{"id":13531,"date":"2010-06-25T23:19:18","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T21:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackouthiphop.com\/?p=13531"},"modified":"2010-06-25T23:19:18","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T21:19:18","slug":"john-legend-the-roots-hard-times-live-in-studio-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/john-legend-the-roots-hard-times-live-in-studio-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"John Legend & The Roots – Hard Times (Live In Studio Performance)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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John Legend and The Roots cover Baby Huey and the Babysitters\u2019 Hard Times<\/em> for their collaboration album Wake Up!<\/em>, in stores on September 21st.
\nContinue reading for the story behind this project.<\/p>\n

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New York (June 24, 2010) \u2013 Musical powerhouses John Legend & The Roots are presenting fans with a fiery new offering, Wake Up! The upcoming CD, being released by Sony Music on September 21, 2010, will feature soulful music from the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s all with an underlying theme of awareness, engagement and consciousness\u2014 effectively telling listeners to Wake Up!<\/p>\n

After being inspired by the recent historical Presidential election campaign of 2008, the R&B singer Legend and hip-hop band The Roots felt a need to enter the action. What started as plans for a single quickly developed into a passionate album representing change, hope and activism\u2014 not only referencing one particular moment in time, but on a larger scale, holding true no matter what the political climate may be.<\/p>\n

The resulting album features eleven profoundly evocative songs infused with sounds of gospel, rock and reggae inflections with hip-hop influences. The album is highlighted by familiar tracks like \u201cWholly Holy\u201d by Marvin Gaye and \u201cLittle Ghetto Boy\u201d by Donny Hathaway mixed with the more obscure selections of Baby Huey and the Babysitters\u2019 \u201cHard Times,\u201d and \u201cHang on in There\u201d by Mike James Kirkland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese songs sound so relevant now,\u201d Legend says. \u201cOn most of them, you wouldn\u2019t change a lyric. \u2018Wake Up Everybody\u2019 (the album\u2019s first single, featuring contributions from Melanie Fiona and Common) has four verses\u2014the first one is a general statement, the second is about education, third is about health care, and the fourth is about making a better environment. No editing needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen these songs were written, people were more spiritually in tune,\u201d says Roots drummer\/musical director Ahmir \u201c?uestlove\u201d Thompson. \u201cIt was fresh from the civil rights era and there was a feeling of hope that maybe, yes, someday we will all be free. In 2010, not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album features one original composition, Legend\u2019s song \u201cShine,\u201d which is featured in Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim\u2019s upcoming documentary film Waiting for Superman. The song, a \u201cStevie-Wonder-meets-gospel\u201d stunner, clearly demonstrates the strengths of this specific group of musicians. Wake Up! blends Legend\u2019s expressive, thoughtful vocal interpretations with an element of funk that only The Roots can provide.<\/p>\n

Bringing John Legend & The Roots together is an inspired pairing, so logical that it\u2019s a little surprising they haven\u2019t teamed up in a proper collaboration before. John Legend is a six-time Grammy winner whose three albums have all hit Number One on the Billboard R&B charts, and who has collaborated with such artists as Kanye West, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and the Black Eyed Peas. The Roots\u2014currently visible nightly as the stupendously versatile house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon\u2014have released nine acclaimed studio albums (including the recent How I Got Over) and redefined the relationship between live instruments and hip-hop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Legend and The Roots cover Baby Huey and the Babysitters\u2019 Hard Times for their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pG6fW-3wf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}