John Legend says it’s “unhappy, generally surprising” to look now at his former collaborator Kanye West, who performed an instrumental function in Legend’s musical breakthrough 20 years in the past.
The pair labored collectively on Legend’s breakthrough album Get Lifted, with West dealing with the manager manufacturing in addition to co-producing the album alongside Dave Tozer, will.i.am and Devo Springsteen. Legend was signed to West’s GOOD Music label, and the latter additionally appeared on the album, which went on to promote three million copies, win three Grammy Awards and make Legend’s identify as an artist.
West was already a star himself along with his hit album The School Dropout. 20 years later, Legend has described West throughout that fertile artistic interval as “passionate, gifted and had huge goals for himself and the folks round him.”
Legend advised The Occasions of London: “He had a lot optimism, a lot creativity. It does really feel unhappy, generally surprising, to see the place he’s now.”
West has encountered widespread controversy in recent times, from promoting T-shirts adorned with swastika logos to carrying a black Klu Klux Klan hood in public. He has beforehand been banned from the platform X for a few of his offensive statements.
Legend advised The Occasions: “I didn’t see a touch of what we’re seeing now, his obsessions with antisemitism, anti-blackness, and it’s unhappy to see his devolution.”
Legend recommended the loss of life of West’s mom in 2007 was instrumental in his shift of focus: “I don’t suppose we’re certified to psychoanalyse him, however after his mom handed in 2007 there was positively a distinction. His descent began then and appears to have accelerated just lately.”
Get Lifted, which Legend is now taking up tour to mark its 20th anniversary contained songs about infidelity, and harked again to Motown classics.
“I used to be 25 when the album was made and I used to be experiencing life as a younger man, a younger bachelor… I had cheated, and felt responsible about it, however I dramatized actual occasions to make them extra romantic or thrilling. She Don’t Must Know is a cleaning soap opera. I don’t suppose my life was ever that fascinating.”
