My Legend Has Just Begun...

John Legend – Evolver

Legend’s are born, not made. But with the case of John Stephens, he created himself [with the help of Kanye] into John Legend. I probably first heard him on Slum’s “Selfish” and thought he had a dope voice, but not much more since I probably can sound fresh on a Kanye track. Okay maybe not, but anyway that still is one of my favorite tracks this decade. Fast forward is sometime around Q3 of 2004, and your boy Reeg is going through problems. Right then JL releases “Used to Love U” and bam, that captured how I totally felt, so fluidly and succinctly over a dope beat. This dude definitely landed on my Man-Crush radar. “I realize…that I just don’t love uuuu, not like I used to.” So then I’m going through some ish, realizing that I’m just an ordinary person, then Ordinary People drops! Damn he has good timing for releasing songs that parallel my feelings. As a result “Get Lifted” won the prestigious reegsta.com R&B Album of 2004. [How did I overlook The College Dropout for Album of the Year?! - shame on a ninja!]

Anyway JL releases Once Again in 2006, and dude is just sprung. His beats were more melodic, as Kanye was pretty absent from these tracks, but they were still dope. Even if you never heard this album, song titles such as “Heaven” and “Each Day Gets Better” and “PDA” pretty much sum up the mood of his album! Happy, he found Maxine and its all good. 2006 ironically was also a happy year for me – see this dude customizes his albums for me haha. But towards the end of Once Again, my fav song is “Where Did My Baby Go?”….hmmmm, maybe its not all blissful as it was in the beginning. Duh, even John Legend is human.

So its now 2008, and the artist has changed – thus the Evolver title. His first single “Green Light” is a jam you all have heard…its always good to see Andre 3K rapping again. It sounds like John is ready just to get back in the game, so I’m not sure what happened with Maxine? He’s definitely more mature now, since its been over 4 years since I Used to Love U, which tells me he knows what homie wants. He vows to do things differently on “This Time.” But the jewel of the album is definitely “Everyone Knows” – “one day you’ll see, no one has it easy…” Rol already summarized this song here, which pretty much I agree wholeheartedly. Songs resonate with us pretty similarly…its kinda scary lol.

And true to form, JL again mimic’s my feelings with the last song on his album – “If You’re Out There”…that shouldn’t be too hard to interpret. Go get this album...shoot I paid full price for it and got my money's worth!

4 Acura Legends out of 5
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