John Legend on Pharrell’s musical push, Jay-Z’s praise and new creative challenges with ‘Muse’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jay-Z once told John Legend, “You’re our voice.” But Pharrell Williams had another idea for Legend’s signature baritone: Sometimes, let it do more talking than singing.

On his new album, “Muse,” Legend dials back his powerhouse vocals on certain songs, adopting a more conversational delivery at Williams’ urging. It’s a departure for the EGOT winner, whose piano-driven ballads like “All of Me” and “Ordinary People” have helped define his career for more than two decades.

The 16-track project, out Friday, marks Legend’s first full album with Williams after more than 20 years of friendship. Recorded mostly at Williams’ studio inside Louis Vuitton’s Paris headquarters, it grew out of Legend’s appearance on Clipse’s “The Birds Don’t Sing,” which inspired Williams to build an album around his voice.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Legend discussed Williams’ creative influence, Jay-Z’s memorable compliment and composing his first original stage score for “Imitation of Life,” a new musical opening at The Shed in New York in December.

Remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.

AP: You’ve achieved EGOT status and more than two decades of success. What do you still feel you have to prove?

LEGEND: I really want every project to be my best project. Every album to be my best album. That means continuing to push myself, continuing to challenge myself and not resting on all the work I’ve done before.

That also means trying new things. Working with Pharrell on an entire album was something new for me. I’m writing for Broadway now. Just finding new creative avenues to continue to throw some more challenges into the mix and seeing what it inspires in my creativity.

AP: Has the success of your piano ballads and songs like “All of Me” ever made you feel creatively boxed in?

LEGEND: No, not at all. Honestly, I feel like my success has made me feel empowered. It’s made me feel confident and trusting my voice, trusting my instincts. It’s allowed me to have relationships with record labels and other business partners where they trust my judgment and don’t over-micromanage me. … I think it allows me to operate from not being in a place of fear, but a place of confidence and willingness to try new things.

AP: What did Pharrell challenge you to do differently on “Muse”?

LEGEND: One of the things that he encouraged me to do on specific songs was to talk-sing in a way where it was like I was more speaking and having a conversation.

Like in “Fireflies,” some of the delivery of the verses of the song is more like I’m orating, like I’m speaking, rather than like I’m singing a melody. That was his idea, and I think it really works. … That’s why you work with new people, because they may bring new ideas to the table that you hadn’t tried before.

AP: Why did it take more than 20 years for you and Pharrell to make an entire album together?

LEGEND: Early in my career, I was signed to GOOD Music. Kanye (West) was very involved in executive producing all my albums, and so it wouldn’t have made sense for me to do a whole album with a whole other producer at the time. I’m more of a free agent now and able to just do whatever I want musically. My label, Republic Records, kind of lets me have free rein with whatever I want to do musically and wherever my muse takes me — no pun intended.

AP: You’ve worked with everyone from Lauryn Hill and Jay-Z to Nipsey Hussle, Rick Ross and Clipse. Do people overlook how much hip-hop has impacted your career?

LEGEND: I think a lot of people know it and they acknowledge it to me. Jay-Z one time came up to me and said, “You’re our voice.” I think a lot of hip-hop fans know that these MCs bring me onto a song when they think that I’ll add something special to it. … I love that hip-hop is such a big part of my legacy and my body of work over the years.

AP: What makes revisiting “Imitation of Life,” with its themes of race and identity, important now?

LEGEND: What we found interesting was the challenge of writing it as Black creatives and centering the Black woman Delilah at the heart of our storytelling in a way where she was never centered before. Making it a musical when it never was a musical before was also an interesting challenge. It allowed us to write an era that’s really interesting in our musical history and our cultural history, the time of the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age.

AP: What scares you more at this stage: taking a creative risk that doesn’t work or making music that no longer surprises you?

LEGEND: I don’t know if anything scares me. I would say I don’t want to get complacent. I want to continue to hold myself to a high standard, hold anything I release to a high standard, and I refuse to just rest on my laurels.

I guess you could call it fear, but I don’t think it’s really fear. It’s motivation and challenge that I put in front of myself.