Experience is a great teacher.
John Legend
My style is pretty clean, classic, and elegant, with some elements to make it a little funkier. If you see me on a normal day, I'm usually in a T-shirt and jeans, maybe with some cool sneakers, but I'm pretty basic.
Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.
I like cool jackets - a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you'll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.
I ate some pretty funky, authentic Chinese food in Hong Kong. There was an egg from some bird that's not a chicken. I can't remember what it was, but it was green and brown and not very tasty.
When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.
Sometimes there's that perfect moment when the crowd, the music, the energy of the room come together in a way that brings me to tears.
Well, Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range, amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have, and he passed at a very young age.
I sang 'All Of Me' at the wedding. I sang 'Stay With You' from my first album. And then Stevie Wonder came up and sang 'Ribbon In the Sky.' It was impromptu... It was cool... He's always been a friend and a mentor to me.
There's nothing that can shock me anymore, but at this point, Trump's made it very clear how his temperament is, how his personality is, what his level of intellectual depth is when it comes to policy, and he's made it abundantly clear that he's utterly unqualified to be president - no matter what your political views are.
I was an English major in college who concentrated in African-American literature and culture. So I read quite a few slave narratives and stories of escape, and I grew up in Ohio, which was a common stop on the Underground Railroad.
Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&B pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.
I think the thing about love is that even though the things around us change, we as human beings, a lot of the ways we interact, and the ways we love each other is timeless. It requires trust, honesty, commitment, romance, and physical chemistry.
I was playing the piano when I was three, writing songs when I was ten. I had a lot of experience before I got to college. I knew I wanted to be a singer, so anyone who met me, I didn't let too much time pass before I showed my talent.
As a politician, you have to deal with someone wanting you to fail every day. I think I prefer being in a situation where generally people are rooting for me, and if they aren't rooting for me, they aren't out there to see my downfall. I respect the people who have the stomach for it.
The prison-industrial complex, poverty, and the school system has more effect on a young black male in America than Jay-Z does, by far. And that's not a diss to Jay-Z. The crime rate in the black community was high before hip hop. Rapping about it is just a reflection of the life a lot of people are living.
The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice because it's my point of view.
My first big break came with Lauryn Hill on a track called Everything is Everything, I played piano on that track way back in 1998.
Shoes are important, of course. I love my Lanvin sneakers - they go with a lot of things. And then I think a nice bag is great, so you carry your computer or whatever else in style. I've been carrying a Tom Ford backpack lately.
As a kid, I wanted to be a musician but also aspired to be Andy Griffith's lawyer character, Ben Matlock.
With Tinder and all these other things, there's always this kind of illusion with infinite choices. There's something very cool about saying, 'Oh, I actually really care about this person, and I want to commit to loving this person and being loyal to this person.' You can't get that from the kind of infinite multiple choices that are out there.
I signed with Kanye back in 2003, and at that time, 'The College Dropout' hadn't even come out, so he was still relatively unknown compared to where he is now. He wasn't a household name; people were still calling him 'Kane.'
I'm honestly not a great gift giver. I could give better - my girlfriends have always complained about that.
I am a feminist. Women are discriminated against in so many ways, and they make up half the population.
My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.
I was a huge 'Breaking Bad' fan. I just loved the whole thing. Always interesting, always urgent. The stakes were always high.
I like things that feel like they're timeless and really well made and tailored... things that make me feel confident when I leave the house.
London is a good fashion city. They're a little more daring. There's the element of the aristocracy, which is always interesting.
People like Dick Gregory, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone show me what the definition of an artist is - it isn't just to make art but to speak truth to what's happening, speak beauty into the world, speak love into the world and also... get involved.
We have this film that we hope to finance, it's called 'Southern Rights.' It's a documentary about segregated proms that are still happening in the South of America. So there's a black prom and a white prom, so we hope to finance a film soon about that.
The most important thing about technology is that it can seamlessly work its way into your routine and your life.
I think every film is made better by having smart music supervision that's really in tune with the spirit of the visual content.
Hip hop is usually a bunch of guys talking to a bunch of guys, in my experience. It's homosocial, not homosexual, in that it's almost always all one gender in a room where it's being created. That locker-room environment has an impact on the language. I think the music suffers 'cause it allows an almost cartoonish level of misogyny.
Even with G.O.O.D. Music, we have artists that have done very well, and we've had artists that haven't. Being attached to Kanye is only going to get you so far. You've still got to have the records and the talent and the artistry on your own to carry it.
I like a lot of documentaries, I like political movies and political thrillers. But I also like a good action movie. I like a pretty wide range.
I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.
I always figured I would live long enough to see a black president. The movies predicted it. Usually, Morgan Freeman.
In New York especially, I always want to wear a nice overcoat to get through the winter: you can wear them so many times, and they make every outfit better.
I love to make fried chicken.
In terms of the technology I use the most, it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.
In the 1970s, for all the Stevie Wonders, I'm sure there were five artists that were making forgettable music.
I remember when I first came out as an artist, back in 2004 or 2005, the record label used to take me to all the radio stations and just have me sit in, like, their lunchroom or their conference room, and play for the whole staff. Just to introduce them to me so they would play my records.
Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.
In America we have big issues with education - in impoverished communities especially. I work with Teach For All, and so we're encouraging more people to get into teaching.
To have the chance to see your music be elevated and to have almost universally positive response to that music, makes me feel better every day. I feel more confident and inspired, and that's fun.
I feel like fashion is making steps toward diversity, but I think they could do more.
I work with a bunch of producers on every album, but the difference for 'Evolver' was that I couldn't get any time with Kanye. I forget what he was doing at the time, but he was all over the place. We were never at the same city at the same time.
Some artists I know, they would rather not see the audience or envision them. But for me, I'd rather see them. I feel like part of the reason I perform is to feel that connection. It's the reason I love it so much.
When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.
If you look at what happened with Underground Railroad, there is so much action. There is so much intrigue; there is so much of historical importance.
