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“I’m hopeful seeing this moment, because I see the conversation moving leaps and bounds from where it was before,” John Legend says on the latest episode of the Rolling Stone Interview: Special Edition video series. But it’s taken too long, he adds, for white America to acknowledge the reality of the nation’s policing: “It’s frustrating, because black people have been saying this for a long time.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Legend discusses the making of his just-released album Bigger Love, how he was influenced by Nat “King” Cole, growing up as a grade-skipping prodigy, Donald Trump, life after being named the sexiest man alive and much more.
When he started high school two years early, Legend’s nickname was “Doogie.” “I was definitely a nerd,” he says, “and also two years younger than everyone else. I was slow at making friends. Slow talking to girls. With everything, I was just behind, and you can understand why — you walk into high school, you’re 12 years old, and everyone else is 14. I eventually caught up and by the time I graduated, I was student-body president, prom king, all these other things. But music was always my way of connecting with people. So the one thing I wasn’t shy about when I was a freshman in high school was the fact that I could sing. It made other kids notice me and say, ‘Oh, my God, you sound so good.’ And that’s the reason why I was able to open up in all these other ways, was that music opened that door for me.”
This is the latest installment ofRolling Stone’s latest new video series,RS Interview: Special Edition, featuring in-depth conversations with notable figures in music, entertainment and politics. Episodes premiere every Thursday afternoon on Rolling Stone’s YouTube channel.
