John Legend — Family man

The lead-up to my interview with John Legend is surreal. When I tell friends and family that I’m going to be jumping on a Zoom with the brains behind “All of Me”, they can’t quite believe it — my mum even asks if I’m joking. When Legend joins our call, however, it’s clear that the EGOT winner (someone who has been awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) hasn’t allowed his 20-year career at the top to rub off on him too much. Though he’s dialling in from a swanky- looking office in his Los Angeles home, he’s not even a minute late and is exceedingly polite and warm from the jump. “I’m home, so you may hear random child noises,” he tells me with a laugh. It’s a fitting introduction given the focus of our call is Legend’s tenth studio album, My Favourite Dream — a collection of lullabies and singalongs for kids.

It should be said that My Favourite Dream is by no means just for children. When I tell Legend that I really enjoyed listening to it (“I appreciate that,” he replies), it’s not a lie. What I get from its 45-minute runtime is that I wish I’d had something similar when I was a sprog. That Legend’s buttery-smooth voice — a kind of spiritual successor to the vocals of Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles — is a match made in heaven for the niche genre. When I (perhaps a little naively) ask whether it was difficult to prevent the tracks on the album from slipping too far one way or the other, Legend has a good answer for me: “I make albums for adults all the time. That’s always my job.” And if there were any challenges, Legend had the indie-folk darling Sufjan Stevens on hand — it was the American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind classics like “Chicago” who produced the entirety of My Favourite Dream, and during our interview Legend sings his praises repeatedly. “[Stevens] has been an influence of mine for a long time,” he tells me. “But this
is the first time I could fully embrace that and create an album that actually made sense for us to collaborate on.”