WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1137 - John Legend

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

John Legend is a multiplatinum recording artist, a winner of the coveted EGOT, a loving family man and, as Marc found out in this conversation, a tremendously nice guy. The combination of John's talent and his kind disposition is what makes him the type of artist who works with a wide variety of collaborators. John talks about how collaboration defines his professional career, from his first gig working with Lauryn Hill to his new record Bigger Love. He also discusses his marriage to Chrissy Teigen, his work on criminal justice reform and his relationship with Kanye West. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucknicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it.

What'd you do for the 4th of July? Did you go crazy? It didn't have that... I don't know where you live, but the vibe out here in the L.A. area with the fireworks was that this might be the last 4th of July ever. I don't know what you were feeling, but the urgency, the chaos, the sheer length. Generally, I'd go to a 4th of July party, but this year it wasn't so much as a party as it was just eight of us up on the hill. Same place, my buddy Dan's house and Jen.

Eight of us, distanced, masked for the most part up on the hill, watching the fucking chaos. Never seen more fireworks over Highland Park. And if you've been listening to me for years, you know it's a bit of a thing. But this year was like, this is it, man. This might be the last time we ever fucking get to blow this shit up like this. Let's fucking do it. Today on my show, on this show, the one you're listening to, I'm going to talk to John Legend.

That guy is the nicest guy in the world, and publicly he's the nicest guy in the world. You see him, you feel better. It's like seeing some sort of buddha or uh or like beacon of light and uh sure enough he's he's kind of like that kind of like that i enjoy talking to him made me feel better because very difficult to uh to sort of just deal with this full on brain fuck of this current moment in history. It's just relentless. Relentless. And it just feels more and more out of our control because of the mass popularity of stupidity.

and believing in entitlement-based fairy tales or dumb-dumb Christian eschatology or fascist visions of white monoculture and or just fuck it, fuck it all. I can definitely understand that last one a little and a little bit of the entitlement-based fairy tales one. Fuck it. Just the spread spread it's just i can't i know a couple people that got the bug now a couple of comics went out and did the work and got the fucking virus checking in with them to see how that's going and i'm sure to say hey idiot how you feeling dummy i oh by the way i left you hang on i got the covid test back on uh wednesday

night but too late to put it in the um the recording i tested negative as of wednesday and um okay but it's day-to-day with that shit it's all relative to you know not you know not uh not going out you know anywhere not talking to anyone not certainly not being maskless anywhere which i wouldn't anyway not rubbing my face on the surface of an infected person on on a lighter note uh monkey is is still with us my cat is still with us buster is still an asshole but monkey is uh okay he's got the asthma bad but uh he he keeps hanging on he'll spend some time in the closet a little time under the bed and then some time on the bed maybe a little time downstairs but again i'm just trying to accept that this is an older cat not a tragic situation it's not some sort of extension of the passing of uh my girlfriend right into this cat like i'm just

being clobbered with uh the things i love leaving i'm not connecting them anymore and i understand what's happening i I'm okay. I'm a little grounded. There's one thing about grief is it will definitely land you in you. It's like that moment right before you know you're going to get into an accident, that immediacy. Grief kind of feels like that, that type of presentness when it comes over you grief will definitely land you in you that's what i feel and i miss lynn and i did something the other day.

You know, she used to make these stocks. She's very into this bone broth business. And she kind of was a big part of her way of eating. And she would save all these pieces of squash and sweet potatoes and fennel bulbs and parsnips and all these leftover, you know, chicken carcasses and that. So there's several bags of, you know of squash guts and things in the freezer. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to bring her to life. I'm going to make her soup. I did it. I went out and had a bunch of chicken backs frozen and three or four chicken carcasses.

carcasses, got those going for about eight hours and threw in a couple of bags of Lynn's squash guts and frozen vegetable pieces, cooked that overnight, threw some thyme in, some bay leaves like she did. Now I've got a living sort of nourishing bit of Lynn with me now. I froze a bunch of it, got some in the freezer. I can heat it up like it is, add some chicken. I can add it to greens. I can whatever. But the nourishing beauty of the Lynn Shelton bone broth squash stock is alive and with me today. I'm happy to have the soup. is alive and with me today.

I'm happy to have the soup. I'm happy to receive all the love and condolences still. And I got this interesting email from this guy, Stephen. He said, today is the 49th day, this was a few days ago, since Lynn died in the Buddhist tradition. And I'm a practicing Jubu, he says. She has been moving through the bardos

and is now free to move on thank you again for your excellent podcast and genuine honesty blessing steven she moved through the bardos i don't know what any of that means but does that mean like okay so she went through the whatever happens between life and after you die what happens at the beginning of after you die now she's free to move on. Does that mean reincarnation? Does that mean she's shopping for a new vessel right now, Lynn? Does that mean she's sort of circling the sphere, the globe, the cosmos, looking for that moment of conception? Sort of eyeballing the many people fucking here and there and wondering, like, where do I go?

Where do I, where's my next vessel? I don't know how it works i'm speculating i'd like her to be part of that process i'd like to think that she's uh out there with her sense of perception and consciousness deciding you know which would be a good vessel for i hope she picks an interesting new vessel perhaps another gender another ethnicity ethnicity, the next phase. Not an animal. I think that's punishment, isn't it? Maybe. I don't know how it works, but I was happy to hear that. But ultimately, I hope that your fourth was okay. My fourth was, like I, like I just said, I went to that thing, but earlier it seemed,

I had a very German based fourth for some reason. I, I sat on my porch and listened to the first four can records. And then I finished watching the marriage of Maria Braun, Fassbender film, but kind of a little obsessed with Fassbender. Watch Veronica Voss last week. I've always been sort of obsessed with him,

but now because of the Criterion channel, I'm wrapping my brain around the Fassbender oeuvre. Is that how you say it? Great stuff. It's great. Real art, man. Real film art. Like, what?

Like, what is that? Why? What? Huh. And he just did this. He decided and he did. Yeah. So look, the new album is called Bigger Love. It's available now wherever you get your music. And I spoke to John Legend the night after the BET Awards where he won video of the year for Hire. That's not for Hire.

He didn't get Hire. It's for the song Hire. And this talk obviously took place before his friend Kanye decided to run for president. This is me and John Legend coming up. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice?

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Zensurance. Mind your business. Hey, John, how are you? How are you doing, Mark? I'm good. Good to see you, sir. It's good to see you, sir. Hold on. I think I was recording all this time another interview yeah I never stopped that one okay lots of things recorded okay I'm gonna save that one yeah I've done that who knows what they're gonna hear something usually it's usually it's hours of nothing yeah I was actually in an interview after that one so they're just gonna hear hear the next interview and they're going to be so annoyed why because you did you did you talk more on that one no it's just about a complete different subject they'll be like why is this here but anyway here we are wait a minute wait what other subject could you be talking about is there something we need to know are you a specialist of some kind well Well, I'm developing a coronavirus vaccine.

Oh, my God. There's no end to the talent. No, honestly. So my interview was with the PGA about my, the Producers Guild, about my production company. And it was me and my fellow producing partners. And we were like mentoring some up and coming young producers, the producers now. Okay. Well, a couple of things. I listened to the new record and I, and I,

and I had a realization during the listening that if you're a, you know, if you're not in a relationship or you're heartbroken for whatever reason, I don't know if this is a great record for you. Yeah, well, it's interesting because... You threw one in at the end. At the end of the album, the last three or the last four songs are about missing someone. Right, right, yeah.

Being nostalgic, missing your first love. So there's some of that, but definitely a lot of it is more toward, you know, the situation I'm in, which is, you know, I'm happily married and in love. And I can write some celebratory songs about that sometimes. No, I think it's beautiful. It's a beautiful record. But being a little heartbroken at this point in time, knowing how beautiful the record is, there were definitely moments where it's beautiful. It's a beautiful record. But being a little heartbroken at this point in time, knowing how beautiful the record is,

there were definitely moments where it's like, oh, yeah, I had that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and now that you say that, my condolences, first of all, because I heard what happened. Oh, thanks. And then when you listen to that song, Remember Us,

I actually cry listening to that song now, the song Remember Us, which is number 13 on the album. That one, that'll hit you pretty hard if you listen to it too much. So I don't know if that's good or bad for you right now. Well, I don't know. I felt like it was actually pretty good because I feel like you have to have these feelings. And I imagine that love songs in general are just as popular for people who are longing for it as they are for people who are in it or think they have that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that a lot of love songs are aspirational. Yeah. I can definitely see that. And I've written love songs when I was very,

very much single at the time as well. Some of it's, like you said, imagining what it could be like. Sure. The record starts out with a bit of I Only Have Eyes For You. Yes. Is that the window through which you work this thing? Because that song, I just re-listened to that because I had to put it together and then listen to the Flamingo song. And that's one of the most beautiful love songs ever written in pop music, really.

Well, I Only Have Eyes For You is magical. And it's kind of from an era that I still like. I love doo-wop. I love those tight harmonies. I love my dad raised me on Motown, like the Temptations, those male quartet-type groups. And so when I think about my musical heritage and my musical upbringing, that's what I'm thinking about.

And gospel, of course, as well. But even gospel incorporated a lot of those same kinds of harmonies. And so if you're getting to know me as a musician, knowing that about me, I think, is helpful to understanding everything that I do musically. And what I loved about that particular song was bringing that old stuff to a new kind of world of music where the beats have the 808s and the sounds of like trap hip-hop

mixed with these old sounds of doo-wop, and it works perfectly. Yeah, I think the first time I ever witnessed that sort of unfolding, sadly, because it wasn't really my world was in um that the story about you know uh nwa that movie when dre you know first did that in the in in whatever you know the it wasn't a club but he was started to mix those beats with the older songs and it was that that moment of sort of like oh my god you can yeah well hip-hop is basically founded on that right so so much of hip-hop was literally a dj uh playing old records and a guy rapping over it or the the guy djing was also the rapper uh and so they were taking

this music that people already knew and then putting their own spin on it rapping over it scratching over it. And that is so much of the foundation of hip hop. And so I've worked with a lot of producers who also work in hip hop. And so a lot of times they'll be the kinds of guys that will use samples a lot. And it's always that interesting blend of old and new. And then of course you mentioned Dr.

Dre. We use the same sample he used on track number two on the album because he used an old David McCallum song called The Edge to make a song that's even more famous called The Next Episode with Snoop Dogg. And we use that same sample on our second song on the album, a song called Actions. But I think what's also, interesting is that you know in that first song oolah that you know it is sort of a an homage to those songs right yeah i mean you're not doing like a standard sort of hip-hop song you're doing another one of those kind of songs for a

contemporary audience yeah but we we intentionally had sections where we did a little bit of both. Right. So the intro and the pre-chorus and the chorus sound like a doo-wop song. I wanted to sing it like a doo-wop singer. I wanted the lyric to sound like it wouldn't have been out of place on certain parts in the old song. But then we have a section where we just kind of drop it low, and it's like spin around let it bounce up and down i think we found some slack it rub it down to the sound and then go back to the doo-wop so it's like yeah it's like intentionally going back and forth between the worlds but i mean it really strikes me though you know i don't know how you pull it off i mean you you you obviously work constantly but it does seem that you are able to bring together

all of the different elements of the music you grew up in and the music that you live in and the people that you work with into your own voice that is uniquely yours. But you have a much broader palette than a lot of artists. It seems to me that multi-generations can listen to a John Legend song and enjoy it the same way that it comes that it's sourced in a history that everybody's familiar with the language of pop music that uh that just about anyone can relate

to it doesn't seem like anyone's going to walk away from a john legend song and go fuck that guy what the fuck is it but there's somebody saying that i promise um fuck that guy i i pissed off real estate agents this weekend oh really on my twitter well i was talking because i the uh texas realty association said they weren't going to say master bedroom anymore. And, and because it, you know, evokes language of slavery and all this stuff. And I was like, are you guys serious? Like, please work on actual real problems and not whether or not we call it a master bedroom. And, and then I said, you know, the real problem with realtors is that they've helped serve the function of housing segregation and discrimination in the U.S.

because a lot of times they were guilty of steering, which is the process of not showing black people all the properties they're qualified for because they didn't want them in certain neighborhoods. I said, that's a real thing to work on it's a real thing that still exists uh newsday did a really uh in-depth article about that uh happening in long island uh just recently and it happens all over the country i said why don't you guys work on the real problem and they were really mad at me for saying that but uh really they're probably they're probably saying fuck that guy guy. Fuck that guy. Yeah. And we're keeping Master Bedroom. Well, I was fine with Master Bedroom. I was like, work on the real problem.

Don't worry about Master Bedroom. No, I get it. I get it. I mean, well, it seems like there's a lot of those sort of, you know. Cosmetic changes. Band-aids for little things. Yeah. Well, I mean, I love the new album. And also, like, along the same lines is that uh

it's very hard to sort of because when someone says like you know what you know what what style of music does john legend do i mean you do most of them right well i think it's rooted in black music but i grew up with gospel soul and doo-wop those were like the main things that were in my house those are the things my dad played and those were my foundation but it seems like that gary that gary clark song is almost a rock song really yeah yeah and i think i've listened to everything it's all in me i hear all of it and and you know um when i collaborate with other artists they can bring out different things in me and and so working with Gary brings out one thing,

working with, you know, Rafael Sadiq brings out another thing. And it just, I'm open to those kinds of collaborations where they push me in different directions that will make the album more interesting. Well, I mean, I think that it's a sign of your, I guess your uniqueness that you you can it seems like collaborating is is really you know where you started i mean it seems like that's the foundation of who you are

and and what fascinated me in looking at some of the people you collaborated with is that you know as geniuses many of the people you work with are, these are some difficult people. Yes. Who are you thinking about? Let's just generalize. But I mean, the fact is, is that somehow or another, and I have to assume it's not just talent, you have an ability to work with, collaborate, understand as much as it may bring at this point in your career, collaborators may bring something to you, but you brought something to them. And I have to assume it was something other than just your specific talent. I mean, they can't be easy people to please some of them. And you have to you must have some sort of muscle that enables you to

to kind of kind of, you know, create symbiosis with even the difficult people. Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I was like, well, what makes me the kind of collaborator that works with all types of people? And I think part of it is being good at what you do well. So, like, I'm a good pianist, I'm a good singer, I'm a good songwriter. But also having humility because uh when you have enough humility um to be open and to really listen to other people's ideas and really take it in and realize that you'd be better off if you guys did something together than if you did it

separately uh having that sense of humility um i think makes it so that collaborations can go really well and really let the idea win, you know, the best idea. But that's not something you're born with. Um, you, I think you probably born with a disposition in that direction, but you get better at it too, because you, uh, you, you see what works in these situations. And if you actually want it to work and you let your ego kind of take a backseat and you actually want it to just create something great, then you start to figure out what things you did in those sessions that made it work out.

And I think part of it is that openness, that humility saying, let my ego take a backseat to an extent. Well, yeah, I can see that. let my ego take a backseat to an extent. Well, yeah, I can see that. But like, I'm just curious about like how, you know, because, you know, some people can work with other people and some people can't, you know, and some people, you know,

they can work with other people sort of, you know, begrudgingly because they have to. But like, you know, when you were growing up, you know, what was, when did you start doing the music? Like who was your primary champion? So my grandmother was one of the first champions. My mother was also.

So my maternal grandmother, she was the organist at my church. And she helped teach me how to play gospel music. My mother was the choir director. And then my dad played the drums at church and so we grew up in church my grandfather was a pastor so we literally like the first family of the church was he uh was he a yelling pastor he was not he was very much a more of a teacher he's more professorial so okay uh he was and i think he actually lost out on members because he was so mellow.

He didn't put on a show like a lot of preachers that we grew up around. So you would go to other folks' church, and their pastor was definitely more charismatic than my grandfather was. But he was very bright and very well-read and very methodical about, the things he had learned in the Bible. But other preachers were way more entertaining, no doubt about it. So there was a lot of Jesus around. Oh, so much Jesus. So it's crazy. After all that, I ended up playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.

You had to. I had to. But, you know, as a kid, though, you know, that was everything. And our church that we grew up in was very, very fundamentalist. So it's called the Pentecostal Church and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. He was a Pentecostal pastor and not charismatic. Exactly. He was like an oddball, but he was very but he was very much fundamentalist like the rest of his peers. So, you know, women couldn't wear skirts above their knees. ball but he was very but he was very much fundamentalist like the rest of his peers so

you know women couldn't wear skirts above their knees uh they frowned upon jewelry and makeup and and uh they frowned upon even listening to secular music really going to the movies like it was very very serious uh for the first um you know eight to ten years of my life i'd say about 10 years but this is your family so like so this is your your mother's father's the pastor yes my mother's father and and and you're growing up in this house and there you can only listen to church music basically yeah at home yeah and who taught you how to play the piano so my grandmother was part of it and then i also took lessons at a local music store so i was learning classical music there uh and uh my grandmother's teaching

me gospel music so when did the dam break with the popular music well my parents got divorced so everything went to shit after that so uh what happened they got divorced uh after my grandmother died my mother actually got really depressed after that. And things just started to fall apart in our home and our family. But she died of a natural cause. Like what happened? She died early. She was like 58 years old.

She had she had a heart failure. So it was shocking. It was tragic. My mom was extremely close with her and it just sent her into a spiral. And so we were estranged from my mom literally for like 10 years. Because she got so depressed? She got so depressed. She was on drugs for a while. It was like a real mess. And this was after being like the perfect mom before that. She was homeschooling us she was uh you know directing the choir she was

like exemplar mother uh for a long time and then after her mother passed away she just went into the spiral and we lost her for a while and she's back now thankfully and she's healthy and happy and where did she go it's fine she was in our hometown like in in Springfield, Ohio, but we barely even saw her. She was addicted to drugs, and it was like a tough time. And who looked out? Was her father still alive? Was the pastor still around? Her father was alive, but he was starting to get into dementia at that point. Oh, my God.

So who was taking care of you? So we were living with my dad, and are four of us kids and he was a single dad after they got divorced. And that's when, you know, the rules kind of disappear. Once, once the parents get divorced, no one's checking to see if you're still listening to secular music. So, you know, and by that time, you know, we're going to, you know, middle school and high school, we're listening to what our friends are listening to, which at the time you know it's like early 90s uh so it's like jodeci r kelly boys to men mariah carey whitney uh some hip-hop so i didn't listen to a lot of hip-hop as a kid i started listening to that more as uh you know in my late teens and also the old timey stuff yes and so my dad was

always you know even despite uh being part of a church where he wasn't supposed to he was always still into Motown and and the old time stuff he listened to Nat King Cole right because I hear that stuff man I hear that stuff in you yes it's very much in me. And I those artists are still part of who I am, but also Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield, Smokey. Those are some other artists that are very much in my head when I'm writing and when I'm recording my voice and all those other things. It's just it's it is sort of amazing that, you know, you like to be an artist like yourself who, you know, I can feel the presence of all that stuff. You know, the ones that I know and even the ones that I don't know. But again, you know, it is all in service of your unique voice, which is not it's not easy. And it's an amazing strength that whatever that humility you're talking about, whatever was at the, or the ego-lessness you're talking about

that enables you to collaborate, at the bottom of that, it's not an empty well there. It's a pretty strong foundation in you. Well, yeah, I think, and I credit my parents for that and just me loving the music. I fell in love with it early and I never stopped. I always wanted to be on stage i always wanted to be uh leading the choir i always wanted to be uh winning the talent show i wanted

to be uh my dream when i was like seven was to be on star search oh wow you remember star search with ed mcmahon of course and uh comedians used to do it too. Yeah, of course. Chappelle was on there. And, you know, these were the dreams I had when I was young. And I never gave up on it and just kept working at it. And here I am. What happened with your mom? She would just come in and out of your life or what? Yeah, by that point, like barely saw her.

Like I would go months without seeing her and she was living and our town's not big uh you know it's like 70 000 people yeah but uh uh i would barely see her in a year uh well she just strung out all the time yeah she was and emotionally volatile and like not even that volatile more like it was sad like i i didn't want to be around her it was like uh it was like it was a source of shame at the time yeah and i was trying to like put my head down and succeed in school i was like a straight-a student and you know i was like the middle child that that tried to hold everything together oh right and be be mr perfect all the time. And my mom was like, at that time, it was just like, it just made me feel bad.

And so I just tried to avoid seeing her and just put my head into school and music and everything. I think we just found it. Your amazing ability to collaborate is. Middle child. Middle child. I was a fight breaker- breaker upper between my older brother my younger brother yeah the diplomat the uh let's bring it all together we're one family here

yeah conciliation mediation and also order order can we just like can we close the gap you know can we just bring it in tight yes you know keep the chaos out yes so well then how did it kind of turn around did your mom get cleaned up or did she she got cleaned up um and uh she never went to rehab she didn't go to rehab but she got cleaned up it was like really she had a come to jesus moment literally like she got back in touch with her faith. And, and that was helpful. She started to surround herself with people that could help her come back. And she came back she and she it's like she's never used since. She looks incredible. She looks younger than she is. You know, she's 65 years old looks younger than that. She She's 65 years old, looks younger than that.

If you look at her now, you wouldn't even be able to tell if she went through all that. But she really did for quite a while. Was she destitute to that point kind of thing? Yeah, she was not living a good life. She was in a rough neighborhood on drugs, and it was not good. But never got busted or anything oh yeah she went to jail oh yeah yeah for how long she she was never in for like an extended sentence it was more like you know they knew her down there in for a couple days right right i didn't even know

what's happening at the time yeah uh because um like i said i was avoiding seeing her yeah yeah yeah and so it was all happening during this time. And I didn't know about it until later after she was clean. Your dad knew, though? I don't know that he knew all of that was going on. So do they get along now, your folks? Everybody gets along. My mom's very much in my kids' lives.

Oh, that's great. And all her other grandkids' lives. She has, uh what 10 of them now oh my god and uh and uh she's she's like i said you would not be able to tell that any of this happened before and your dad's around too oh yeah absolutely he's 70 and very healthy and he's good but they're not together they're not together he's remarried uh they actually got back together when she first came back so they got back together got remarried he had been through a one stepmom during the interim period yeah and then they got back together but figured out they actually

didn't want to be together anymore and they got divorced a second time. And then my dad has since remarried recently with someone he met on a dating app. Wow. Modern love. Modern love. It's so great that they're a part of your life and the kid's life and that it worked out. So she stuck with Jesus is what happened. Oh, yeah.

And she definitely did. And, you know, obviously, there's all kinds of reasons why people decide to get clean. Yeah, sure. There's all kinds of methods by which they do so. But she didn't go to rehab. But she was able to, through faith and the love of her friends and family, she was able to come back. Now, with your work, so you started on piano, you stick with piano.

Do you play other instruments? I do not. Only time I took guitar lessons was to fake it for La La Land, and that was it. I haven't done any since then. And do you write all the songs on piano first? A lot of them are written on piano first,

but a lot of my songs are written in collaboration with other people. So, you know, they may play the guitar. Right. So you write in the studio a lot? Yeah, I write in the studio and usually it's one or two other people in there with me. And it's usually and sometimes we write with producers who their gift is more in creating cool instrumentals. And so so they may play the keyboard. creating cool instrumentals.

And so they may play the keyboard. They may be good with rhythm and creating drum beats. And so the collaborative process means we're all in this room together coming up with ideas, riffs, beats, hook ideas, and then eventually a song comes from that. Yeah, so that's sort of what I was going to ask you at the beginning when we started talking about producers and you supporting young producers with the, uh, with the guild there was that, because I, I noticed on, on the records, especially on this new record, not only like on any given song, there's a half a dozen writers. So a lot of those,

so it's the kind of division of labor and pop music these days. So like I said, producers a lot of times will make tracks. And sometimes they're making them with you in the room. You're writing the song together and they're building an arrangement around it. And so they'll get writing credit for composing that music and building that beat. But then the lyric and the melody is usually just written by you or you and one other person. So most of the things that I actually sing, the things that come out of my mouth, the lyric and the melody, are usually written by just me or just me and one other person.

But then the people that help create the music around it also get writing credit. So you often see two or three other names. Right. And they're usually the producer and maybe their team to help them create the arrangement. And then sometimes we have samples. And so you'll see the names of the people whose song we sampled in the writing credits as well.

So like if you're looking at ULA, two or three of the names in that writing credit for that are the people who originally wrote I Only Have Eyes For You. Alexander Dubin and Harry Warren. Exactly. So those are guys that may not even be alive still that wrote the song many years ago. Right. And their estates are getting a little kickback from us sampling the song. Well, I guess it's interesting that producers are really musicians mostly in their own right.

It's just that their instrument is a bigger palette of possibilities. Yeah, and then sometimes their job is to hire people that make the music. So sometimes the producer actually executes the actual instruments that you're hearing on the song. So a lot of producers play keyboards. A lot of them do drum programming. But they also have a Rolodex.

They have contacts in their phone. And they call up a Rolodex or what, you know, they have contacts in their phone. And they call up a live drummer. They call up a guitarist they like to work with. Or they call up a string arranger they like to work with. And part of their job as a producer is to do that. But it's interesting because the thing I was talking about before was the Producers Guild in TV and film. And so we were talking to uh producers in that sense but in the music business of course producers are the ones that bring the sound of the the track together

bring the sound sure yeah yeah so when did you how'd you learn all this shit man i mean it's like when did that start i mean was this like i i know that you you did a track on lauren hill's album when you were like a kid. But I mean, before that, you know, was this, were you learning how to do this? How was it through collaboration that you learned all this stuff? You start to learn it. Well, when I was younger, I think I was learning just the ABCs of music. So learning how to make a good song song learning how to collaborate with other musicians

and make it all sound good what was the first time you said like this is how a song works i mean do you remember a song like i remember writing songs at probably 11 or 12 like just the silliest of love songs that you know i thought would help me get a girl or something. Right. But you knew you needed a hook and a refrain. When did you start to learn that stuff? Yeah. I started to figure it out then. Yeah. And you start to get more kind of analytical and scientific about it as you keep going

with it and as you're exposed to more music and as you write more songs. And for me, I started to get a kind of a pattern a methodology in the studio where i pretty much write in the same way every time i go to the studio um the the initial idea comes in different ways yeah but once i'm fully executing the idea it's almost always building the music first building the melody the rhythm of that vocal melody first and then uh scatting the the pre-lyric basically uh before you know what you're going to say and then uh and then eventually writing the lyric and i've been writing that way since you know probably age 16 or so and really so you don't like wake up in the middle of the night with a lyric?

Sometimes I'll have an idea, but I'll just write it down. Right. And then or I'll record it into my phone, but I won't finish the song then. The finishing of it and the full execution of the writing process usually happens in the same way. I'm usually in the studio, the same order, basically the music first and the lyric and i've been doing that since uh you know since i can really remember writing as an adult and i usually do it within a few hours so it usually takes about three or four hours to fully write a song wow that doesn't mean it's always going to be good yeah but it's written right and sometimes i'll if i think it's good but i need to change some of the lyrics of course i'll change them um and then some i just i'm like oh that didn't work out uh i'm just gonna scrap it and there's lots of songs like

that in my life where it was fine but it wasn't good enough and and i just scrap them so well eventually they'll they'll show up somewhere probably yeah the after i die someone will release the scrapped songs of john legend exactly but uh so that it seems like the way you talk about it like that's the job the song is the job well it's it's part of the job and it's the it's it's also the joy for me. I get so much joy from finishing a song. Not even just finishing the whole arrangement, but just finishing writing the song, composing the song. When it's done, it's very exciting. Every time it's exciting.

I'm sure. And then you've had so many hits. That's got to be the second wave of excitement. Here's the song. Well, you don't even know. You don't even know, though. It's like any of those songs can change your life, you know? Yeah.

But in the moment, you're just happy you've finished, and it feels good in that moment. Oh, yeah. And it brings you a lot of joy. So when was your first break that you really kind of can identify? Well, let's say this. The first time I got to be on a major album was Lauryn Hill's album in 1998. So I'm a student at the University of Pennsylvania at the time.

I had started there in 95. I'm in my junior year. And my weekend job was as a director of music at a church in scranton pennsylvania so scranton scranton is up up up the interstate from philly and uh it's famous for the office now of course but uh uh before that i guess it was famous because joe biden was from there uh originally but anyway uh i would go up to scranton every weekend and play for this church and that helped you know pay my bills in school helped me pay my uh you know help me eat during school and also it was uh it was service weekend job yeah it was service and i got to make music and and

work with a choir and and it was fun yeah so one of the choir members was um from north jersey and she went to high school with lauren hill right and um she sang and yeah lauren hill looked at her as a big sister and when lauren was working on her first solo album after the huge success of the fuji's album the score uh my friend asked me if i wanted to go uh to the studio and meet lauren and see what she was working on oh my god i'm like of course i would love to yeah and so i go with her to i think it was east orange or one of the oranges uh in jersey and um she's in the studio rohan marley's there. Some other producers are there. Musicians are there. And they're working

on a song called Everything is Everything. Right. We didn't know what this song was going to be. I don't think they even knew the title at the time. But during one of their writing breaks, I basically auditioned for

Lauryn Hill because my friend was like, Lauryn, you got to hear my friend play and sing. So I sat down at this upright piano in the studio and I sing a couple songs for her. And she liked it enough to ask me to play piano on the track she was working on at the time. And so my first claim to fame, going back to my senior year at Penn, was I'm on track 13 of this album that we all love. Right. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, playing piano on Everything is Everything.

So that was my first big break. That's a crazy story. That's a crazy story. And then I auditioned for her band to tour with her. So I was ready to drop out of school, go on the road with Lauryn Hill. But I got rejected. She picked somebody else to be the musical director of the band. And so I finished school and graduated.

Wow. You ever think about what would have happened? Maybe. Yeah. Who knows? I wonder. I wonder. Who knows?

It could have went the other way, John. It could have went. Who knows what would have happened? A lot of people believe that you're living that living that parallel life that's that that's also happening somewhere well who knows yeah yeah parallel universe i don't like to think about that too much i have a hard enough time with this one my brain hurts when i hear that exactly so then like and then could you use that as a reference did you use it as a reference was it oh i use that shit out of it i use it all. I was like, you may have heard me on track 13

on the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. And you got to remember, this is like album of the year. Yeah, it's huge. She won every Grammy. Right. And it was just a phenomenon. So even having a sprinkling of a touch on that album was useful. Gold dust.

And it led to other things, but it didn't lead to me getting a record deal as soon as I wanted one. So that was 98. I graduated college in 99. And I'm at this Ivy League school with all these high-achieving kids, and they're all doing you know interviews for investment banks and consulting firms and i'm like well um i guess i need to get a job too because music ain't paying the bills yet yeah so i apply to work at boston consulting group and mckinsey and all these

uh major consulting firms and uh i got hired at boston consulting group this is like one of the top you know white shoe consulting firms and i get hired to work there i'm like you know a junior uh you know they bring you in to do like analysis uh data crunch is that what you study uh no i was an english major but they hire they hire liberal arts majors there they like people with kind of a diversity of backgrounds what was your focus as an english major in an ivy league what what was your african american literature and culture so you you pick the major and then you have a concentration and so within african-american literature and culture you read uh you know black novelists but you also um study black history and anthropology, if you want.

Who are your favorite writers of that? Oh, I loved Toni Morrison. She's my all-time favorite. Yeah, great, great. And she's also from Ohio, like myself, and she's one of the great novelists, I think, of any race, of any culture in history. So she's definitely one of my favorites,

and I read her a lot when I was in school, and wrote about her in some of my papers and yeah, sure. So so that's my major. And I go to Boston for a year. So I'm literally working in Boston at Boston Consulting Group. They have offices all around the world, but I got hired in the Boston. Boston's a rough, rough town. It was it wasn't the right town for me, for sure. So Philly was great. So I'm there. Philly was like, I'm at Penn.

The Roots are in town. I don't know them yet, but I know of them. And I see them doing open mics. And Jill Scott's there. And all these really talented soul artists are there. Hip hop artists are coming to town to collaborate with the Roots and all these people. So you would

you know see these open mic open mics and common would show up and and uh d'angelo would show up and erica badu would show up so all of these all of these artists are really blossoming during this moment when i happen to be going to college in this city. And so I get to just kind of soak it all in. I don't know all these guys yet. I want to know them. I want them to listen to me and check me out. But, you know, they have their own crew. And, you know, it's hard to work your way in.

But, you know, I'm seeing all of it and being inspired by all of it. And then I take this detour and take this job in Boston. And Boston wasn't the right city for me it's a very say I lived there for years it's almost a segregated city it's a very weird yeah it's not it's got that and it's also not the best music scene it just wasn't it's a rock music scene yeah and so um I asked for a transfer to New York so I ended up working in New York at Boston Consulting Group yeah two more years after my first year in Boston. Really stuck with it, huh?

And when I'm in New York, I start really meeting the people that are going to change my life. How do you do that, though? You're just going out at night or you know people? Yeah. Going out at night, I started playing gigs. I had guys that I had written with in Philadelphia. And we put a little band together. I was the front man, and it was under my name.

But, you know, they came out and played with me at little clubs in New York. So if you've heard of Elbow Room or Downtime or Knitting Factory or SOB. I know all those. I was playing at all of them. And, you know, they're right down the street from a lot of the comedy clubs you were probably sure at the same time yeah and um so we're playing all these places and um i have a kind of a built-in fan base of just friends i went to college with basically yeah um the roaming 20 people that'll show up wherever you are well yeah well pin everybody goes to

new york after pin so literally i'm getting like 50 75 100 people to show up just for you know a 30 minute set for me great uh and that's a good like way to kick it off because not a lot of new artists moving into new york would have that kind of built-in uh group of people that would come see them yeah so i was doing that. I was selling CDs from my apartment, going to the post office and mailing them off myself. With the little foam envelopes? Yes, exactly. A little website that one of my friends from college created for me. And my roommate is a guy I went to college with and was roommates with in college.

And his cousin is Kanye West. Come on. Come on. So, Kanye grew up in Chicago, is just about to have his big break as a producer, not as a rapper, but as a producer, making beats for Jay-Z and some other Rockefeller artists. And he moves to New York. He actually moved to Newark, New Jersey, but right across the tunnel. So he moves to Newark.

I'm living in the East Village. Where in the East Village? 7th Street and 2nd Avenue avenue i have two roommates that i went to college with i lived on second between a and b for a couple yeah so uh you know where the orpheum theater is where the stomp uh show plays we were right about right above that okay so um we lived there two roommates all working in the corporate world but um devon harris who is kanye's cousin yeah he by day is working at price waterhouse coopers as a consultant and at night he's djing and making beats and he's connecting me with his cousin and his cousin um moves to newark starts to blow up as a producer

and we start writing together uh my demo which eventually became the basis for get lifted uh my first album you and kanye and me and kanye a young kanye a scientist production company again he's no more as a producer at this point right people are skeptical about him being a rapper um and uh he's he's starting to blow up and people are interested in you know who who would he sign who would he work with sure and so he gets a production deal calls his company uh good music getting out our dreams yeah and uh and he signs me as the first artist and through his production company i got signed to columb Records, and that was in May of 2004. Columbia is a very historically respectable label.

Oh, of course. Springsteen's there, Bob Dylan, so many major artists, and Tony Bennett. There's just a lot of pedigree there. Sure. And so they signed me through kanye's production company and uh get lifted came out seven months later it was basically already written and most of it was recorded prior to me getting a record deal and most of that work you did with kanye uh yeah uh he produced

like four or five tracks and then a guy in philly that i had been working with since college named dave tozer produced a few more. You work with him a lot, Tozer. Yeah, Tozer. I've written with him over the years. We've written together since 97, 98. Devon, the roommate, he produced a couple tracks as well. And that was pretty much my brain trust.

And Will.i.am, actually, from the Black Eyed Peas. Because my new manager that I got in 2002 he also managed the black eyed peas and uh the first producer he thought to hook me up with was uh will I am so he actually worked with me on ordinary people and another song called she don't have to know on the album and so those were the four producers I collaborated with on my first album and it was huge it was huge I won best new artist got eight grammy nominations and uh it was the start of a really uh rewarding career do you find that like on the album Evolver I mean do you find I mean it doesn't seem like you radically change but you do kind of expand. Yeah, we expanded.

The first single was a song called Green Light, and that was definitely a departure. It was very up-tempo, and people hadn't really seen me doing that. Andre 3000 was on it, so that made it a lot more of a splashier track. Is he a fun guy? Oh, he's incredible. He's creative, fun, smart. He's incredible he's creative fun smart he's just uh he's kind of a recluse now you rarely see him uh aren't we all right now for me well no but even before this oh yeah like we never performed uh green light live ever oh really once and uh when

i asked him you know if he ever wanted to do the song like when i came to atlanta on my tour yeah i was like you ever want to come out on stage? We'd love to have you. Whenever I get a TV opportunity, I reach out and see if he wanted to do it. He was like, you know, I don't perform on stage. I haven't done so in years, and I don't know if I ever will. Is he agoraphobic, or he just doesn't want to go out? I don't know.

I've never asked him exactly what his reasoning is, but he's happy living the way he lives, and he doesn't really want to change it, so I respect it. Hey, you've got to respect somebody who doesn't want to play the big game anymore. Yeah, and he could make a lot more money if he wanted to, and he's choosing not to. Maybe he's okay. Maybe he's got enough.

Yeah, he's fine. Good. Yeah. But, yeah, so the hits keep coming, right? Yeah, we've had – I i mean the biggest hit was of course all of me which was from uh my uh fourth big studio album love in the future and i wrote that inspired by my wife and and when'd you meet her time she was my fiancee at the time i met her in 2006 and we started we actually met shooting a video for a song for my second album the second

album is called once again and there was a song on the album that wasn't even a single but my friend nabil elderkin who's a producer a director a photographer and a and a producer uh he uh loved the song and he had a video idea for it. And at the time, he wasn't known as a director. He was just taking photos. Yeah.

And actually, I got to tell the backstory of how I met him. He, I met Nabil because he was squatting kanyewest.com. So,

What do you mean? He was squatting the site. You know how back in the day when, you know, people didn't have a lot of Web presence. He bought it. You would be you would become famous and you hadn't already bought your Web site. Yeah. And somebody owned it. Somebody owned it. Right. And his only stipulation for giving Kanye his Web site was just let me take pictures of you.

was just let me take pictures of you. And so he's this young kid. He's probably 19 or 20 at the time. And he bargains with Kanye to just hang out with us and take pictures in exchange for giving him his domain name. Yeah. And so Kanye gets his domain name. Nabil hangs out with us and takes lots of photos. And Nabil and I become friends.

And he's also starting to take photos for other people for brands one of the brands he was taking it for was billabong which is you know like a surfwear brand and um my wife um was modeling for billabong right and she meets nabil yeah so nabil wants to do a video of this song Stereo. Not a single. He just wants to do it on spec to show people that he can direct as well. He's a photographer at this point. As is real. Yes.

So he wants to show people he can direct. And he chooses to do a song called Stereo on spec for me. And he starts showing me pictures of this woman that he had just shot and he's like would you like her to be your love interest in the video and i'm like uh yes um for life chrissy and it's and it's chrissy yeah and he's like yeah i think you're gonna like her she's really cool and funny and and all these things and beautiful and and so we meet we hit it off and um we started dating not long after that uh and we got pretty serious starting like 2007 2008 and then i proposed in 2011 and we got married in 2013 and then all of me comes out and becomes this massive song. Yeah.

We shot the video in Italy. Yeah. And it was shot by Nabil Eldarcan, the guy who introduced us seven years prior. And it literally was the anniversary of the day we met, seven years later, that we're shooting this video. And the day after the anniversary of the day we met seven years later that we're shooting this video and the day after the anniversary of the day we met we got married it was that on purpose you just see it now no it's it it was lucky because uh we had planned to do the wedding at a completely different place

in america uh and then at at some point're like, why are we doing this? We don't want that many people to come to wedding anyway. So let's make it a far flight for people. And so we decided to change and get married in September. And then I do the math. At some point, I figured out, oh, this is the day we met. Wow. And it was the day before our wedding, was it seven years since the day we met. And we're shooting the video for all of me on the day before our wedding in Italy with Nabil as the director. And it was like a magical full circle moment.

That is beautiful. How's Nabil now, good? He's good. He's going to direct another video for this album. And he's directed feature films at this point. He had one at, I believe, at Tribeca last year that's probably coming out this year. Really talented guy. And he's still a close family friend. Who did the camera work for the BET performance he did last night?

That was Benny Boom. He did a fantastic job. He's directed lots and lots of videos and TV. I he's done film as well but he's uh he's fantastic yeah and and you guys uh you and your wife are getting along great you got two kids and they're good yes everyone's they're good the babies are good spending a lot of time with everybody now right yeah it's like um it could go either way because you're spending this much time with somebody and it might expose some problems in your relationship. But I think we've been good through it. And it actually has shown me how great of a mom she is, too, because you got to be way more creative when you can't send your kid to preschool every day. Yeah.

You know, it's just us always together all the time. you know, when it's just us always together all the time. And she's been so creative, so fun and just fun to be part of this crazy quarantine with. And now how's your relationship with Kanye? Good? It's fine. You know, we're not as close as we were, mostly for work reasons. We, I'm not signed as production company anymore and we haven't worked on an album together since uh 2013 um and um you know i used to tour with them i used to be signed

as production company we used to have all these kind of built-in reasons for us to be in the same space and now he's in wyoming uh our families still close. So we'll like, you know, go to their Christmas party or Easter party or whatever. Or a birthday or something. We haven't gone there yet, but he's really only been there full time since the quarantine.

But, you know, in LA. And so we still see each other, but not nearly as much. And obviously we've had our public disputes about politics, but I still love him like a brother. And I I'm so grateful for everything we've done together. And have you seen an evolution of his sort of expansive mental disposition? I mean, was he always like that?

He wasn't. He's he's definitely more, you know, I don't know how to diagnose it. He's talked about being bipolar. He's talked about some of that before. And I don't know that I saw that in him, you know, at the beginning. Yeah. But obviously it's something he's upfront about and he's dealing with. And I don't know the ins and outs of all that. But it hasn't affected the core of your love for him or each other?

I mean, I think our love is based on so much history together, so much that we are proud of that we've done together. And even when I disagree with him and I shake my head at some of the things he says, I still have that love for him. Yeah. Well, that's a testament to a real friendship. Yeah. And honestly, it's like so much history. We were on the road together. We were making music together when no one believed in either of us. And when you have that with somebody, it creates a bond that'll stay. And even as your life evolves, you're in different places,

you'll still have that. Sure. And you won the BET award. Now, does that, all these awards, I mean, is it still great to win an award? I have to assume it is, right? It is still great. Like, I've never won that particular award.

I've never won Video of the Year. I've never won Album of the Year at the Grammys, for instance. Yeah. So if I were to win something like that. You've never never won video of the year that's i've never won album of the year the grammys for instance yeah uh so if i were to win something like that you've never won album of the year no um i've won in my how is that possible well i've won in my cat or kanye hasn't either beyonce hasn't either uh we've won in our categories right best r&b album right right but but there's a cross genregenre album of the year category. And frankly, black artists rarely win that. It's been a sore spot for us over the years.

And can you imagine that we've gone through the amazing creative output of Beyonce and Kanye over the last 15 years, and neither of them have won album of the year I feel like it's I feel like it's stunning it's coming though I feel I feel like it's coming I hope so but I mean like if Lemonade couldn't do it if My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy couldn't do it like all these like yeah yeah really important like critically loved extremely popular albums from people who are making some of the most vital music in their generation. Ever.

They haven't won Best Album. Yeah, it feels to me, though, that perception is changing perhaps a bit, John. We'll see. I hope so. But voters are voters, and hopefully the voters will do some reflecting. That's what it comes down to, right? Yeah. The academy is the academy, and I'm part of it,

and I'm a trustee now on the board. But the voters are who they are. You can phase some people out if they're not still making music, and then you can try to introduce them. But it definitely comes down to understanding and taste and being able to contextualize the music that's being presented in this particular moment. And I imagine some of them are maybe a little older.

Yeah. And, you know, it's like it was disproportionately older white guys. And that's fine if they're still making music, if they're still like in the business and active in the business and they know what's going on. But it's not cool if, you know, they're kind of tilting the the the votes in a more conservative direction and they're not really uh part of the kind of zeitgeist of who's making music in that moment it would seem you would it would be better to have younger people i mean why i mean why is it yeah and that and then and i you know i actively try to get younger people to join

but you know there are rules about how people get phased out of being voting members of the Academy. And so that's the phasing out of the older set and also phasing in the new set. But in terms of your awards, you did the EGOT thing. You got all of them, themy the grammy the oscar the tony and uh and that's like that's rarely done that's very exciting what now i don't know

the story behind uh the the doing jesus christ superstar again was that you it was um presented to us by nbc you know some of the networks have been doing these live musical events and some of them have gone well, some of them not so well. But NBC reached out to us and said they were interested in doing a new version of Jesus Christ Superstar. And would I play Jesus Christ? And I'm like, I had never thought this would be part of my future. But this sounds kind of cool. And I'm like, why would I turn this down? Right? Yeah, it's like a really cool opportunity. It's a big challenge, which, you know, I think we should do things that are risky and a big challenge for us every once in a while um and they presented

it to me they allowed us to produce with them and help uh finish with the casting and make sure we were happy with the musical team um and so i was like you know what let's go for it and so we rehearsed for months we uh we feel really good about it. We but you never know how it's going to be received. We perform it live on national television. And it was a huge hit. The ratings were amazing. The reviews were amazing. The fans loved it. And then people started talking about Emmy buzz. And I had already gotten the Grammy, the Oscar and the Tony part of the EGOT. And so this was the last thing I needed.

And I was nominated as an actor, which I did not expect. But also we were nominated as producers of the Best Live special. And we won that one. I did not win the Actor Award. And here we are. I'm an EGOT. And it's all because I decided to be a part of this Jesus Christ Superstar production. Did you like the music before you did it?

And did you know the show? I knew the show. I had sung some of the songs in high school show choir. I didn't know all the songs, but I knew a couple of them. And then I knew enough about the show. And then when they offered it to me, I just listened to the whole cast album again. It's kind of great, right? It's really good.

And it was early in the idea of doing musicals that were basically rock musicals. Right. It was one of the early pioneers of that and it holds up and and we got to do we got to produce it with andrew lloyd weber and tim rice they were like literally at rehearsals with us and and uh and uh they won their egot that same day with the same award because they had they had both won uh all three aside from the Emmy before that. And so there were 12 EGOTs before that day, and then after that day there were 15, and I was one of them.

Big night for the EGOTs. Yes. I actually, Lin-Manuel Miranda, you know, he's a fan of my show, and I went to see Hamilton. It was funny because after Hamilton I went backstage and I said you know it's kind of like Jesus Christ Superstar he's like it's exactly like Jesus Christ he's like

he said structurally we use Jesus Christ Superstar that's wild I never knew that now if I went back to see it after having done the show well like how Judas starts Jesus Christ Superstar, Aaron Burr comes out,

and he's the narrator. And the sort of King Herod, King George, the kind of goof, it's all there. I need to go back now, having done Jesus Christ Superstar and being so intimate with it. Now I have to go back and watch Hamilton, and I'll probably notice all that stuff too now. Are you guys friends?

It seems like you should be friends. I love Lin-Manuel uh we're not close but we we see each other probably like a few times a year and it's always just a lot of love and good energy and uh he asked me to he one of the things that's interesting I read the casting notes for uh the George Washington character and he said he wanted him to be a mix of john legend and common i believe uh in the casting notes when he was originally casting oh wow hamilton and then he asked me to um do a remix of history has its eyes on you for uh this remix album he did for for hamilton and that was really cool. That was one of the only times we've actually worked together on something.

And then other than that, we just have a lot of respect for each other, see each other at different events and give big hugs and all that good stuff. That's nice. I did Finding Your Roots as well as you. Yes. What'd you learn?

Did you learn anything new? Oh, it was so cool. I learned there was this whole story you know any African American obviously slavery is going to have a part in our history I learned about one of my relatives

or a family of relatives they had been freed from I believe West Virginia at the time or might have been Kentucky but one of the states that borders Ohio they had been freed upon the death of their former slaveholder, like how George Washington did it. You know, they put it in their will, after I die, you know, I'm going to grant freedom to all the formerly enslaved people. Isn't that wild that they they they knew enough then they knew it was wrong yeah yeah yeah they're like after i after i can no longer get any benefit from them

i'm gonna free yeah so anyway that's what they did and uh this happened to my family and they migrated to ohio because of it they become free before the civil war it might have been like right at the we were on the cusp of the civil war uh-huh the family of the slave owner gets mad and they try to come back and get it get my family members and basically kid come back to Ohio and be free. And it was like a real court battle. I knew nothing about it. Henry Louis Gates was able to find that out by doing research. And that was a cool story. find that out by doing research. And that was a cool story. You do a lot of, you know, work around criminal justice reform. How did that become the focus of your particular philanthropy? Well, part of it just was from personal experience, knowing what my mom went through when she had a drug addiction issue, knowing that people going through those issues need help. They don't need to be

locked up. They need someone who can help them deal with the mental health issues that got them there in the first place and help them figure out a way to kick their habit. It's more of a medical issue than it is a criminal issue. And seeing that, that definitely informed some of my personal empathy for so many other families that are dealing with it. But also, I did a lot of reading. I read about what was going on. I got outraged by reading it. I read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and other books that really just got me mad about the situation. I didn't know, because you know, like growing up in your neighborhood, you know about one of the drug dealers that got locked up, you know about this guy that got in trouble, you know, about family members that get in trouble. And you

always kind of just say, oh, they messed up. So they got in trouble. And that's how this works. But then when you read about the system, you read about the systems and how they've been applied, particularly in the black community. You realize how much injustice has gone into it. Of course. And if you're if you're reading about it and you have any empathy and any any sense of morality, it gets you upset. And and so I got upset and decided I wanted to do something about it. So I got upset and decided I wanted to do something about it. So we started Free America.

We started going around the country talking to all the stakeholders in the criminal justice system. We called it a listening and learning tour. We went around and listened and learned. We talked to lots of organizers and activists. We still talk to them all the time. And we decided, you know, these are some of the things we believe in. We want to end money bail. We want to end life without parole for juveniles. We want to basically decarcerate all juveniles whenever possible. You know, we want to legalize

drugs as much as possible and also treat drugs as a medical issue, decriminalize them. And, you know, those are some of the things we believe and we've been fighting for in states and localities all around the country. We've also gotten involved in district attorney races because we the more we talk to folks, we realize how much district attorneys have an impact on the entire system. And they do plea deals for almost all the cases that come through their system. And so them using their discretion prosecutorily is such a huge deal. And they have the power within their office to really reduce the incarceration rate just by making different policy decisions about how they go after certain crimes and what they pursue when they go after certain crimes so we decided to start getting involved in district attorney elections so we helped elect a progressive DA in

Philadelphia Chicago I believe Orlando or Jacksonville one of those Houston all over the country and we're working to get a more progressive DA here in Los Angeles as well, uh, this fall. And, uh, that's part of the reform we want to see. And we're just out there trying to make it happen. That's, that's, uh, that's great. That's doing the, that's doing the big work. And the same people that, you know, have been working on that are some of the same people that are talking about re-imagining, uh, public safety when it comes to policing and other aspects of the justice system. And so when you hear us talking about defunding the police, a lot of that conversation is around taking the money, you know, six billion dollar budget in Los Angeles, taking some of that money or a large portion of that money

and saying, let's invest in things that actually make it less likely for people to commit crime in the first place. Let's invest in their health. Let's invest in making sure they have a place to live and food on the table. Let's invest in pre-K so that young people are given a good start. You see the results throughout their schooling and throughout their lives when you're able to give them quality preschool so we make choices as a society about how we spend our tax dollars that's what politics is essentially it's deciding how much to tax us and then based on that pool of money what do we spend it on and right now we think we spend way too much on policing. We spend way too much on jails and prisons as well. And we're saying, with this defund movement, saying move some of those funds, a large portion of those funds, to things that would prevent the crime that you're worried about in the first place. And people have a shot to function in society.

Yeah, exactly. Make society healthier, safer, more loving. And we'll have less crime anyway. And we won't need as many police. Absolutely. Thanks for talking to me, John. Thank you. And I love the new record. Thank you, Mark. I love the show. Great to be on it finally. And enjoy. Okay. Take care. Take care. John Legend. What a mensch. What a mensch, as we say in the Yiddish.

Great guy. Great artist. And the album's really, it's really good. And you can get that album, Bigger Love, wherever you get music. And now I will play some music. Kinda. Unproduced music. And now I will play some music. Kinda. Unproduced music. Improvisational music. Just a little,

little kinda John Lee Hooker jump thing. Perhaps. With a little taste of diddly. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family.

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