In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.

Marvin Gaye was one of the coolest. I look to him as a style icon and as an artist.

Some people, you know, should just go to college and do what they do and have a great job and not worry about trying to be famous as a singer. It's not for everyone.

The fun part about collaborating is that you naturally just bounce off each other's energy and learn off each other.

I don't really marinate in anybody's album because I don't really want to sound like anybody else when I put my album out. So I'd rather not even be tempted to listen to a bunch of other stuff with any degree of emersion in it, cause I just don't want to sound like anything else, so I kinda focus on my own music.

I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.

People see me as pretty low key in a lot of ways. And for me, like, even choosing to be John Legend and to be who I am as a star, as an artist, it's a risk 'cause I - you know, I graduated from college and worked as a management consultant, and I could have had this very kind of buttoned-up life and worn suits to work every day.