The Indie Artist of the week

John Legend

The 16-track album was produced in full by Pharrell Williams, with whom Legend co-wrote it. Muse is described as “a cinematic, lush body of work that weaves together the strands of Black music, from gospel and the standards to doo-wop, classic soul, Afrobeat and hip-hop.”

When it was time to work on the album, Legend was intentional about creating a body of work that no one, including himself, expected of him. “I think my repertoire has always been very diverse, but the piano-driven ballads have gotten the most traction throughout my career,” he said. “I wanted to shake up the formula and do something fresh and new.”

Legend and Pharrell decided to work on the album after Legend contributed to Clipse’s comeback album Let God Sort ‘Em, also produced by Pharrell. Legend appeared on “The Birds Don’t Sing.” Legend recalled, “When Pharrell called me, I thought, let’s do this. A lot of people would have imagined we’d done something like this already, but we hadn’t. It felt past due.”