You could argue John Legend wouldn’t have his career without Kanye West in his corner. Through his connection, he was able to collaborate with Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and Slum Village early in his career. Eventually, in signing with Ye’s G.O.O.D. Music, he became one of the biggest names working in R&B. Nowadays, their relationship is especially strained. However, that doesn’t mean Legend has to overlook how important West was to his career.
In an interview with Genius, Legend candidly reflected on how fervently the Chicago MC and producer advocated for him. Whether it was through label meetings or simple collaborations, he made it clear that his friend and eventual signee should be involved.
“Early on, he worked really hard to get me signed,” John Legend recalled. “He would go to all the meetings with me at the record labels, and he’d put me on other records with Slum Village, Dilated Peoples, Jay-Z, and Alicia Keys. Whenever he could find a way for my voice or my piano playing to get on a record, he would do it. Early on, he put a lot of his social capital into me. He bet on me.”
John Legend Shared The Many Ways Kanye West Helped Him Early in His Career
Elsewhere in the conversation, Genius handed him a VIBE magazine where Legend took the cover alongside Common and Kanye West. The “Ordinary People” crooner warmly referred to them as “my brothers” before looking back on that time in his life.
“We felt like all the things we believed before anybody else believed in us were finally actually coming true. And we believed man,” John Legend rosily remembered.
“Everyone knows how arrogant Kanye can be, but we all believed that we had something special to offer music and culture. It was frustrating that we couldn’t convince these record labels and gatekeepers that what we had was special. But it happened eventually, and by ’05, it was so thrilling to have believed all this, and it finally started coming true.”
Despite these warm feelings about the past, that doesn’t mean that John Legend is all good with Kanye West. In another interview with Complex, he stressed that Ye has a long way to go in making amends with the people he’s deeply hurt and offended over the years.
“I feel like what he’s done to society has been really harmful. What he said about entire communities has been really harmful. The Black community, the Jewish community, those things have been really harmful,” John Legend told the publication. “I know he’s apologized in that one statement in The Wall Street Journal, but I don’t think that’s sufficient to cover the harm that he’s done.”
Photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images For American Express
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