A lot has changed since John Legend’s last Dubai performance in 2009.
In the past five years alone, the crooner married model and long-term partner Chrissy Teigen, released the critically-acclaimed, Grammy-nominated album Love in the Future, and unknowingly sculpted the biggest hit of his career, the tooth-achingly sweet No. 1 tune, All of Me. At just 36-years-old, the singer-songwriter is riding a continuing crescendo of successes.
In January, he and Common became proud winners of a Golden Globe for their anthem of revolution, Glory, featured on the soundtrack to the civil rights film, Selma. Both the song and picture are nominated for Oscars. Whether or not Legend and Common will walk away with an Academy Award on February 22, the two will perform the song at the Dolby Theatre ceremony in Hollywood.
Less than a week later, Legend will jet over to the UAE for his February 27 performance at Dubai Media City Amphitheatre as part of Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival.
Ahead of his performance, the nine-time Grammy winner took time out of his busy schedule to talk to tabloid! about the whirlwind ride he’s been on. Sounding hazy — he called us at 9am his time, 7pm ours — Legend shared his thoughts on the Selma Oscar snub controversy, Kanye West’s recent Grammy rant and the reasons he’s not the same person who wrote breakout hit Ordinary People more than ten years ago.
Congratulations on the Golden Globe win and Oscars nomination for Selma’s Glory. Did you feel that the film deserved more recognition at the Oscars?
We were a little disappointed that Ava [DuVernay] didn’t get nominated for Best Director, and that David [Oyelowo] didn’t get nominated for best actor. But we’re very, very grateful that the film was nominated for Best Picture, which I think it has a chance of winning. Of course, we’re grateful for our nomination as well.
What was it like working with Common on Glory?
Well, it was really cool. First of all, Common called me up because he’d spoken with Ava [DuVernay] about possibly doing a song, and when he was thinking about who he should do the song with, he thought of my name first and he called me. I was in tour in London at the time, and he gave me some ideas of what the song should be about, and title ideas, and one of them was Glory. I just ran with that idea — wrote the chorus, bridge and piano part — and then I sent it back to him. He finished it with some great verses. It was a collaboration between the two of us, trying to do something special for the film. We weren’t thinking of awards or anything like that — we were just thinking about trying to make a great song for the film, and obviously, the song is getting a lot of recognition and we’re very grateful for it.
All Of Me is another massive hit of yours. How do you feel when a song takes on a life of its own?
It was such a great moment in my career, just to see the song blossom. It really started with the Grammy’s last year, actually, because when I performed the song at the Grammy’s last year, it really just took off on the charts and it stayed on the charts for quite a long time after that. It’s been really cool to see that happen. We’ve seen a lot of people get married to the song, we’ve seen a lot of people propose to the song. It’s been a really important song for a lot of people. You’re always grateful when something like that happens.
Ordinary People was, perhaps, your first big hit. Do you feel like the John Legend who wrote Ordinary People is a different one to the one who wrote All Of Me?
[I’m] certainly in a different place in my life. I’m married now, I was single when I wrote Ordinary People. I think, just being older and having lived a bit more, you just experience more. Your perspective changes a bit, and I think you can hear that in my writing on the last album.
Do you immediately know which songs are going to be the biggest hits?
It’s hard to tell at the beginning, when you first write the song, but once I started playing the song[s] for different people, you start to get a sense for which one they like more, and which one they don’t. I could tell from… playing the song to different people, that All of Me was going to be a big hit. I didn’t know it right at first, when I wrote the song, but when I started playing it for people, they just really reacted to it most differently than any other song. It was like a notable change in mood when I played it. It just made people emotional, it made people think, and it evoked a lot of passion in people. I could tell that that was going to do well. And I told my label before it came out that it might be the biggest song of my career, and it ended up being that.
You’ve spoken about this at length on Instagram. But why do you think there was such a huge reaction to the whole Kanye, Beck and Beyonce controversy at the Grammy’s?
A lot of people were watching. You can understand why it got a lot of attention. If it was just Kanye walking up there and then turning around, I think it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal, but then when he said what he said after the show, it became a bigger deal. At first it just seemed like it was a joke, and everyone was laughing, but when he said what he said afterwards, it made it a bigger deal.
Some people said Beyonce’s loss to Beck was to do with gender or race. Do you think there’s weight to that argument?
It’s just so hard to say, because it’s a voting process. Every single academy member who sends in their vote, they do it for their own reasons. So I don’t like to try to put motives on people’s votes, you know? Beck is really respected in the artist community, and more people voted for him than for anyone else. That’s all that we know.
- Due to increased demand, organisers have put out an extra 1,000 tickets for the John Legend and Esperanza Spalding performance at the Dubai Jazz Festival on Friday, February 27. For more, go to dubaijazzfest.com.
— Tickets for the Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival include the seated front pit (Dh950), golden circle (Dh750) and regular standing (Dh395). There is also the VIP spirit (Dh1,250), all available now at ticketmaster.ae. For more, go to dubaijazzfest.com.
