Key Takeaways
- John Legend credited Kanye West with pushing labels to sign him and landing early collaborations with Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, stating in a new interview: "He bet on me."
- Legend said he remains open to a private conversation with West despite their estrangement, but any meeting wouldn’t become a public reunion.
- Legend reflected on their history while promoting Muse, his first full-length album in four years, which Pharrell Williams produced entirely.
John Legend has taken some time to reflect on the impact Kanye West had on the early parts of his career, even though the two of them don't speak anymore.
In a new interview with Genius, Legend, who released his new album Muse last week, described how Ye went to bat for him in the earliest days.
"Early on, he worked really hard to get me signed," Legend said. "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."
Midway through the conversation, Legend was handed a July 2005 VIBE cover written by Complex's Chief Content Officer Noah Callahan-Bever, showing him with Common and West, his GOOD Music collaborators at the time.
"Look at my brothers," Legend said, before recalling how sure of themselves they were while the industry kept saying no.
"We felt like all the things we believed before anybody else believed in us were finally actually coming true," he continued. "And we believed, man. Everyone knows how arrogant Kanye can be, but we all believed that we had something special to offer music and culture, and 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."
Their history goes back to May 2001, when Legend met West through West's cousin Devo Springsteen, his former college roommate. Legend went on to sing hooks and play piano on The College Dropout, and he was one of the first artists on G.O.O.D. Music when West started the label in 2004.
Ye also executive-produced Get Lifted, John Legend's debut album, which won three Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Ordinary People."
Despite being estranged currently, Legend said in a separate interview with Complex that he would be open to talking to West at some point, although it would have to be in private. "If we did talk, it wouldn't be a public reunion," he said. "It would be man-to-man, like a private conversation."
Produced entirely by Pharrell Williams, Muse is Legend's first full-length album in four years. You can listen to it here.
