John Legend's calendar remained full in 2016. After releasing his fifth studio album Darkness and Light earlier this month, the singer/songwriter also landed a role in the Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone-led musical La La Land and a guest spot on Lin-Manuel Miranda's The Hamilton Mixtape.
"[Lin-Manuel Miranda] asked me to do that one, and if you read the casting notice when they originally cast George Washington, they said they wanted a John Legend type for it [laughs]," he told Rolling Stone about his Hamilton Mixtape contribution. "So I think he already saw that was the right song for me. But I decided I wanted to change the melody, change the chord progression, and make it feel like I wanted it to feel. I did kind of like a gospel version – and I sent it off and didn't even hear back from them! They didn't really say if they liked it. But they sent me a mix to approve and put it on their album, so they must have liked it enough."
He also weighed in on Donald Trump's forthcoming move into office as president. "It's a bit of a challenge 'cause we don't know who he is all the time. He's been consistent about being a racist and about a couple of other things, but he's also been wildly inconsistent and lied a lot," Legend explained. "So we truly don't know how he's gonna govern. We haven't seen anyone like him before. It's a very kind of different world now, knowing that someone's going to possibly dismantle a lot of what Obama accomplished. I don't know where we're going to go."
