WEBVTT - John Legend 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:14.760 Pushkin. John Legends one of those people who can brighten 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.040 a day, so we're lucky during these times to be 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.520 getting some new music. Rick wanted to talk to an 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.959 uplifting artist for the podcast and John was one of 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.640 the first people that came to mind, and the timing 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.160 was perfect because John just released Actions, a song off 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.280 his new album that's due later this year. Rick and 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.160 John are both sheltered in place at the moment while 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.800 we arrived this virus out. You probably saw John's living 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.240 room concert with his wife, Chrissy Tigue in this past week, 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.800 so we connected with John via zoom. So the first 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:44.640 time we've really done a remote recording like this for 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:46.720 the podcast, but it was a nice trial run since 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.120 we'll likely be doing a lot more of this in 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.479 the future, and since it's our first go at it. 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.800 You'll probably hear some kids crying in the background, and 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.480 this episode's definitely a lot shorter than usual, But when 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.959 John's album comes out later this year, we'll definitely try 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.320 to get him back on In the meantime, joyed this 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:07.600 conversation between Rick and John Legend. This is broken record 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:15.479 liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond, here's 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.399 Rick Rubin and John Legend. What's happening, Rick, How are 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.720 you feeling. I'm feeling great. How are you good? It's 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.399 nice to see you. My pleasure. Are you in Malibu? 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.840 Were probably really close to each other. I'm in Hawaii? Actually, 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.640 Oh wow, Okay, so we're very far from each other. Yes, 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.360 it's a interesting We've been doing these podcasts now for 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.040 I don't know about a year and a half, and 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.840 I've never done one this way. They've always been in person. Okay, well, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.319 this is going to be a new new experience for 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.080 both of us into the wave of the present. Absolutely 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:56.320 not the future. So do you remember your first memories 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.280 of music as a kid. Yeah, my first memory of 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.520 music as a kid. We're in church. I grew up 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.400 in the Pentecostal church in Springfield, Ohio. My grandfather was 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:13.440 the pastor of our church. My grandmother was the church organist, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.760 and my mother directed the choir, and my dad sang 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.440 in the choir and played the drums, and so I 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.480 would go to a choir rehearsal with my parents and 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.680 hang out with them and with my grandmother, and I 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.800 would be at church every Sunday and sometimes during the week, 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:38.519 and we were surrounded by gospel music all the time. 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.200 My parents played it on their record player at home 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:50.160 and eventually their cassette player, and you know, we were 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.480 immersed in it, and that was the primary source of 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.000 music for us. Would you say the church came first 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.720 and the music followed, or is it primarily a musical church. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.320 I would say they were so integrated that you couldn't 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.760 separate one from the other when you went to our churches, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.600 any of the Pentecostal churches that I attended, or that 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.280 I or the one I grew up in. Music was 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:25.520 so integral to the service that you couldn't imagine the 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:30.560 service without music. When's the first time you remember playing 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.880 in front of people. I think probably the first time 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.440 I sang in front of anyone who was probably like 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.640 a Christmas program at school. They would try out the 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.240 little kids to say their little pieces and sing a 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:48.640 little song. And I was probably five, maybe four or five, 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.360 probably not too far from the age my daughter is now. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.960 She's almost four, but I was probably a little bit 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.720 older than that, but not much older. And you know, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.320 you don't know what you're doing at that time, but 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.560 it's part of how you celebrate Christmas as part of 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.120 how you interact with each other at church. And then 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.280 I remember one of the first real productions I was 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:19.800 in was a Christmas play at my elementary school. I um, 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.680 for part of my elementary school years attended a Christian 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.240 school called Springfield Christian School, and some of the time 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.159 I was homeschooled as well, but for the time that 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.000 I was there, I was a participant in some of 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.680 the Christmas musicals and other, you know, little productions at 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:43.120 the elementary school would do. And then was there a 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.000 was there a moment in time where you decided to 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.080 make it a profession or did it happen organically? Well, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.440 it started happening early, so um, you know, I would 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.760 watch Star Search, and I would watch the Grammys, and 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.520 I would watch Solid Goal, Old and Soul Trained, and 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:11.839 I would see artists who were seemingly enjoying themselves, doing 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.159 what they love to do and performing in front of 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.279 large audiences. And I wanted to be one of those artists. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.320 I loved singing at church, but I wanted to be 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.039 one of the artists I saw on television. I would 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.160 see Stevie Wandering, Michael Jackson, Luther, you know, certain artists 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.080 caught my attention. Aretha Franklin caught my attention and made 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.360 me want to be in the stages, on the stages 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:41.360 where they were performing, and so I dreamt of being here. 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.359 Very early in my life. I didn't know what that meant. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.960 You know, to me, that meant winning Star search. Funny 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.160 that I'm on the Voice now, but but you know, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.640 to me at the time, it meant winning a television 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.480 talent show and getting discovered that way. So after church, 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.240 the next your next connection to music was more through television. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:10.640 You would say, yeah, television, the radio, um, But you 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.040 know when I when I would see those artists on television, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.880 it would kind of put kind of meat and bones 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.480 on this idea of what it meant to be a 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.000 professional artist. It would, you know, it gave me a 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.680 visual representation of what that meant, and not just singing 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.280 it for free at church or or singing it locally 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.920 at school, but doing it for a living and doing 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.080 it on big stages. Television was what kind of introduced 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.640 me to what that meant. Do you do you remember 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:51.400 when or if when you notice that the the difference 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:56.120 between the music that was particular to the church and 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.880 non church music. Oh yeah. My parents made it clear 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.560 that secular music actually wasn't really welcomed in our home. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:11.720 So we didn't have like almost any secular recordings in 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:13.560 our home at the time, even though we'd see some 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:19.080 things on television we when we were young. My parents 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.280 were very strict about those kinds of things, so we 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.040 didn't have any secular music recordings at home. When I 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.720 got a little older, things got a little more relaxed 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.440 and my parents went through we're going through a divorce, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.160 and so they got a little more relaxed too, and 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.960 so a lot of the kind of strict, really fundamentalist 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.080 traditions that they were cleaving too for a long time, 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.120 they kind of relaxed them a bit by the time 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.560 we were ten, eleven, twelve years old, and and then 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.720 he started to realize, Oh, my dad loved Motown, he 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:57.880 loved the Ojas, he loved my mom loved Luther Vandrows. 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.360 These are artists that they loved, but they didn't really 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.240 like let on that they loved it because it was 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:09.640 in our church tradition kind of frowned upon to listen 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.840 to secular music. It's piano, your first instrument, my first 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.800 and only I faked playing guitar on La La land. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.560 I learned enough to fake it, and uh, that was 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.200 other than that. Pianos all I have. And when did 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:27.040 your relationship with piano begin? Which started very young. We 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.320 had a piano in my house, and like I said, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.280 my grandmother was a church organist, and so she would 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.880 show me things on both the organ and piano, mostly piano. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.760 She had a piano and organ at her house too, 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.760 and you know, I was there was not many homes 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:47.400 that I would go to that didn't have a piano 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.760 in my life. So my neighbor next door had a piano. 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:59.080 My grandmother, my grandmother's on both sides had pianos, and 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.280 we had a piano. It was a beat up, upright piano. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:08.600 Do you remember your first experiments with songwriting? Well, I 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.040 started taking piano lessons formally at a music store when 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:17.000 I was about four or five years old, and I 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:22.480 learned like classical and hymns and things like that, and 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:29.319 then I think I probably started writing around eight or 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.560 nine years old. I would write things that I could 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.400 sing at church. I would By the time I was 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.680 ten or eleven, I was, you know, into girls more. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.200 By that point I started writing songs that I could 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.959 sing to girls that I liked. And so between singing 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.240 to Jesus and singing to girls that those are my 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.840 prompts for writing. It was always from a place of passion. Exactly. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.719 Do you remember the first music that really spoke to you, um, 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:09.680 outside of church, music that we you feel like um 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.400 was foundational for you, that you would say was your 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:17.480 music I loved. Well, there was music that my parents 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:22.800 playing that I loved, um um so um. At a 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.880 certain point, they once they kind of relaxed, uh, the 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.719 restrictions on sycling music. You know, my mom would play. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:32.920 She would play like kind of modern R and B, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:38.280 like Whitney and Luther and Anita Baker, and my dad 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.320 was more into, like I said, motown and the OJ's 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.840 and stuff like that. And so my upbringing as a 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:50.600 younger child was a combination of gospel music and current 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.880 R and B and then classic you know, soul. And 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.520 then once I started developing a consciousness in my own 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.960 and and actively buying my own records, I was really 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:09.200 into New Jack Swing. So, you know, I was in 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.720 middle school around the time like Bell biv de Vaux 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.120 was out, I was in high school when Boys to 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.000 Men was big, and Joe to See and R. Kelly 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.640 and a lot of those artists that were kind of 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.240 fusing hip hop and R and B in what were 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.480 at the time interesting new ways. Mary j came out 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.720 when I was in high school, and I loved some 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.640 of the motown stuff like Stevie and Marvin. But the 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.200 stuff that we talked about at school, that me and 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.120 my friends were into and excited about in high school 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.400 was the new stuff that was out, and a lot 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.600 of that for us was that new Jack swing sound. 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.760 What was going on in hip hop at that time 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.400 in hip hop, I wasn't that into hip hop until 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.160 I went to college. I didn't really get into hip 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.360 hop in the early nineties. I started to get into 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:06.320 it much more in the mid to late nineties. But 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.720 you know, I think Biggie came out in like the 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:14.200 early nineties, Snoop came out, you know, a lot of 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:19.360 the like the NWA type artists, Public Enemy. These are 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.520 things my friends will listening to. But I wasn't that 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.520 into hip hop until I got a little bit older. 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.600 Where do you go to school. I went to college 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.400 at UPenn in Philadelphia, and so I get to Philly, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.640 and this was a formative time in my life too. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.560 I get to Philly right when the Roots are really 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.199 kind of running the scene there musically, but they're also 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:47.439 working with you know, artists like DeAngelo, common Erica Bado, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.240 all these arts are not from Philly, but they would 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.959 come to Philly to work with the Roots, and James 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:57.800 Poyser and these other cats that were producing and recording there. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.480 Jill Scott was coming from I'm Philly, Jaguar, Balal music, 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.520 Soul Child. All this stuff was happening while I was 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:10.000 in college. And so in college, I was playing at 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.320 a church UM every Sunday to help pay my bills, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.000 and then uh, during the week, you know, I was 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.720 singing in an a cappella group UM on campus. But 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.800 I was also going to different open mics and things 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.240 like that. They had a thing called Black Lily UM. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.160 I don't know if you remember that, but this was 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.200 like an open mic that the that the Roots and 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.840 the jazzy fat Nasties would host UM and you'd see 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.600 Jill Scott there, you see Balal, there, you see Jaguar, there, 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.480 you see all these different artists. They started UM doing 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.160 it at Wilhelmina's um and then they moved it to 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.320 the five spot and you would see all of this 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.440 music being made um and it was amazing and it 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.520 was exciting to be a witness to it. I didn't 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.680 have any Philly roots at the time. I was just 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.439 going to school there, so I wasn't that connected to 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.640 the local artists scene at that time. But I just 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.720 started to go to these events and observe and be 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.920 inspired by what they did. And then I think between 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:19.240 that and meeting Lauren Hill in ninety eight through one 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.880 of the singers that was singing in the choir at 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.880 the church that I was playing for, all of those 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.600 things kind of served as inspirations for me to really 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.520 pursue being a solo artist and writing my own music 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:37.880 and really making an earnest effort to be seen and 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:42.480 heard by record labels, management and then eventually the world. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.360 All that started to happen while I was in college, 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.560 while I was in Philly, while I was seeing all 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.600 these other incredible artists doing their thing, it made me 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.080 want to do it. And so at that time would 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.560 you have been when you started pursuing it in that way? 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.800 Did you make demo or did you go out and play? Yeah, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:07.200 So I started making demos when I was I graduated 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.120 high school young. I was homeschooled some of my early years, 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.760 and so I graduated high school on a sixteen and 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.280 so I got to Penn when I was sixteen years old. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.320 I would lie by my age because I just didn't 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:23.960 want to be the weirdo who was two years younger 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.120 than everybody else. So I would lie and say my 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.320 seventeen made a little younger, but you know it was 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.560 it wasn't too big of a stretch anyway. I get there, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.680 I'm sixteen, and I'm figuring myself out what I want 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.000 to do. I'm also, you know, going to class, doing 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.720 a work study job, all these things. But people started 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:42.880 to hear me sing our auditioned for this acapella group, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.800 and people loved my voice there, and I started to 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.000 get a little bit of a reputation around campus as 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.680 one of the better singers on campus. And so guys 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:57.080 that were musicians or songwriters or producers would start to 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:58.840 reach out to me and say, hey, you want to 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:00.840 collaborate on some stuff together. I want to help you 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.400 make a demo, I want to help you create some 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.280 new songs. So one of the guys was a guy 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.120 named Dave Tozer who was not a student at Penn, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.800 but he was living in Philadelphia and was friends with 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.080 some of my friends at school, and so we met. Then. 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.520 He plays a guitar, bass, producers and write songs, and 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:24.440 we've been writing songs together since then. Were working on 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.440 a project now and we've been writing together since probably 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.600 in nineteen ninety seven nineteen ninety eight. There was another 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.080 guy who was graduated from Penn, but he happened to 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:38.840 be in the same acapella group that I was in, 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:43.520 and he was producing and arranging for pop artists at 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.160 the time. He was like arranging for Lisa Loebe and 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.320 other artists that were popular at that time in the 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.880 mid to late nineties, and he had seen me at 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:54.760 one of our shows and was like, Oh, I really 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.440 would love to work with you and write and produce 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.120 with you. Then there was another guy you might might know. 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.640 His name is Ted. He works with Snoop UM and 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.240 he's from out He's from la and Uh. He manages 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.040 Snoop now as part of Snoop's business team. But at 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.720 the time he was just a student at Pen UH 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.159 and he was rapping and producing as well. And UM, 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.320 so all these different guys UM that I met at 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.840 school that we're working on music and producing and writing 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.879 and and we're like, hey, let's collaborate on some stuff. 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.359 And so I started to put together a demo during 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.840 that time, UM and UM. The first demo I created 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.560 was with with Dan Coleman, and then the second one 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.600 I created was with Dave tozer Um. But I was 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.640 also collaborating with other producers and one of the producers 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.560 I met was Veda Nobles who was working with Lauren 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.359 Hill at the time UM and he worked on the 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.800 Miss Education of Lauren Hill. I played piano on Everything 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.040 Is Everything UH when I met Lauren Hill through one 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.760 of my friends that was at the church that I 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.760 was directing music at, and Lauren the day I met 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:10.439 her asked me to play on the song that they 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.040 were working on at that time, which was Everything Is Everything. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.600 Also auditioned for her band right after that to see 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.399 if I could go on tour with her after the 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.639 album came out. I didn't make the band, so I 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:27.400 didn't drop out of school, but I would have, but 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.560 then after that I graduate school. I have a couple 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.320 different demos that I've made, and I keep working on 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:40.120 new music, trying to get heard by different people, record labels, managers, etc. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:47.280 And I take a career detour and become a management consultant. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.280 It's kind of like almost peer peer pressure, because all 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.480 my other friends were like applying to banks and consulting 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:59.639 firms and accounting firms. And and one of my friends 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.679 who was a year ahead of me at Penn, she 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.440 had graduated and she was working at this place called 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.159 Boston Consulting Group. And I was like, what do you 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.800 guys do? And she explained what they did, and and 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.760 you know, it seemed like a prestigious thing to do, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.760 and like something that really smart people should try to do. 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:21.840 And so I applied and got an interview and got 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.679 the job. And they offered me like fifty grand a 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.320 year the first year out of school, which was a 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.159 gargantuan amount of money for me at the time. My 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.880 dad never made that much money in any year as 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.119 a factory worker. And they offered me this money and 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:43.080 this job at Boston Consulting Group in Boston, and I'm like, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.000 I'm gonna take it, of course, So I take it. 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.560 I get frustrated living in Boston and asked them to 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.760 transfer me to New York so I could be closer 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.359 to the music scene there. And I moved to New York. 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.159 I room with two guys. One of the guys was 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.560 Kanye's cousin, and Kanye's cousin, his name is Davon Harris. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.920 He went to penn with me, and he was living 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.960 in New York with another friend of mine, and they 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.080 were living on Second Avenue between Seventh and Saint Mark's 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.840 and they were working in different corporate jobs and they 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:23.400 were like, do you want to come live with us 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:25.680 when you moved to town? And I was like yeah. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.879 And so Devon is working during the day at Price Waterhouse, 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.879 another consulting firm, and but at night he's like making 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.480 beats and he's DJing a little bit. And then his 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.480 cousin moves to town. His cousin, of course, is Kanye West. 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:47.360 Kanye moves to Newark from Chicago, and this is right 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.200 around I think he's the two thousand or two thousand 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:56.480 and one. And in two thousand and one, September eleventh, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.920 the day the Blueprint came out, as you might recall, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.639 and that's jay Z's you know, really important album, and 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.320 it was huge for Kanye's career and just Blazer's career 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.640 because they had a lot of the beats on that album. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.680 And Kanye kind of starts to blow up as a producer. 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.879 He just moved to Newark and was working in the 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:24.639 hip hop scene in the Tri State area and his 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.199 cousin Divan introduces the two of us and says, you 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.840 guys should collaborate, and that time at Kanye he came 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.600 to my show at Jimmy's Uptown in Harlem, and um, 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.840 I was, you know, gigging doing you know, selling my 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.439 demo out of my trunk of my car, playing my 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:46.480 music for record label executives. And Kanye comes to the 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.879 show and he says we should start working together, and 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.800 we started working together. He was working on what eventually 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.320 became The College Dropout. I would sing on a lot 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.240 of the demos, and then I was working on what 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.879 eventually became Get Lifted, and he made several of the 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.080 beats that embodied uh that that were the you know, 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.600 the tracks for the songs don't Get Lifted. And he 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.520 eventually signed me to his production company, which became known 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.840 as Good Music, and I signed through him to Columbia 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.800 Records eventually in two thousand and four, but we had 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.000 been working together for like two and a half years, 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.159 and when his album College Dropout came out, it was 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.960 like a huge moment. You know. He sold like four 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.080 hundred thousand copies the first week. He was really becoming 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.960 a real musical phenomenon that we know him as today, 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:44.400 and the labels were like, who's next from his camp? 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.840 And I was next, and so multiple labels wanted to 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.680 sign me. Finally after playing the same demo for them, 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.879 you know, for the last couple of years. Uh, Kanye's 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.119 success made everything that we had made before sound a 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.439 lot better to everybody, and so I multiple offers, and 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:04.800 I took the offer at Columbia, and I'm still at Columbias. 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:12.200 We'll be right back with more from John Legend. We're 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.360 back with more from Rick and John Legend. Let's talk 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:23.639 about ordinary people, because it's when you think of the 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.280 popular music of the day when it came out, and 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.840 that's not what it sounds like. It really it really 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.520 stands apart from everything else going. And I can remember 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.040 kind of playing for playing it for me then, and 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:43.880 I remember being surprised that that's what he was playing me. Yeah, yeah, 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:47.159 And that has an interesting story as well. I was 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:53.320 managed by David Sonenberg and David managed and Seth Friedman, 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:58.080 and they managed The Black Eyed Peas and so very 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.200 early into me signing with them, Um, they loved the 0:24:01.240 --> 0:24:03.000 stuff I had done with Kanye, but they were like, 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:05.480 do you want to work with our guy? Will I am. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:08.000 He's really talented too, He's a great musician, and I 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:10.640 feel like you guys wire vibe well together. And we 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.760 wrote a couple of songs that ended up on my album. 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:16.959 One of them was she Don't Have to Know. That 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:18.919 was the first song we ever wrote together. Then I 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:21.640 wrote some hooks and other things for the Black Eyed 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:25.320 Peas and then he loved writing with me and was like, um, 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:27.920 can you come and do another session writing hooks for us? 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:34.640 And he played a beat that was loosely based on 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:38.840 on that la la la la la la la la 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:42.960 la la la la la from my Sharia Moore Stevie 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:46.439 Wonder song, just that one section of the song. He 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:48.160 made a beat that was kind of based on that, 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:53.800 and um, Um, I started singing, We're just ordinary people 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:57.040 to this beat, and it was meant to be a 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:00.800 black Eyed Peas hook that they would rap, you know, 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:04.560 on the verses. But the more I thought about the song, 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:06.280 I was like, you know what, well, I feel like 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:09.440 this song isn't a Black Eyed Piece song. It's a 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:14.800