Have I got a treat for my podcast listeners today! The man, the myth, the LEGEND... Mr. Sexy himself, John Legend joins me today and we are talkin' 'bout LOVE. "Bigger Love" to be exact! John's new album dropped in June and he and wife Chrissy dropped some news shortly after...
Hang out with us as we get caught up on everything that's going on with John professionally, and get the inside scoop on what he, Chrissy, and the kids have been up to since his summer tour was cancelled. We also spend some time talking about making positive changes in the world, and how love is the foundation to it all. This is a "legendary" podcast episode! ~ Delilah
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I am so excited to introduce today's guest. I'm love someone. My kids are so excited. My teenage girls are so excited. My adult girls are so excited to listen to this guest. He's smart, he's talented, he's handsome. He's a loving husband and father. He's a child prodigy that was taught piano by his grandmother while growing up in Springfield, Ohio. He's released six wildly successful albums, including Get Lifted Once Again, Evolver, Love in the Future, Darkness and Light, and The Legendary Christmas, which has been played quite I bet on this little nighttime radio show that you might be familiar with that I've in hosting for a few years, and as the youngest person ever and the first black man to join the exclusive Egot Club E g O T and Emmy A Grammy, an Oscar A Tony, you might say this man is something of a legend. He's here today to talk with us about what's been going on with him since his summer tour was canceled. Pandemic life has happened, and he's been shut in with a supermodel poor man. His wife, Christy Tigan, is adorable. He's got two kids, Luna and Miles, and he's working on his seventh studio album, Bigger Love. We will be right back to introduce ourselves and to get caught up with John legend right after we take a little minute to share some love from my legendary podcast sponsor those wise and wonderful folks that help you do things at the Depot. I so appreciate the Home Depot sponsorship of this podcast and my radio program. That store must have a million or so products for the home, literally a million this month. They're helping you put a focus on remodeling your bathroom. It's the Home Depots Days of Doing Bath event with new low prices on the latest and greatest posts. You'll find vanities at great prices too, from as little as a hundred and fifty nine dollars with free delivery on the vanities you choose. Find great values all month long through September. Relax, restore your space with bath savings at the Home Depot. How doers get more done? Hi? John? How are you? I'm wonderful? How are you? I'm doing great? I'm so excited to get to talk to you. I still haven't washed my cheek from where you kissed it about six years. Oh my god. I have teenage daughters and I was telling them last night that I got to talk to you, and they were so over the moon excited, and I said, yeah, he actually he gave me a little kiss on the cheek a couple of years ago. And Briar, my sixteen year old, jumped up and said, which cheek I want to kiss it? And and so I kept I kept switching back and forth. Channe, I don't remember if it's this side or this side. I got about twenty three kisses from my teen Wow, I'm glad I got helped. I played it. I played it. So how have you been? How are you? How is life? Tell me you had a summer tour that was canceled because of COVID. What are you doing like instead of touring with bazillions of fans? Well, I'm home with my kids and my wife most of the time. Um, that's been our mo for most of the summer. But we did take a trip down to Mexico. We shot a music video down there that we released last week from my song wild Is that the one that I saw with my horse Sampson in it? Exactly the Frisian in that video. I had a horse named Sampson for over ten years. That was a black I did not know that. Well, yeah, Samson was in it. See we got you and I got the kiss on the cheek and the freeesian. You know, we're kind of got this bond going on here. Yes, we do, clearly, clearly, that is a beautiful video. Oh my goodness, gorgeous. We let out a little secret, you did? You let out a little secret. I had to wait for it. Somebody clude me in so the whole video, I'm looking, I'm looking. You were very clever with the shots, very subtle. But uh but yes we uh we have a little quarantine baby on the way. I noticed the last a couple of minutes of the song where you're dining together and she kind of, you know, shuts down on you and pushes you away. I'm like, I understand those emotional mood swings. She didn't have to act. So how old are your two little ones, Miles and Luna? Right? Miles is two and Luna's four. You guys aren't wasting any time here? Are you going to catch up with me? Yeah? We had a lot of free time, A lot of free time a lot of I think, I suspect delivery rooms are going to be very, very busy in the next nine months. That's true, I believe it. We joked about it, and then it was us Congratulations, congratulations, thank you. I know you you're just over the moon because every time I see any pictures of you with your babies, you look like the happiest daddy, the most blessed daddy and husband in the world. Yeah, I'm very happy. I feel very fortunate. And uh, I get to do what I love to do for a living, and UH have a wonderful family two quarantine with and life is good. I look forward to when we can get back out on tour and come to the country in the world and play these songs for people. But in the meantime, if I'm going to be stuck at home with anybody, I'm happy. I'm stuck at home with my wife and two babies. Your wife was very funny, by the way. I've I've enjoyed watching her on some of the things that she's on during quarantine, and she has got a sassy sense of humor. Yes, I get to be the bother joke sometimes. Well, with what I've I've seen it looks like everybody. Everybody. She's like my sister. My sister's got a very dry sense of humor, and I can't keep up. I just have to bow down to her. I can't keep up. So you've also been very, very busy with some philanthropic endeavors, like the Harlem Village Academies in New York City. Tell me about that. Oh yeah, I'm on the board there, um and we um we serve hundreds of kids in Harlem and and get them a really great education. They're all doing really well, uh, going off to college and doing really well on the on the state tests and things of that nature. So really proud of the work we're doing there. UM. A lot of my work nowadays is around the criminal justice reform. So we started Free America a few years ago to focus on that and uh ending mass incarceration. UH. And you know, we just try to find ways to improve people's lives in the community. And you know, UM use my celebrity and my resources to uh to try to make people's lives better. So I read somewhere that you said that the school system you came through had drop out rate by high school. Oh yeah, my my, my hometown in Ohio and you're trying to change that. Yeah, that one of the things we're working on. Yeah, So we focus on some of our workers around education reform and then some of our workers around a criminal justice reforms. So those are some of the things were we um work with expert on every every day and try to bring about changes that will really affect people's lives. Have you heard John of a project called the IF? I f the IF project? I haven't a friend of mine here in Seattle, Kimbugooki, she's a police officer, was mentoring women in prison and she asked the question, if one thing had changed in your life that would have changed the trajectory of your life, what would that have looked like? And one of the women that was incarcerated took the challenge and collected statements from dozens of women and they gave them to Kim. Well, from that came a movie and this whole movement and it's not just in women's prisons now, where people that are formally incarcerated, first off, they mentor people, they try to get them out, They find solutions, they get lawyers, people who were not represented and are there unjustly they represent them, but they also take it a step further where they take these people who formally incarcerated and take them to youth at risk and partner them asking that question, if something could change so that you wouldn't make bad choices, what would that look like? And it always boils down to love. Yeah, well, love and resources people like we have to make sure people are safe and then tear fed, and they're taking care of when it comes to health care and all these other things. And uh, and love is important. Isn't the resources the very foundation of love? Yeah? And that's what I talk a lot about when I talk about, you know, what we need to do in the world. The foundations always love, like do you care about your name or do empathize with them? Do you do you care about their children and their children's dreams? Um? And that boils down love and and if we have that kind of love, then we'll get closer to justice, I think, because you cannot have one without the other. M hm, I agree. I mean, injustice is at the very core a lack of love and compassion. You cannot treat somebody poorly if you love them. You can't. You can't turn a blind eye to injustice. You can't turn a blind eye to statistics. You can't turn a blind eye to the facts and the truth if you love them, that's right. So we have to all figure out how to practice love in our lives. And you do that a lot in your music. The great unifier, the soul, soother, that voice, those those those songs you write and compose and players so inspiring to my listeners, to me, to anybody who has ever known love. When they listen to your music, John, it just resonates to the very core of love. Thank you, And uh, you know, I write from the things that inspired me, and of course my love for my my wife and my family, and and my love of music. And uh, this new album, Bigger Love, was just inspired by all of them. So if my listeners haven't already purchased it, it came out a couple of weeks ago. What would you like to tell everybody about Bigger Love? Um, it's a celebration of love, like you said, and it's a soulful, sexy, and uh really fun album. I feel like it's perfect for this summer. Um. I made it during a different time, before we knew what the world was going to go through this year. Uh. I wrote most of the songs and twenty nine and early so uh it didn't anticipate all the turmoil that this year would bring. But in some ways it's kind of like that perfect antidote to what's going on in the world right now. If you need something uplifting and joyful and soulful and full of love, I feel like this is the perfect album for you. Yeah, and if you need to be in the delivery room in a couple of more exactly because it is sexy. It is sexy. It is so sexy, your son, your music, the album, the video baby, Yes it is. I think it's my sexiest album to date. I would say, I would say it is your sexiest album to date. And that video, dang is beautiful, beautiful. So I we got to tell people to go look at watch the video wild You're gonna discover two or three things. Number one, there's a Freezian in the movie. Number two it is very very sexy. And number three there's a little surprise at the end. That's right. And um it was directed by the same guys who directed are all of the video. Guy named Nobil Elderkin and he happens to be the same guy who introduced us way back in the day in two thousand and six when we first met. All right, tell me your love story. So, uh, we literally were shooting a video and uh, she was cast as my female lead and he was as she was introduced to me by Nobile Elder Kim as a photographer director that we're both friends with. And wait, wait, what's what song was it? What? What song were you? Should? He a single? That's the funny thing. It was a video he wanted to make on back just to kind of uh be his calling card as a new video director. He wanted to create something, uh, and he really liked the song and he he wanted to pay for video himself. He just wanted to show show people that he could do it. And uh he um, there was a song called Stereo from my second album, Once Again, and so he cast Christie as the female lead and he said, I think you're gonna like her, and uh we ended up hitting it off and started dating not long after that. Fourteen years later, here we are. Were there sparks that first day? Yeah, that were definitely sparked the first day. So you guys are like the quintessential love at first sight, well at least attraction lust at first sight. I don't know that I knew that I was in love with her yet, but I fell in love not too long after that. You knew you were in strong like and you wanted to talk to her that night. Huh yeah, exactly How soon after the introduction did the texting start? Oh, like the next day? You wait until the next day, honestly, Or did you text her that night? We hung out that night, but then we started texting afterwards. Ah ha, you didn't even wait to hang out. You hung out that night, and then the texting the next day, and then like, has there been a single day since the introduction that you haven't talked to her, seeing her, kissed her, text her, or with her. Well maybe at the very beginning, but since then it's been a quite a quite a love affair. You're absolutely adorable when you guys, you know, you're out in public and you're all fancy schmancy. But I've seen little clips on interviews. I watched a lot of interviews before I got to talk to you, where you're just you know, down to earth mom dad people, and uh, the thing that comes shining through is the respect that you have for each other. Yeah, we really do respect each other, and we have fun with each other, and you know we were truly are best friends. Okay. Most fun thing your kids love doing during the COVID shutdown, Well, they have this trampoline in the backyard and they are obsessed with the trampoline. Um. Chrissy has even done some other things in backyard, like set up a tent for overnight camping. We have the pools, so they swim a lot. So our backyard has been their full playground. I want to come to your backyard. I got the trampoline. I don't have the pool though, so yeah, my kids would actually live on the trampoline if they could. I mean they would just like if they didn't have to stop to take a potty break, they would live on the trampoline. Yeah, they love it. It's like the gift that is just perfect because I know where they are, there's not too many kids on the trampoline. I know they're safe exactly, swimming certain variables are right right, and then they sleep like the dead all night long. It's a beautiful thing, exactly. You got to wear them out. Well, thank you thank you, Thank you for all the good work you're doing. John, Thank you for all the beautiful music you've shared with us in again, congratulations. Have you done the ultrasound yet? Oh? Yeah, we've done quite a few. Yeah. Do I get to know boy girl twins? We know, but I'll let Christy when she's ready. Okay, did you do the party when you found out? Did you like we we We've never done a gender reveal. Now you're just like, tell us what it is. Yeah. So, of my three that I gave birth to naturally, I've got many, many, many more than that. But the three that I gave birth to naturally, I didn't even have ultrasounds. I didn't even know until the moment they were born if they were boys or girls. I like the surprise, and that's so weird today, but I didn't want to know. Yeah, I think Chrissie could have gone either way. I did. I just rather know, not because of matters that much, but I just would rather know than not know. I'm like, I just want all the information. And do you start calling it by the name that you've picked out before or do you have a pet name for the baby? Do you have it like a nickname. Well, we haven't started calling it a name yet really, but she's starting to lean into a couple of ideas, so we'll see what happens. I love the way you're deferring to her on this. You're like I have learned, Daddy's just going to go along with whatever Mama says. Right now, it is not my place to say. God, bless you, thank you John for Colin, thank you for your music, and thank you for the kiss on the cheek six years. Love you Lord, bless you and keep you and the baby safe. Thank you you too, but by Hunt, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing from your heart. John Legend, hugs to your beautiful bride, to your two babies, and prayers for uneasy labor and delivery with baby number three, Bigger Love. His album is out now, has over one hundred million streams. Already, get it wherever you get all your music, get it today. Then go out and find one heart, just one person who needs to be loved, who needs to be cared for, who needs to have their world expanded by you, One heart at a time. That's what it means, one heart at a time. I want to thank John Legend, I want to thank you for joining us, for being here on this podcast, and uh I hope that you join me on the radio. Take some time out of your busy schedule to slow down and love someone