill's album and i said to yay when i was listening to jesus walks i was like i feel like I was part of one album that changed the world in 98. And this album is about to do the same thing in 2004. And you got credit for Lauryn Hill?

Yeah. I feel like you're- John Stevens, yeah. I was in John Legend, yeah. Yo, that's wild, man. That's crazy. Because how did you go- Wait, wait, wait. Yo, that's wild, man. That's crazy. Because how did you go? Wait, wait, wait.

Let's just finish this, right? So anyway, that time was crazy because we're all out in L.A. We're meeting up with him. He's recovering from the accident, but he's got this new sense of purpose. And he's making the best music of his life up to that point. And it just felt like the momentum was there, it was going to be a big special album. And it was. Sure was.

Yeah. But how about the Grammy family? Yeah. Y'all had a whole industry shook up. Yeah. Every Monday at one point. We were doing the Good Fridays. Oh, Good Friday.

My bad. I said Monday. That lets you know how much I'll be drinking. Right. But, like, was that something that y'all all got together and said, we're going to fuck up the industry? I think sometimes Ye just gets in that, like, creative, like, that just extra excitement. And he's ready to, like, he's just got all these ideas and he just wants to get them out. And he's like,

this is good Fridays. That was the time. He was like, everybody at the studio needs to wear a suit and tie. And so everybody was dressed on, like they was in a reservoir dogs at the studio. They called it the Rosewood era. It was like a whole thing.

So he, sometimes he's just beyond one. And he's like, that's his thing at that time. And that's what he'd be on. That's ill yeah god damn it i wish i would have gone to the studio with a goddamn reservoir dog oh jesus he called it the rosewood era so then you get so so now getting into your project

transitioning from his yeah so it was all happening at the same time, though. So we were working on, like, Used to Love You and some of the joints from Get Lifted during the same time that we're working on College Dropout. Really? At the same time? It was all happening at the same time. We're both trying to get, I was trying to get signed after he had already gotten signed to Rockefeller. And I eventually signed to Good Music. And my roommate was running the label for him. So I was basically signed to myckefeller um and i eventually signed to good music um and my roommate was running the

label for him so i was basically signed to my roommate's label um with his cousin and um and eventually after college dropout came out that was when the industry really started to be like okay right we fuck with the whole crew so before that we took the same music to all the labels, and they turned us down, or they gave us a low offer. And when College Dropout came out, everybody changed their tune, and we had a bidding war, and I signed with Columbia. And who was the crew at the time? You, Consequence? GLC, Don C.

I mean, those were the artists. Me, Consequence, GLC, and Ye. Those were the artists, but then Don C, mean those are the artists me Consequence GLC and Ye those are the artists but then Don C John Monopoly the whole crew was you know we were touring together we were opening for Usher together that was the crew crazy man did you ever think

like cause y'all was like almost like the modern day Wu-Tang clan right like but not exactly okay but with different like you know

you had Pusha T you had Consequence you had you you had Kid Cudi Big Sean Big Sean like during that

during that Good Friday's time that was a like that roster was crazy I'm gonna be honest as an industry person we were scared of that Friday we did not like it like I'm just being honest like now I can say I'm not fucking be honest. As an industry person, we were scared of that Friday. We did not like it.

Like, I'm just being honest. Now I can say I'm not fucking making music no more. So, what? Those records, like, click, and some of those records were insane. Yeah, like, we were mad at y'all. We were like, why? Why did y'all want to just shut everything down? Yeah, it was wild.

And then right around that time, right after that time, Jay and Kanye started working on Watch the Throne. One or two? This is the one? This is the main. Watch the Throne. Yeah, it's the only one. Yeah.

So this is around 2012, 2013. He's up in the Mercer. They talk about it in the song. The Mercer Hotel in New York. I thought you were talking about a car. Just to let you know I ain't getting money. So they were literally in the Mercer Hotel, and he just brought his studio equipment in there and was making Watch the Throne with Jay.

And then we made Love in the Future, my album that came out in 2013, in that same hotel. And so all of me was on that i didn't do that one with yay but yay produced the whole like executive produced the whole album and uh that was another crazy time so there's been these times when yay's really on like a creative tear and uh producing some of the best music of that era. It was incredible. Again, like I said earlier,

I feel like you never had a bad day. I just feel like you're a positive person, which is really, really, really, really dope to see in this day and time because there's a lot of negative shit going on. Is there anything that you regret? I mean, I have regrets

all the time. I mean, there's things I would do differently now, but I honestly, I don't think about regrets because I feel like everything that happened happened, and I wouldn't be here if all of it didn't happen.

Like the good and the bad. I just feel like all of it didn't happen. Like the good and the bad. I just feel like all of it brought me to where I am and I love where I am. And I learned from everything. Goddamn, that was the most appealing. John Legend, I gotta ask you. Do you rewind time? I only got a little bit of gray right here.

All right. I'm not trying to get rid of it yet. I'm trying to be like him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm coming out with fast forward time. Yeah. He's coming out with the gray version. I got like 10 grays down here.

He's coming out with the version where you can make it be a gray error. Gray error. Yeah. Okay. One of the most beautiful records in the world. All over the world. Not New York, not America. Ordinary people.

Thank you. Thank you. One of the most, like, humblest records in the world. Thank you. How did you make it? So,

that started with Will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas. So I had the same manager as them, David Sonnenberg. And when he signed me, he was like, I'd love to get you in with Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas. And at the time, it was before they really blew up with Fergie and everything. They were still... Like an underground group. Pre-Fergie, yeah. But he was always a dope producer.

And so I went out to LA the first time. And we wrote She Don't Have to Know. We wrote something for a compilation album that Will was doing. And then Will really liked writing with me. I wrote a hook for the black eyed peas and then um after i got signed uh it was like the summer 2004 i just gotten signed in may and he was in new york and he was like can you come by hit factory when we used to have hit Factory in New York. Remember that? 57th Street. Yeah, right around there. So he was in the studio, and he was like,

can you just write some hooks for us? I love writing with you. So he would just play beats, and I would just see what hook I could come up with. And I came up with, we're just ordinary people, to a beat. So it wasn't like stripped down piano ballad like it was on my album. It was to a beat um so it wasn't like stripped down piano ballad like it was on my album it was to a beat um and it was going to be a hip-hop song for the black eyed peas um with me on the hook in mind thinking of the black eyed peas i wrote it the chorus just listening to the music and seeing what did you record that beat i recorded recorded it that night, just the hook.

Right. And then a few days later, I'm like, well, you can keep every other idea I wrote, but I want to keep Ordinary People for myself. Right. And he was like, okay, no problem. I was like, I'll let you produce it, no problem. But I feel like it'll be a better R&B song

than a hip-hop song. And I started messing with it on tour. I went on a European tour with Kanye and every soundtrack, every soundcheck, I would write more of the verses to Ordinary People. And so I basically wrote the chorus in the studio with Will and the verses on the road with Ye. And I recorded a demo back in L.A. on just piano. And I played it for everybody, and I was like, yeah, Will.i.am's going to produce it, blah, blah, blah. And everybody's like, don't fuck with that. Leave it alone.

And so we ended up leaving it stripped down, just vocal, piano, and that's how it came out. And back then, remember the samplers you used to get as a DJ? So they would hand out the samplers. And it was my first single, Used to Love You, with the holla, holla, holla. And then three snippets of other tracks from the album. And then it ended with a full version of Ordinary People.

This is late 2004. I'm out on the road with Usher and Ye from August to October. Used to Love You came out during that time and we're promoting it at every stop on the Usher tour. I'm going to do radio and we're giving them the sampler.

In Chicago, they were like, yeah, Used to Love You is cool, but they just decided at WGCI they were going to start playing Ordinary People, and they made it the single by it blowing up in Chicago first and then took over.

The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.

And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello. Malcolm Gladwell here. On this season of Revisionist History, we're going where no podcast has ever gone before.

In combination with my three-year-old, we defend the show that everyone else hates. I'm talking, of course, about Paw Patrol. There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My son watches Paw Patrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it. Everyone hates it.

Except for me. Plus, we investigate everything from why American sirens are so unbearably loud, to the impact of face blindness on social connection, to the secret behind Thomas's English muffins, perfect nooks and crannies. And also, we go after Joe Rogan. Are you ready, Joe? I'm coming for you. You won't want to miss it. Listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means

to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote, Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs

podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Because a lot of people thought you was from Chicago. Yeah. Because of the yay and everybody.

But I grew up in Ohio, but never lived in Chicago. But, you know, I love Chicago. But, yeah, but they really claimed me as their own, too, just because of the yay connection. And they were the first ones that loved Ordinary People. And yay loved it so much that he wanted to direct the video. So he ended up directing the Ordinary People video. So if you look at it, that's him. That's his work.

Did Will ever get upset that he couldn't produce it? No, he got some publishing. Really? Yeah, he got some publishing. So he wound up not producing it. Yeah, well, he knew that it was better that way. Okay. Like stripped down.

It made more impact that way. And you got to think like what was coming out in R&B at that time nothing else like just like that just stripped down Alicia a little bit but not even

it was just it stood out from the radio and so it's like acapella yeah yeah but do you think

you're an ordinary person I mean what does that even mean you know what I'm asking the ordinary person writer here's what I think what do you mean here's what I think

I think when I wrote this song I was thinking about my parents because they had gotten divorced then back together then divorced again right before my first

album was about to come out. I'm writing thinking, we don't know where to go. I'm writing it based on their situation, but the bottom line is, I think no matter if you're rich or poor, celebrity or not,

everybody goes through shit in their relationships. In that sense, yes, I'm an ordinary person. I love that answer, but you're not. There's a lot of extraordinary things about my life, yes. Do you think... So many people say overnight success right right that shit doesn't exist yeah it almost never happens that way it never happened yeah but do you think that you fast-forwarded from the that child prodigy to superstardom, it didn't feel like fast forward to me

because I'm like working a day job, working a corporate job. I'm just asking for the people. I'm like, and I didn't get signed until I was 25. So it wasn't like I was, you know, getting signed. Like some of these artists get signed when they're 18, 19, 14, 15. And, you know, back then I thought I was ready.

You know, when I was 14, I was like singing at talent shows. I'm like, why isn't somebody signing me now? But I didn't even know what went into getting signed, you know, or what went into being a real artist, not just a singer. You know, I'm on The Voice now and I'm always like trying to advise these guys on what it means to actually be an artist and not just somebody who can sing. But I didn't know that back then. So you have to grow. You have to learn. And I thought I was ready then, but I wasn't know that back then so you have to grow you have to learn and uh i thought i was ready then but i wasn't ready until my mid-20s and then you know

it was time god damn you and then you know the cool thing not to interrupt your applause but the cool thing was i keep bringing it up but bring it up being with yay during that time he became famous like a year before i did so it was almost like I got to you saw it watch it um while he was experiencing it and I was right there and uh it made it easier for me to transition into being the front guy what I was going to say is do you think that that that process which is a time frame now with the internet like you said these kids are making themselves viral and getting deals 18 or younger do you think that process takes away from their careers well i think i've said this before and i really believe it that it's hard to be sustainable if you haven't

done like the prep work early on like doing shows like when nobody's there like quote unquote development yeah yeah exactly. Whether you develop yourself or you're in a part of a real world. Like doing a show in front of 50 people before you have to do one in front of 15,000 people.

Like having that just foundation of performing and building your career. Building your story, building your experiences. It doesn't mean you can't make dope music then, but it's hard to do everything right if you haven't spent some time preparing.

And I really think performing, practicing as a performer, you just look at like, we talked about Usher and even Chris Brown and Beyonce and like some of these artists, especially ones that have to dance and sing it's like like the level of time you have to put in in the studio in the dance studio working on the choreography getting every little thing right and a lot of that they did before they were famous they were like right they were like developing that muscle before they were famous and that's why they're still here like that's why usher is did the Super Bowl, you know, over 20 years after he debuted, because he made himself sustainable by putting in the work of preparation and the reps that he needed to put in. And you got to do it. And if you don't if you're not prepared when you have that TikTok hit or that viral sensation, then it could be fleeting and not sustainable. Or disposable. Yeah, exactly.

So how was it, speaking about the Super Bowl, when you got that phone call in 2015 to perform at the Super Bowl? That was dope, man. Was that the Detroit one? I forget which one that was, but I did one.

Did Roger Goodell call you? Roger did not call. I don't fuck with you. They always call my agent. You know, I never talk to anybody. It's like, they get to my agent eventually and they get to me eventually. So where you at, somebody, and they call you and they say

they want you to perform for Super Bowl? Um, I don't remember. Honestly, I don't really remember that. Your life is so dope, you don't remember. But I never, like, headlined, like, the halftime at the Super Bowl. I did a pre... I did God Bless America one year, and then I

did a pre-performance. So I've never had that prime slot. That was big for us, sir. Do not downplay that. It was in Usher or Kendrick or whatever. It's not that halftime spot. Okay, so let me ask you. They call you next year.

2026. John Legend headlining. Honestly, I don't think it's great for artists that are more like most of my hits are ballads. I feel like it's better if you got a lot of up-tempo hits for the Super

Bowl. It just feels more right. You got that? I got a little something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You can do it. I can see you at a halftime show. It could be done.

All right, so if Super Bowl calls you, 2026, what is your playlist? My set list? You know, I'll mix it up, do some up-tempos, some slows. So we'll do Green Light. We'll do Ordinary People. We'll do All of Me. Probably, like, Love Me Now, you know. I don't know.

I have to think about it. Some features, like some of the songs I've guested on. Yeah, like Grammy Family. Yeah. What are you bringing up? Yeah, we'll figure it out i don't know yeah we'll definitely have some collabs it's just on top one artist will you think you bring up a snoop or rick yeah that'd be good rick ross we got a bunch of dope records together yeah yeah y'all do uh i was making playlists of like different

collabs and i made a whole playlist just of me and rick because it was like 10 songs how did that connection justice league right uh i think it started with collard and then uh no probably collard because collard was his exec at def jam south. He brought him to Def Jam South. So I don't know what came first, but Greenlight came out and he did like a remix that I heard and I didn't even know him yet. Like a mixtape joint. Yeah, a mixtape joint of Greenlight where he was rhyming on it. And then not long after that, he

reached out to us about Magnificent. But I think it was through Khaled. Yeah. You know. What's one of your favorite places to perform? South Africa. Yeah. Yeah. You know. What's one of your favorite places to perform? South Africa. South Africa. Love Johannesburg. I've been there.

Crazy crowds there. Seoul, South Korea, crazy crowds. South Korea? Yeah. I love London and Amsterdam a lot. In the U.S., I love D.C. area, Atlanta area. Miami's cool It's like I would say my best audiences are

No no no I'm not shitting I'm just being honest My best audiences are DC area, Atlanta area And Chicago area I would say And the Bay area I ain't gonna lie You describe the blackest cities yeah the world yeah let's make some noise so my my wife my wife she's here um she's latina right do you get

like any type of thing for your wife not being a black woman um Not really, but you know, I think when we first started dating, we probably got some, but we've been together for so long, everybody's like, yeah, yeah, of course they're together. Yeah, we've been together since 06. So what do they call that, interracial dating?

Yeah, we're interracial. So my wife is half Asian and half white, and then I'm black. So yeah, interracial. Yeah, interracial. Yeah. Interracial. Did we make noise? Let's take a shot.

Are we clapping for that now? I don't know. I don't know if we need to. My kids, my kids are interracial. They're confused. We all type of racist. Are we human? Is your wife like light-skinned Latina?

No, no, she right here. Okay. So your kids will be like in between. No, no, we got kids. Yeah. We did the experiment already. The kids are in between. Oh, so okay, my bad.

My kids are actually the exact same color as me. Right. But they just got, you know, less kinky hair. Oh, they don't got... It's a little more wavy. Oh, okay. No wavy grease. No, no wavy grease. Okay. No King of Zamunda?

S-Girl? What place have you performed at, country-wise, that you just were like, this is wild that I'm even here in this country, that they, that I have fans here. Well, the first time I went to South Africa, it was right at the beginning of my career, and you don't really know how you're going to do internationally when, at the beginning, and I went there, and I was like, I couldn't believe how much love I had there, and

everybody knew every song. Yeah. That was amazing, but then going to Asia, going to places where they don't speak English. That's the thing, yeah. Like non-English speaking places. Yeah, so you go to Japan and you go to Italy, you go to Spain, you know, all these different places where people don't even speak the language

that you're singing in. And then they sing the songs back to you. It feels pretty cool. Been to China yet? Yeah. I was just there last year. And how was that? Was it dope?

Yeah. Crowd was into it. We had a good time. I'll probably go back. And you got engaged in where? In the Maldives. In the Maldives. And then you got married?

At Lake Como in Italy. That's my place. I love Lake Como. You've been to Maldives too? Of course I've been to Maldives. Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

I ain't going to lie. Me and my wife turned up. Just us. Yes. Because we didn't go. You went with other people? Well, when we got engaged, it was just the two of us. We didn't have kids or anything.

So we. In the Maldives? In the Maldives. Okay. Yeah. And so that was 2011. And then we had already been to Lake Como as a couple just dating. Lovely. And it's like the most beautiful, romantic place you could go.

You feel like you're in heaven. And then little boats. Yeah. We're in a little boat, you know, going on dates on a boat. You know, it's like life is good. I love it. I love good. I love this shit. I love this shit. Life is good. That's my style. I always say we fell in love at Lake Como. Lake Como. So we decided we would get married there.

So we got married there in 2013. I got to step my shit up. We shot the All of Me video there, too. So if you look at the video. Oh, you double dipped? Yeah. So it was like I got to expense some of the trip. But the craziest thing about the video is it was directed by this guy named Nabil Eldrican.

And he's the guy that is the reason why Chrissy and I met. Oh, wow. Because he was the director of the very first video where we met. And Chrissy and I first video where we met. And Chrissy and I started dating after we met on the video set. And so this guy is responsible for us meeting. And he ended up directing the video for all of me, you know, seven years later. And did he direct the proposal? No, we didn't shoot that.

We didn't shoot that. That was just us. That was just us. No, no, I mean you. He would have really doubled it. It's a very famous. Yeah, yeah. Three things. It's a very famous guy, man.

So how was your proposal? What did you do? Because you're a very smooth guy. I want to compare your shit to mine. So it was like a few months out i decided i was gonna do it and i decided i was gonna do it on this trip um and uh i started getting a ring together and everything and i have this little um package trying to disguise the ring in my bag in case she like saw it in my bag And so I had this nondescript envelope

with the ring package in there. And so I'm just trying to make sure she don't see it so I can actually propose in the moment where I want to do it. And we're flying to the Maldives. And back then, you had to fly through Colombo, Sri Lanka. But now you can fly direct to Mali. But before... We flew to Dubai, spent a day in Dubai.

Yeah, and then to Mali. Yeah, yeah. But back then, you had to go somewhere, Dubai, then to Sri Lanka, and then... It's horrible times. To Maldives. Okay, go ahead. But nowadays, you can go straight to Mali from Dubai.

So that's what we do now. Anyway, we're going to the airport, and they're rifling through my bag. I'm like, y'all better not open this fucking ring, man. Wait, wait, customs? Yeah, the TSA, basically. And wifey right there. Yeah. On this side or over there?

Over there in Sri Lanka. They about to blow you up. All right, continue. So they're going through, going through, going through, and they were just about to open that envelope, but God must have spoke to him and said, not now, son. Right, right, right, right, right, right.

Because he didn't open the envelope, and I got to propose on the beach in the Maldives. So it was for like Christmas Eve dinner on the beach in the Maldives. So it was for like Christmas Eve dinner on the beach in the Maldives. One, two, three. Aww. We're about to have dessert and I tell the waiter

bring out the ring with dessert and he brings it out in a little tray and then she sees it, starts crying, and she say yes. All right, then. That's similar to my proposal, but you just did it in a mouth.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But I'm... No, no, no. Let me think about you. Hold on. So, okay. Mouth.

She says yes. She says yes. She says yes. Obviously. And then we go over to Thailand because her mom and dad were living in Thailand at the time. Her mom's Thai. And then we show them the ring when we land at the airport.

And they're like, ah! And her mom didn't really get it because she was like, okay, that's a nice ring. It's pretty. Was you the first black person she ever saw? I doubt it. Just asking. She lived in Bangkok.

You know, black people come to Bangkok. Yeah, they come to Bangkok to Bangkok. And they lived in... Oh, yeah. Hey. And they lived in America. And they lived in America. Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, so Chrissy was born in... And there's the internet. You know that, right? Oh, I forgot about the internet. Chrissy was born in America, and her dad is born and raised in America and he met her mom over there but then they lived in America for a long time.

But then they moved back to Thailand and that's when I met them when they had moved back to Thailand. Yeah. You like Thailand? Yeah, it's beautiful. Phuket, beautiful. Can you? Back then. I don't think so. When they legalized it. I think they stopped it.

I feel like they stricted out there. I think they stopped it. I think that's legal. Is it? Yeah. I think it's legal. If you do some crazy shit, they crack up the house. No, that's Singapore.

That's Singapore. Yeah, that's Singapore. Singapore is close. Singapore. You're an American. You think graffiti is a good thing? Singapore is really strict, yeah. Singapore is like, you can't chew gum.

But it's clean as fuck, though. Yeah, it's very clean. It's very clean. Look, Singapore is beautiful, but it's definitely strict. I went to Singapore one time, and this was the time where the whole economy was tobacco. And I had two cartons of Newport, so I used to smoke. And they pulled me over like I had kilos of coke. They're like, you got to buy a hair.

You got to buy a hair. Yeah, yeah. This is how crazy it was. They made me throw out the cigarettes. And then they made me buy their cigarettes in customs. And I bought it. I definitely did it. You got to buy local.

What's your favorite country to perform at? Well, South Africa, Korea. You said that. I love playing in Amsterdam and London. Yeah, those are my favorites. Been to Russia? I have. How was that experience? It was before it got crazy.

We had a rough experience. Yeah, it was before it got crazy lately with the war and everything. I was there. It was like for a birthday. It was like a private birthday party or something. And some, you know, them guys with the big money, they want somebody to come and sing their birthday party. It was in Moscow, yeah. At like a theater. It was beautiful.

They're beautiful cities. Yeah. Cheese Louise, Papa Cheese. I've been just about everywhere. There's very few places I haven't been You performed in Kuwait? Not Kuwait But I played Dubai Abu Dhabi

Saudi Arabia Lebanon A bunch of Middle Eastern places Morocco I feel like I should take a shot But it's him performing Worldwide My shots are gone Yeah. Morocco. I feel like I should take a shot, but it's him performing. Yeah. Worldwide.

It's like Nori. My shots are gone now. Here we go. Oh, shit. Yeah. It's like five of them equal to one. We don't want you to get drunk. Yeah, yeah. And we want you to catch a flight.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. So if it's anything in your whole career, right? You have a beautiful lovely career

beautiful wife beautiful children beautiful everything apparently never have a bad day according to you I'm spreading the rumor so when you leave here it might read John Legend never has a bad day it might just read that I'm just being honest

but by the way this is one of my friends right This is my friend Sonny D.B.T I've never had a bad day He's never had a bad day I love it I hate him I love that for you

Like in a good way He's never had a bad day And Haiti is the source of everything In a good way Like in a good way Like he Like If ever I'm having a bad day

I call him And he'll be he'll simply say some foul shit like, shut the fuck up. Let's go outside, and we'll have a great day. Yes. I cherish people like that. Yeah. Is that who you are? Can I call you on a bad day, and you be like, shut up, nigga.

Let's go get some ice cream. I'll try to find the bright side. I'll try to find the let's focus on ice cream. I'll try to find the bright side. I'll try to find the bright side for you, man. I'll try to find the bright side for you. He wants you to start a hotline. Yeah, I got to be his friend. John Legend, never have a bad day. Yeah, never have a bad day.

That's an AI app. There you go. There's an idea for you. Back when they first started doing the voice-activated assistant for Google, they made me the voice of it. Really? I had to literally go to the studio and just record myself saying a jillion things.

Excuse me. That must have been a great check, though. Yeah, it was a good check. But it was a lot of work. It was literally 10 days in the studio of six six to eight hour days of just reading things. Does that still exist? No, it was like a one year promotion. So you could, if you had one of those Google Home things, you would have my voice on it for a year.

So you was like Siri? Yeah, I was like Siri for Google. I would buy you a Siri. I wouldn't buy you a Siri. That doesn't sound right at all. You know what I mean. Hold on, I'm going to take a picture. I wouldn't buy you a Siri. That doesn't sound right at all. You know what I mean. Hold on, man. Take a picture.

Have you done more things like that in the tech space? I've done a lot of stuff, yeah. Well, we worked with them on their AI project too, Google's too. So one thing that I'm curious about in the R&B space

in terms of related to hip-hop space. Yeah. So you know in the hip-hop space, generationally, we're looking at the differences in the sound. Do you see that in the R&B space as well? Some, but I think a lot of R&B artists still hold on to some of the classic sounds, but they're always

like... But the thing is, R&B and hip-hop are so close. We work with a lot of the same producers, and so a lot of things that are happening in hip-hop, we're doing it as well. But there's still a lot of the same producers and and so a lot of things that are happening in hip-hop we're doing it as well but there's still a lot of R&B artists I think that like the classic sounds too do you ever feel like you are hip-hop just by the nature of how you came up I feel I'm so connected to hip-hop I feel like I've made so many hip-hop records uh I literally was going through because we're doing some promotions for my anniversary of Get Lifted, and I was going through all the hip-hop collabs I have and making a playlist.

And it's massive. Like, the list is crazy. So, yeah, hip-hop is so core to my career and my musical identity and everything. So has John Legend rapped? I have. Go back and listen to a record with Consequence. He wrote the raps. Okay.

And he produced my session. But I did rap with him on a song. Did you enjoy that experience? I did. I feel like I'd be better at it now. I just have more understanding of what I was. And I've been writing raps actually for a Broadway show. Really?

Yeah. Writing raps? Yeah. He rhymes. Well, he's talking about how hip hop is so important to my career. And I was talking about how many times I've been on hip hop records my whole life, my whole career. But he was like, have you ever rapped?

And I said, I did one record with Consequence where he wrote the raps and I did them. Wow. But I've actually been writing raps for Broadway, for a show I'm writing. Oh, that's fire. Yeah. What's your relationship with Consequence? He hit me like a couple weeks ago.

I love Consequence. Yeah, like I don't talk to him a lot, but all love. We were like in the early days of touring, we were roommates. Like, so he'd have, you know, when you have a broke artist and you're just on tour support, like everybody got double up. So you sleep in the double rooms. He's in one bed, I'm in the other. So Conce was my roommate. Okay.

Who was these other people that was on the tour? Consequence, you. GLC, Don C, um, Ye. John Monopoly. Monopoly come out a lot. Uh,

Rilido. Y'all doing tour buses or not? We on tour buses. Those are rigorous. Yeah. Those tour buses are. I like tour buses. Man.

Well, I get the star bus now. Yeah, I get the star bus now. Yeah, I get the star bus now. The headliner has a good bus. Because I got the actual big bed. Everybody else is in bunks, and then you're in the nice bed. Yeah. But I don't mind it, because as a singer, you don't love being up and down in the air.

Because of the pressure? Yeah. It messes with your vocals? You just get dry and going up and down all the time for shows. Mess with your sinuses and stuff like that too. Yeah. And so it's easier for, just to be on the bus. You know why I love good music? I'm going to be honest with you.

I came up with an era where we had to be gangster, right? And we had to keep up that gangster. If you're not gangster for one week, there's someone who will come and try to take that slot. That same week, you're just trying to chill. I got introduced to a person named Pharrell. His first lines he ever said to me was, I don't have a gangster bone in my body.

At the time, I could have been like this egotistic maniac and been like, what? Because he had on a medium shirt, I had on a five X. Yeah. Right?

Because this was the time of hip hop, right? No, I know. And I chose to believe in that movement. Yeah. I chose to believe. I was yeah i chose to believe i was like fuck that you don't have to be but pharrell knew how to make gangster beats for y'all and me and pharrell made all this but to me i always remember those first words those they said to me and then it trickled down to good music, right? And I always loved y'all because that's what y'all represented.

Y'all didn't represent the gangster part of life. Y'all represented the, I don't want to, the ordinary people part of life. Yeah, and most people aren't gangsters, you know? Right, definitely. And, you know, the thing about us being attracted

to artists that describe that life, it is attractive because it's just like you want to watch Scarface or you want to watch the gangster movie, and so there's something appealing about that, even if you haven't lived that life, like you're fascinated by that life. And so I see why

people love gangster rap, but it also helped Kanye stand out when he was like wearing the polos and talking about dropping out of college when he was on the same label with guys rapping about Dylan Coke.

It was like, it made him stand out, you know? But I'm giving it to y'all in its entirety. Yeah. It's because it was all of y'all. Yeah.

Like, I mean. But I wasn't rapping, so I didn't have to be gangster. I was singing. Nah, but you were singing for the whole time. That was the outfit that all you guys went out there in.

But I didn't have to be gangster, though, but as a rapper, that was a bold thing to do to be the only non-gangster. But I think that was very gangster of Kanye to be that way. It's bold. It's authentic, yeah.

Yeah. All right. And now we have a whole genre of that music, but then we have a whole genre of dead music. Jesus Christmas. These people rhyme about killing people, and it's crazy because I'm, quote, unquote, a gangster rapper, and I listen to this shit like

oh no but you're saying it wrong because you guys you guys were rhyming about killing people in a way then the kids are literally rhyming about killing people for real like drill is mostly in new york right it's all over, no. Where's Drill? It's all over. It's all over. Yeah. No, I'm saying where did it start? Chicago gets. Chicago?

Yeah, it gets where it starts. I'm not really tapped into Drill. I'm going to be honest. And London. Yeah. London, like, there's cities. Like, New York has its own version that's Drill. And then, yeah, London.

Like, I'm so green. Like, one day I was just. What's like a hit song? Everyone's too old to really talk about it. What's like a hit song as Drill. And then, yeah, London. Like, I'm so green. Like, one day I was just... What's like a hit song? I went too old to really talk about it. What's like a hit song as Drill? I mean, Bobby Smurda. Bobby Smurda. Yeah, but I think...

I think that was for New York. But I even think it's changed so much from them. It's gotten so much, like, where they really, like... Because they're using social media with the music to really like this is what i'm really doing but they're like outing themselves it's just wild it's it's what do you think about uh the whole movement to not hold like a record against the person like like how uh with thug uh right in the case you can't like quote lyric. It blurs the line. It's really complicated. It's really complicated, man.

I really think that art should be separated from the judicial system in that sense. You should be able to do whatever you want. Because Bruce Willis can't be charged with diehard. I agree. I believe you shouldn't be able to hold someone's song against them. You got to have real evidence that they did something,

not just that they rapped about something. I watched them die hard. That nigga killed 19 niggas. For sure. Exactly. For sure. But he really didn't. That's the problem.

But the thing is, the thing is, but the point is, it's not enough proof to say someone made art about killing somebody. You have to be able to prove they actually did it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I remember you being against the stop and frisk. Yeah.

You was fully against the stop and frisk. Yeah. Now, I'm generally trying to find ways to make everything more just for us. And so I don't like the idea of them holding songs against us. I don't like the idea of stop and frisk. I don't like the idea of stopping frisk. I don't like the idea of illegal searches in general. And I'm just always going to be on the side of standing up

for us and not locking a bunch of us up. That's why we went in for president. 2020. What is it? 2020-10? Yeah, 20-8 is the next one. Carry on the work. Well, good done. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network,

hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and MeatEater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, hello, Malcolm Gladwell here. On this season of Revisionist History, we're going where no podcast has ever gone before. In combination with my three-year-old, we defend the show that everyone else hates. I'm talking, of course, about Paw Patrol. There's some things that really piss me off when it comes to Paw Patrol. It's pretty simple. It sucks. My son watches Paw Patrol. I hate it.

Everyone hates it, except for me. Plus, we investigate everything from why American sirens are so unbearably loud, to the impact of face blindness on social connection, to the secret behind Thomas' English muffins, perfect nooks and crannies.

And also, we go after Joe Rogan. Are you ready, Joe? I'm coming for you. You won't want to miss it. Listen to Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for and 6 on June 4th. Add free at

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. How long you live down here?

Me? I'm going on like 17 years. Yeah. You never going back. You said I don't want no more snow. No, I don't want no snow. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You like the snow? I'm good with it. No, it's filming. The fuck? Kareem is here. That's a Jamaican. He don't stop working. He got eight jobs.

Eight jobs. But you do. I don't like the cold. I'm sorry. Where are your people from? I'm Puerto Rican and black. Okay. Yeah.

So. Yeah. I don't think any side of my side wants to reside with the cold. Yeah. Like why? I put it in my whole time in New York then I moved to New Jersey.

I did all the like walking with my Timbs in the snow. You're like, no more of that. And now I'm like Louis Timbs. So it's like a little different. Yeah, you don't want him to get all fucked up.

Like why can't I just be like who I am now? Like fuck that. I deserve the right to I just be like who I am now? Like, fuck that. I deserve the right to go. To wear your Louis Tims. That's right. I deserve the right.

God damn it. And you say you're working with Pharrell. What are y'all doing? We just started working on a new album. A whole album? We never done like

a whole big thing together. He just did a couple songs with me years ago. And he just called me up in December and was like, I really am inspired. Like, I've been thinking about your music

and my vision for it. I feel like we should just get in and see what happens. Wait, he hit you out the blue saying this? Out the blue. That's the type of person we're talking about.

It makes sense. It makes sense. He was, you know, he's so creative and he gets inspired. And so I've been over to Paris to work with them. And we're going to do it again in March. So we'll see what happens.

That's your next album. Yeah, I mean. Are we announcing this to the people? Yeah. To the people? That your next album is fully produced by Pharrell? I'm not going to say. Fully produced.

Yeah, I'm just going to say. Executive produced? Yeah, I'm saying we're getting in and he's going to EP the record. Yeah. So that's executive what i'm saying so what what is something um you did back then that you wish you could have did right now like back then i'll give you an. You want to give me an example?

A friend of mine is named Tata. I have this number one record. It's called, I'm Latino. I'm all over the place. Tata comes to me and says, I want a girl to do a remix to this record. This is Tata J's Tata comes to me and says, I want a girl to do a remix to this record. This is Tata, Jay's Tata? Absolutely.

Yes. And he says, I want a girl to do a remix to this record. And I got you. Just listen to me. Somewhat. I don't want to say I said no. I didn't say no. But when they asked me the payment, it was like, it was 15 grand.

And I was like, ah, this woman wound up being Rihanna. Oh, biggest mistake of my whole career. I don't have one like that. You don't have one? You got one. No, I don't have one that was like, John, we want you to feature with this or that artist. And then they went on to blow up when I said no. I haven't done that. Honestly. So you've never

said no to somebody that... I'm trying to think of something. I can't think of anything. Does that mean you say yes to everybody? No, it just means the ones I say no to I don't regret. You know, I've said yes to a lot because I've got a lot of collabs out

there, but I've definitely said no to some, but it didn't come back to bite me, honestly. Because not for nothing, Sonny D, he's got a record. He's got a studio record. I'll tell you a funny story. We had Nas on here, who's my brother. And Nas, so I said to Nas, I said, because I feel like the same way I feel about you, that you didn't have a bad day in your life. I feel like Nas, no I feel about you, that you didn't have a bad day in your life.

I feel like Nas, no one would tell Nas, no. Like, I've been in a club with Nas, and all these gangsters. Everybody knows Nas, man. And when they see Nas, they go, oh. He's royalty, y'all. And I'm like, I love it. He is royalty. I love it, right? He is royalty.

But I asked Nas, I said, yo, has anybody ever told you no? Yeah. And Nas was like, maybe no. And then I was like, nah, nah. Someone told you no. And then he said, Prince. Okay, there you go. And then I said, why did Prince tell you no?

You know why Prince told Nas no? He said, do you own your masters? Yeah. And Nas said, no, I don't own my masters. And he said, well, get back with me when you own your masters. Yeah. So now I'm going to ask you this question. Well, there's another part to that too

where he said, I don't want to put them through college or something. Like, put your kids through college? He said, I don't want to put the exec's kids through college. So now I want to ask you

this question again. Mm-hmm. Has there ever been anybody that ever fronted on you? Fronted on me? Like, said no to me? Yes. Oh, yeah.

There's been artists that passed on. Like I'll reach out and ask for somebody to feature on a record, and they'll pass. And they'll pass for different reasons. Like sometimes I think with rap, especially if you want an emcee to get on a record, they really have to hear that beat and feel inspired to write. Yeah, hear themselves on it.

And sometimes they don't. And it's fine. So give me a sample. I don't take it personally. Give me a sample. Oh, who's passed? I mean, Andre just passed on something. 3,000? But like, Andre passed on everything.

You couldn't even play flute on the show? The guy that I go through is a good friend of both of ours, and he was like, if you asked him to play flute, he might have done it. You should have started with flute problems. Because you have a beautiful way of answering. It was for the remix. It was for the remixes.

It was the one. The remix or the remakes? It was one of the remixes that we did for the Get Lifted project. We need Andre rapping more, bro. And he was like, if you ask him to play flute, he might have said yes.

But, you know, Andre be on what he's on at that time. And if he ain't on rapping at that time... You got to respect Andre saying no because we should have

knew that. Let's get it. And I don't be mad at it. I'm like, okay, he's not in the right place to do it, you know? But you got a record with Andre.

And also, Lip Sync Battle. Yeah. You did Andre's record. Yes. But yes, we did Green Light together. That was our single we did together. We did the video. He really helped come up with the concept for the video too.

It was incredible working with him for that. And then when Chrissy was co-hosting Lip Sync Battle with LL, for the video too and uh it was incredible working with him for that and then uh when christy was co-hosting lip sync battle with l uh i came on and did hey uh dope with the full wig and everything it was something lip sync was a time yes god damn it god damn who's your favorite rapper all the time jay yeah i say jay and then uh i feel like kendrick is almost there now like it's like i was talking to charlamagne like probably two years ago and we were still like are we putting him in the top five already? Cause he's younger than everybody else. No,

he wasn't. Well, we were discussing it. We were discussing it. Cause he was younger than everybody else that normally you would put in there. And I was like, at this point you got to put him there.

He's so prolific. Yeah. Two years ago, he was way better already. And I was like, at this point you already got to put him there. Cause, and he never lets you down. Cause all the records are dope. The singles are dope. And the videos are dope. Everything was way better already. And I was like, at this point, you already got to put him there. And he never lets you down because all the records are dope.

The singles are dope. And the videos are dope. Everything was different. He didn't stay insane. The videos are crazy. His shows are crazy. Like, you got to put him right up there. Who's your favorite R&B singer?

Stevie. Stevie. Okay, Stevie. Seeing Stevie or not seeing Stevie? He's always been don't answer that question all Steven your favorite

jazz player I'm not super into jazz truthfully Slime you look like a jazz player I'm going to be honest if R&B didn't exist you look like you would be on a flute I'm not like deep into it. I'm more like, you know,

I know some Miles Davis records, some John Coltrane, some like, you know, like the older singers, like, you know, Louis and Ella. And I listen to some of that, but I'm not like deeply into jazz. Into jazz?

Damn. Well, who's your favorite jazz artist? Louis Armstrong? Yes, right. You know he's the man. And I like his singing voice. I like his singing voice, too. I like the raspy singing voice, too.

He was dope. Who's your favorite reggae artist? Boozoo. Nice. Badman. Boozoo? Blocka. Blocka.

Boozoo, yeah. I'm going to fuck you up. Well, I've done a couple records with Buju. I love Buju. I said reggae. No, that's dancehall, yes. You've done records with Buju? Who's your favorite?

Dancehall. Okay, so Buju, dancehall, yes. All right, dancehall. If we're being more specific, yes. Okay, now let's go back to reggae. Reggae, Bob Marley. Fuck a dick. Dick.

Yeah. But you made records with Buju? I have a couple records with Buju, yeah. Really? The first one we did together was on my Evolver album. It's called Can't Be My Lover. And it's fire. I'm going to have to go back to that.

Yeah, and then I've been on a couple of his projects. Dope. Cheese Louise, Papa Cheese. Y'all mine. Dang. Y'all mine. Y'all mine? Yeah, yeah.

Reggae, it's time to take over. We're all Jamaican today. Who's your favorite reggaeton artist? Reggaeton. Have you dabbled in that? No. Do we count Bad Bunny as reggaeton? Yeah, I think so.

I'm not very well versed. I mean, you don't count him as that? Who's your favorite reggaeton artist? Yeah that motherfuckers Reggaeton I love Bad Bunny But I don't know it very well Honestly

And he got conscious Yeah He got like Marcus Garfield Yeah He stands up for Puerto Rico Yeah Cause listen

I ain't gonna lie to you He said it might be a Puerto Rico Without Puerto Ricans I don't know That shit is fucked up He stands up for Puerto Rico Like he's very political. And his music is crazy.

Right. Damn. So you will collab with Bad Bunny? Absolutely, love to. Okay. Would that be

your go-to feature? If I had a reggaeton artist? Yeah. I mean, why not? No, no, Latin America.

Aim for the top. I've worked with, like, singers in Latin America. So I work with, like, Juanes and Sebastian Yatra. And Noel from Sin Bandera.

Who else? I haven't done a record with Shakira. I would, though. And yeah, I've worked with a few Latin artists over the years. But they've all been singers. I haven't really done any reggaeton now here's where we gotta go who's your favorite

dance hall artist we kind of just oh we said reggae artist I'm saying he said Bob Marley He said Bob Marley. I said Bob Marley. He said Bob Marley.

I'm fucking up. It's the weed. Who's your favorite electronic artist? Who's your favorite DJ? How about that? DJ. If you getting married, Maldives. Well, you know who played my last big party?

Who? Kid Capri. Legend. I went back. Absolute Legend. I went back. Absolute legend. I went back. You know, and it was amazing, honestly. And Biz Markie played our wedding.

What? Rest in peace. So Biz Markie. Did he play the Vapors? Hmm? Did he play the Vapors? No, he DJ'd, bro. He DJ'd.

He played the Vapors. I'm sure he did. He did a couple of his songs. He usually would DJ his song and perform it a little bit. A couple. Just a couple. But mainly, he's just playing records. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just but mainly he's just playing records.

And just the party was going the whole night. So that was 2013. Wow, that's dope. And then we did our 10th anniversary in 2023, and Biz Markie was no longer with us, but Kid Capri came and did that party. I would never do it. Crazy.

You got any more genres? And I'll tell you why I wanted him because I had been talking about this college party I went to when I was in school. This was in like 96. And I was like, I've never seen a party like so turnt for so long. Like he just had the party on 11 the whole night

and it was Kid Capri. And I was like, let's get him back. And so that was, let's get him back. And so that was I reached out to him. No more genres? No. Who's your favorite whistler? No, we're going to keep it real. Otis Redding.

Because you have one of the best, beautiful family stories, right? But it started out real it's like real fighting there was there was fist fighting in there where's this going because you picked out a model he was like i like her i want her to come to the yard yeah so she she was in the video with me and then that's how we met, yeah. And the rest is history.

See, a lot of people, listen, a lot of people want to build up. Oh, I know what you're asking. It started out with a bang is what you're saying. Yeah, a lot of people want to build up. Mom met his wife first day. They kicked it off, and they kicked off. He said, holler if you hear me. Yeah.

Right? And now, y'all, 18 years? We met 18 years ago. 18 fucking years ago. You got kids? We got four kids. Four kids? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Four kids. The oldest one's eight, and the youngest one's one and a half. Wow. Congrats. So the director came to you and showed you her picture? Yeah. And you said, I'm in.

I was like, all right. Right. And then we just had good chemistry, and I had a show later that night, and then we hung out after that, and we've been hanging out ever since. He said good chemistry. That's a hundred statement. And you became a great father. Listen, some of y'all.

Four years later. Yo, man, I just want to be honest with you, man. I really, really respect your legacy. I really respect what you're doing. I really respect how you represent for black people. Every time there's a moment, I know that John Legend is going to be there. I know

you'll be there in the forest fires. I know that you'll be there during COVID. I know that you'll be there. And that shit is just like a beautiful thing to me. Thank you. I appreciate it. Because I want to watch. Thank you. I appreciate it. You know what I'm saying? Like, because I want to watch, but I don't, maybe not be there. Like, but I want to watch though.

Like I want to be like, oh shit, that shit is nice. And you be holding it down, Don Lemon style. Don Lemon style. Okay. That's a new one, bro. Okay. Pervis, like this. So what do you...

What do we do? That's a new one, bro. Okay. That was awesome. I did. So what are you talking about? I don't know where this went. It always goes. I'm a reporter now. So what? Hold on. Going back to the fires, is there anything before you get out of here that any true things that people could donate to that are actually impacting and helping?

Well, there's a bunch of charities that are doing great work. We always work with Baby to Baby a lot because they help parents that have kids and need supplies for their kids. A lot of people got displaced to have kids. So Baby to Baby is great. Of course, the Red Cross is helping. Yeah, those are a couple that we've donated to and helped out but uh i would say baby to baby that that one's close to our heart and we've raised money for them a lot over the years any any artists that you know that personally have been impacted artists artists yeah i don't like, in the hip hop world, Madlib, he lost. Yes, I saw that. There have been concerts.

And then Jhene Aiko. Oh, yeah. She lost her place. And then the guys we sang with on the opening of the Grammys, that was a band, a rock band, indie band called Dawes. And they grew up in that area in Altadena. And they lost everything. Their parents lost their home and the studio and the instruments, everything.

So a lot of people lost a lot. It's crazy because when you go to L.A., unless you're in those areas, you don't even see it. Because everything else looks completely normal. But when you go to those areas, they look like a war zone. It's downy and it's not. They're like, we don't see that. Yeah, it's like a war zone in those specific areas and then everywhere else looks normal yeah it's crazy though it's surreal yeah well so i mean so all right this this is one million percent all me it's gonna be impactful because Because you were really Trump's nemesis, right?

So let's suppose Trump didn't work. So let's suppose Trump says, I want to meet with John in the middle of Central Park. Why in Central Park? Because let me be in New York. Why you be hating on me? Honestly, I would meet with him

with no cameras and no... This is I would meet just, like, on some, could I influence him? Because I feel like he's very easy, like, if people get in his ear, I feel like they can convince him of things. I think so. And so I would do it with no cameras and just try to use whatever influence I had. But I doubt it would be useful, but it would be worth a shot.

Why not? But let me ask you, I'm going to keep it real. Are you going to have jokes? Jokes? We got to have jokes. You got to call them arms. You're an Asian orange.

You got to do something. I'd be self-deprecating. I'd be like, I'm the boring-ass singer with the filthy mouth. Oh, because they called you the boring singer. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'd be like, I'm the boring-ass singer with the filthy mouth. Oh, because he goes to the bar and sings. I'm sorry. I apologize.

I don't know. But honestly, I believe anybody can be talked to, and you don't need to do it for a photo op. Do it actually trying to accomplish something. And you never know. And everybody should be talked to. Especially if they're in power. You should talk to them. Yeah.

But you wouldn't meet him. I mean, this is not on the table, but yes. I think it's plausible. I think so. We have him. You don't think so? I just think he needs someone in his ear telling him something other than what Elon

and all these other guys are telling him. So if that needs to be me, fine. Okay, so let's talk about for a second. Why did you change your name from John Stevens to John? So the first person to call me John Legend was a guy named Jay Ivey. And he just started calling me the legend. Jay Ivey is a spoken word artist. If you listen back to Never Let Me Down on the College Dropout, he's doing the spoken word piece on it.

He's from Chicago. And I met him when we were working on the College Dropout album. And he just heard everything I was doing in the studio. I was singing on everything, playing on everything. And he just started calling me the legend. And our whole crew just started calling me John Legend not long after that. And I had to decide whether or not I would actually use it as a stage name or just, you know, just a nickname among our friends. And I decided I would use it. I was like, fuck it, you know.

This is like, this is announcing my presence. I'm going to say I'm John Legend. What was ever a thought of the of it sounding like John Lennon it started to come up later it's funny some people was like hey it's John Lennon

which is kind of dope yeah it's fine and then some of John Lennon's fans call him John Legend I learned that later yeah

but I didn't know that before but I had to check on the trademark um and trademark that could infringe I had to check on the trademark that could infringe? I had to check on it so we found out that once

I got signed I'm at Sony and all the lawyers you know they're about to get my album ready making sure the clearances are right and they're like we need to make sure we trademark John Legend as your stage name so they go out and look for other John Legends.

And it wasn't an issue with the John Lennon, you know, legacy estate. But there's this porn producer named Johnny Legend. Johnny Legend. He's a legend. So there's a porn producer, but he also made music. So because he made music, we had to clear it with him for me to use the name. So we found him, and my manager was trying to be chill about it. He didn't want to make it seem like this big new artist on Sony.

He wanted it to seem like we were just some poor kid from Ohio. He was like, yeah, I have this artist and he goes by John Legend and we don't want any trouble. Just want to negotiate a mutually non-exclusive deal. With the guy on the name Legend? He was Johnny Legend. Oh, he was Johnny Legend.

And he was a musician. He had a record at a store and I had one at the store. He could be like, yo, that's confusing. Yeah, there could be a suit. Yeah, that's confusing. So we had to find him and he agreed. We gave him, I think, ten thousand dollars, which I think was a very affordable bargain. I think for him, it's probably good. Yeah. And he was like,

yeah, so we signed the deal. He was Johnny Legend, I'm John Legend, and he wouldn't sue me and I wouldn't sue him. So you kind of popping in the porn world too.

Yeah! No, you know you made it. You know you made it when fake dudes are you. You know, use your name. So my friend sent me, I don't know how he made it. You know you made it when fake dudes are you. You know, use your name. So my friend sent me, I don't know how he found it.

There's a porn star that goes by John the Legend. And it's like a light-skinned dude with a beard, like, trying to look like me. Oh, you got those joints. Yes. You know you made it when you got a porn knockoff star. And he's cocking his ain't ordinary people. Come on, motherfucker!

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John Lezard, man. I really appreciate you, man, for coming out and just hanging with us. Yeah, man. I've been looking forward to it. Yeah? Yeah. We were scared. We know what happened last time my friend

was on the show, and it wasn't great, but I figured I should come on at some point and have our own conversation. Hopefully this is not the last either. Have our own conversation. This is your platform. This is the first, not the last either. Have our own conversations. That's your platform. This is the first, not the last.

Yeah. If you want to promote pink socks, I'm in. Pink socks. Yes. We got the pink rosé, though, from LVE. Yep. Damn. L-V-E.

Love. Love, love, love, love. LVE stands for Legend Vineyard Exclusive. There it is. There it is. Say it again. Legend. Vineyard Exclusive for Legend Vineyard Exclusive. There it is. There it is. Say it again. Legend Vineyard Exclusive. Legend Vineyard Exclusive.

L-V-E. So it's short for love, too. That's right. That's what Nori's calling it. He's calling it love. I love love. Yeah. I love love.

You love love? I love love. You love love. I love being married. I love love. I'm happily married, happily. I'm happily married. Happy to be a dad.

Love it all. It's good. Yeah. Why don't people praise that? Like, my friend Swiss Beats called me earlier. Great dad.

Loves being a great dad and husband. I love Alicia Keys. Why we don't, like, focus on bigging that part of

hip hop up? I love it. I think we do. I think we're starting to. I think we're maturing more in the culture. Let me tell you something. Swiss and Alicia being at the Grammys was great, right? But if Swiss would have been with another bitch at the Grammys,

that shit would have been top line, whatever. But him being loyal, I hate that fact. But if you're married consistently, why would that be anything else? It's not news. It's not news. No, no, no. Fuck that. But I think we celebrate couples, you know?

We should big that up. Like, the thing about it, like, I'm looking at Jay and his wife. Beyonce? Yeah. That's my friend. So I'm looking at Jay and his wife. Beyonce? Yeah. That's my friend. So I'm looking at him. But I'm saying, why are we not bigging that up more? I think they're celebrated as a couple.

I think so, too. Why I'm not looking at you and your wife? Why are we not bigging that up more? I think they're celebrated. I feel like... Now in pop culture. Well, the thing is, people like news and they like controversy. So people were excited when they saw Jay and Solange in the elevator because it was controversy.

You know what I'm saying? I like that, too. And so I feel like... So I really think, like, it's not exciting when it's just bliss and there's love. And so people get more excited for the controversy side. And the flip is, it shouldn't be extraordinary for a couple to be together a long time. That should not be

an extraordinary thing. The thing is with artists, especially with hip-hop, a lot of our biggest stars currently in the moment are young. And they're not in that phase of life. They're in the dating phase. They're in the bachelor phase of their life. Bachelorette phase of life.

And they want it out. Yeah. But then by the time they're legend status like Jay, then they should be married and have kids. No, but this is because in our community, the culture is promoted so much of you not having a father. Now you got John Legend with his beautiful wife. You got Jay with his beautiful wife. You you got John Legend with his beautiful wife. You got Jay with his beautiful wife.

You got Swiss Beats with his beautiful wife. Why are we not saying, yo, black man, black or Latino man, whatever. Let's focus on that part. Yeah, and you know

one of the myths about us is that we aren't as present as fathers. We're actually more present as fathers. I heard statistics. Yeah, statistics are that we are actually, we spend more time with our kids than white fathers do. We're more present. And so, and so like, that's never told. That story is really never told or is not told enough, but that's right.

Like black fatherhood is wonderful and we are really good fathers and we know what it means to be present for our kids. And even if you're not married to the mother of your child, you can still be a great father. And, um, and so I see that example all the time. Like I have people, I have friends in my life who are really great fathers that may not be married to the mother of their child, but they still make sure they're there for everything. Yeah. Like, and I was raised around great fathers. My dad's a great one. He was a single dad for us for a while.

My uncles, all of them, like really great fathers. So I'm just, I'm like, that's my example. I've seen great fatherhood. And that's not everybody's example, but the bottom line is, even when we're not married, black fathers are very present in general. And we got to celebrate it. Take a shot?

Yeah. Take a shot. For black fathers. Here we go. For black fathers. Yes. And he has a... Latino fathers? Latino fathers. Fatherhood.

Let's go. No, listen. Let's take a shot to fatherhood. To the fatherhood. Yes, to fatherhood. I might seem like a priest, though, isn't I? John Legend, what do you see yourself trying to accomplish now with all the things you have accomplished? Well, there's a couple of things I'm doing that are new.

I told you before, I'm writing for Broadway. That's the first time I've ever done that. And neither of the shows I've ever written. Even though you got the Tony already? I was producing, but I didn't write. Okay. I'm writing music for two musicals. So these two shows are the first time I've ever done that.

And then i'm always just trying to top myself as an artist like next album needs to be better than the last album like every time that's my goal so that'll be my goal with this next album what about acting it's not a goal honestly if it works out um and it's the right thing at the right time but honestly like you're kind of starting from the bottom as an actor

because I get what I get to go sing somewhere and I sing for an hour. So you feel like it's starting over? Yeah, it's like I'm not going to get that for being in a film and it's going to take six weeks of my time. It does.

And it's like, is that worth it? Most of the time, it's not. I feel like Common is the positive blueprint for that. Yeah, because if you build long enough, then it can be worth it. But you've got to be able to put that time in, because Common's been building that acting career for a long time. You can't just plop in and be like, I want $10 million to show up for this film. You just can't do it. And so it's like, do I want to put in all that time

to build up my price in there when I've already built up my price as a singer? I'd rather just keep making money as a singer. And I love making music. But okay, so I know we joked about the political realm. Do you really ever see yourself jumping in i don't and because you do advocate politically yeah absolutely and i'll continue to and people ask me all the time if i ever want to run for office and i still don't believe i ever

will and i don't believe i'll ever want to if i change my mind then i'll change my mind but i don't i don't think i will I don't think he will either. Nor are you going to run for office? No, I'm running for office with you. I'm going to be honest with you. If you run for office, I'll be like, you know, the guys with the helmets. What, the security? The January 6th nigga.

You know what I mean? My henchman. Yeah. He's going to January 6th with to me Because I'm gonna be honest I'm gonna be honest Don't be dishonest now No You remind me of Barack

In the most beautifulest way It is And I spoke to Killer Mike Yeah I love Killer Mike Right I love Killer Mike, right? I love Mike Shout out Killer Mike, man

But I feel like Killer Mike should be mayor of Atlanta Atlanta He could do it He definitely could do it I feel like he might run I feel like he should do it I feel like he should do it Unapologetically

Like I feel like he should do it Eating peanuts like me What up, niggas Me and his real self Well he cares a lot about Atlanta Put it that way I don't know if he ever wants to run for office But he's I feel like he's great At knowing what the people

Want in his city And he loves his city He advocates for his city advocates for Our community Like having our own businesses Our own own property, our own wealth. He's a great man. You never thought about running for president? When I was a kid, I didn't.

Since I've been an adult, I love my life. I love what I get to do now. I don't think I would enjoy being president. Why? I just don't think I would. You know, actually, we got to shout out to this. Papa Keith is running for office, right? Yeah.

Commissioner. Shout out to Papa Keith from out here, yeah. He's a radio personality. He's been influential out here in the community, and now he's stepping up to the plate. I respect anybody that puts themselves out there. My friend Hill Harper, he ran for... Why? You don't want to know.

He ran for Senate in Michigan. I was like, man, it's just stressful. He didn't win the primary. It's like you put yourself out there. They come at you. I'm like, I already put myself out there enough and I get enough shit for it. I'm like, I don't want to

actually run. But imagine you and D.L. Hooghly. D.L.'s and D.L. Hooghly. Love D.L. D.L.'s Instagram be going off. You wouldn't run? Why? Give up on this line of

questioning. To me, I would want John Legend to be my fucking president. Like me. This is me. I get it. This is my personal opinion.

You can look at me. I'm not a friend. I believe you. I believe in you that much that I feel like you can be the president. Yeah. Like why can't we have our own community, support our own community? I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Because you know why? He was against Trump every, every, yeah. So why not have you? Yeah. I'll take a shot.

This ain't even got nothing to do with it. But why, why wouldn't you, wouldn't you? Well, we got here? Oh, thank you, Snack. All right, here we go.

Okay, I'm going to take something. Cash is in the writer. All right. All right. But why wouldn't you run for president? I just feel like it's so much negativity. I'm like, where's the positive side? So is music.

Music is very music. Music is a great thing. No. When you're a musician, there's not a whole party organized to bring you down. Like, all the other R&B cats don't have, like, organized parties. No R&B. Trying to destroy my career. Yeah, yeah. Hip-hop, yeah.

Like, Usher fans aren't, like, outside my door with picket signs, like, fuck John Legend. It might be. But, like, if you run for office, like, there's, like, literally half the country hates you or they're being told to hate you. And I'm like, I'm not interested in that feeling. But we interested in your ideology. I'm like, I'm not interested in that feeling. But we're interested in your ideology. I get it. I get it. We believe what John

Legend believes. I get it, and I appreciate it. Can't us as black people just say, you know what? We need you, John. Yeah, we need you. We want to get behind Paul. That shit sounds crazy. We want to get behind you. Paul, you're taking me back.

2004. The pause days. But we need somebody in that office that we can identify, we can relate to, because we can see. You don't think that's you? I hope Wes Moore runs for president. And there's some great people that we can look up to. Wes Moore, he's the governor of Maryland, brother.

Very accomplished veteran. Amazing speaker. Okay. Beautiful wife. You know, he can do it. And I think he's already governor of Maryland. He can do it. So I'll support them.

So are we putting our money towards him? Who knows? We'll see. We'll see. We'll see if he runs. But he could, and I think he'd do a good job. I'm looking at everybody here. What's his name?

Wes Moore. Wes Moore. But if we could pick Wes Moore, or we could pick John Legend as our next running candidate for the President of the United States. Look at this nigga.

This nigga is Obama's cousin. Okay. I appreciate it, Nori. I really do. I do do i appreciate what you're doing right now you're getting an endorsement right now i take it as love and respect i do i don't know you know why because i trust you the thing about it is when we we voting for the American president. You want to trust him. I want to trust the person.

I'm going to be honest with you. Me, I'm a Latino, I'm brown. Trust you. Well, I appreciate it. I put too much on you. I'm so sorry. It's all good.

But why not? Because you know why? It's all good. But why not? Because you know why? The one thing that we got to give Trump is he's just outrageous. Yeah, he don't give a fuck. So why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you be like this, man?

Himself holds down. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He never said that. This is Norrie running for president. No, no, no. I don't want to run for that. Himself holds down. I don't know. This is Nouriel running for president. I don't want to run for president. I want to... He's fucking on you. I can be honest.

He's behind the scenes. John Legend runs for president. He's your advisor. If you're the president, he's your advisor. If John Legend run for president How many of us is voting Is voting for John Legend

Make some noise I'm gonna be honest I'm just sorry We believe in you The curls is right I feel it I feel it The curls is right

And Norris is gonna be secretary of state I'm gonna be something else I'm gonna be. And Nori's going to be secretary of state. Uh-huh. No, I'm going to be something else. Like, I'm going to be like. What else? Drinker of the. Drinker of state? Drinker thinker? Drinker thinker.

Yeah, yeah. We're going to make some. That's a new position. Nah, I'm playing around. But in real reality, you've never thought about that. He's not fucking with it, bro. He's not fucking with it. Because, look at me, look at me.

I'm looking at you. He's like, look at me, look at you, look at me, look at you. I have no B for Trump, right? But if I was to put you and Trump in a spelling bee, I'm picking you. Yeah. I would win.

If I'm picking you and Trump against like a crossword puzzle, I'm picking you. Jeopardy. Yeah. All of the above. Scrabble. So why wouldn't you try to lead our people?

Monopoly. A little bit. Why wouldn't you? I just don't feel like I would enjoy it. Yeah. It's not in place, man. Running or being in office, I don't think I would enjoy either one. Very disappointing.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Because I believe in you so much. I know. I feel it. I feel it. I feel it. He's your campaigner. I'm your number one campaigner.

I know. I feel it. I feel it. But if you feel like thater yeah I'm your number one campaigner yeah I know I feel it I feel it but if you feel like that next year okay I'll hit you you please hit me

cause I'm gonna be like this pop bombs pop bombs the John Legend man thank you so much man thank you I had such a good time what?

say it loud I'll say it 20 year anniversary we'll talk about it let's go Such a good time. What? Say it loud. I'll say it. 20-year anniversary. We'll talk about it. Let's go. 20 years of getting left there. Now, I'm truly glad I got to come by and see y'all. I've been wanting to do it for a minute.

Thank you for coming in. And I'm glad we got to come and celebrate the 20th anniversary because I'm just grateful. And, you know, I told you all these stories of, like, us on the come up, and, like, I think back on all of that when I listen to that music from Get Lifted, and I'm just grateful for everything to happen. Yeah.

Good job. Thank you so much. Thank you. I ain't gonna lie. You the only nigga that ever ordered beef jerky. Turkey jerky. Turkey? Yeah.

No, don't say that. That's in my rider, too. Because you know I fuck with turkey. Come on, because I don't eat beef. I don't eat red beef. You sure that's turkey? I swear to God. And he's real.

You ain't going to be able to tell because it smells the same. He's eating already, bro. Somebody went to the grocery store in here. They got it. Are you ready? He ate it already. He had a donut with a shot, though. And then we out of here.

I appreciate y'all, man. What a pleasure. We got to let him go. We drink champs. Drink champs is a drink champs LLC production hosts and executive producers, NORE and DJ EFN. Listen to Drink Champs on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs hosted by yours truly DJ EFN and NORE. Please make sure to follow us on all our socials.

It's at Drink Champs across all platforms. At TheRealNoriega on IG, at Noriega on Twitter. Mine is at Who's Crazy on IG, at DJEFN on Twitter. And most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases, news, and merch by going to drinkchamps.com. And it's going to take us to heal us it's mental health awareness month and on a recent episode of just heal with dr j the incomparable taraji p henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey i never let that little girl inside of me die to hear this and more things on the journey of healing you can listen to just Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Hear insightful, entertaining discussions on today's important health and wellness topics on the Health Discovered podcast from WebMD. Through in-depth conversations with experts, Health Discovered covers everything from tips for healthier living to the latest on therapy and mental health. My goal is to really de-stigmatize mental health treatment and looking at it from a whole health perspective. Physical health and mental health can be intertwined.