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He became a fixture in R&B music four years ago when "Ordinary People" and other misty ballads established him as one of the most talented artists to come out of the neo-soul scene. But while John Legend's grown-and-sexy love songs won him an armful of Grammys and carried him up the music charts, the singer-songwriter and Penn grad had already begun breaking away from what had come to be known as his signature sound and the very type of music that first brought him commercial success.

Experimenting with new styles, collaborating with a diverse stable of up-and-comers and platinum- selling recording artists (Estelle, Kanye West and Pharrell, to name a few), Legend recorded Evolver, his third major-label studio album.

“I never considered myself a neo-soul artist,” Legend says, evaluating his musical style and place in pop culture history. “I think I’m a Renaissance man, and because of that I’m not going to restrict myself musically.” Evolver shows just that.

The CD dropped in stores Oct. 28, but the infectious hook of its first single, “Green Light,” a track featuring the preternaturally upbeat Andre 3000, has been pumping through clubs across the country since late summer. Serving as a preview of what was to come on the album as well as a commentary on Legend’s musical evolution, the video for the song starts with a scene of him at a piano, playing “Ordinary People” to a seemingly uninterested cocktail party. Sensing the crowd’s ennui, Legend looks around, slams shut the piano’s key cover, jumps to his feet and authoritatively breaks into the first line of the song before the electro-dance-meets-crooner- soul beat kicks in.

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“Green Light” may help draw fans otherwise unfamiliar with Legend’s work, and other tracks on Evolver may keep them coming back for more. The varied collection of songs is difficult to label as a single musical genre, and those who worked with Legend on the album say it only showcases one piece of the artist’s captivating musical mosaic—a work that’s still in progress.

“I believe it was Bob Dylan who said that an artist should always be in a state of becoming, that once an artist feels like he’s arrived somewhere artistically, he’s dead meat. With John there’s a lot of self-awareness there. He’s a really bright guy,” says Dave Tozer, a Grammy winning producer who’s worked with Legend as well as John Mayer, Kanye West and Jay-Z.

“His [sound] has developed in stages—there’s been a lot of growth there. But there’s never anything contrived. It’s been natural,” adds Tozer, a New Jersey native who’s been close to Legend for more than a decade. The pair met when the singer-songwriter was a wide-eyed teenager navigating his first years at Penn.

“We started making demos. We were sort of just doing the grind, you know?” Tozer says, recollecting the pair’s salad days, when he received personal checks as payment for Legend CDs and mailed the recordings out to fans from his apartment at 19th and Wallace in the Art Museum area.

Calling from a crackling cell phone, his voice becomes louder and more emotive when he talks about the new album and how it expands on the foundation he and Legend laid out for local fans so many years ago. “Our thing was sort of mixing classic soul and hip-hop. But this album is a little more pop, a little more cutting edge. Early on, I was able to influence John with a bigger variety of sounds … and he just absorbs it all and it just comes out in his music. With any real artist that’s going to be in play,” he says.

Legend himself is clearly excited about the project but decidedly less verbose about the release, sticking to matter-of-fact descriptions like a new mother who just weathered a long labor. “On this album, there are ballads, a reggae tune, a political anthem,” says Legend. “I’m proud of it and I can stand by every track,” he asserts with a smile.

Only a few songs sound like they’re from the guy who stormed the charts with grooveheavy slow jams in 2005. Particularly different are “Green Light”—the single is filled with Andre- esque energy, synthesized drum beats and spaced-out, galactic sounds—and “No Other Love,” a reggae-influenced ballad featuring Legend’s duet with Estelle. The track, which Legend says is his favorite on the album, starts with a simple acoustic guitar riff, then leads into a layered masterpiece of laid-back Jamaican ska guitar, bubbly keys, brassy horns and a syncopated bass line. While the difference between Evolver and his first major-label release, Get Lifted, is undeniable, Legend’s quick to echo the points made by Tozer: this latest project isn’t a one-time departure but the result of his unstoppable development and maturation as a young man and an artist. “Everything is open to me,” he says.

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LOCAL BEGINNINGS
1995, he left his home in small-town Ohio to enroll at the University of Pennsylvania. Then known as John Stephens, he was a child prodigy and already accomplished musician who’d skipped two grades in elementary school, studied hard and graduated as salutatorian and prom king of his high school class. He started college at just 16. “I wanted to go to a really good school and Penn just worked out. ...It just felt right. I liked the idea of studying in an urban city and being exposed to a larger world,” the 29-year-old says. “It was all about expanding and becoming a man. Everything I learned about city life I learned in Philly ... even the little things like learning how to parallel park.”

Although he majored in English at Penn, music was already in his blood. For eight years, while in college and then during his first years living in New York City, Legend worked as a music director for a church in Scranton, Pa. In addition to working on recording projects, Tozer and Legend performed at small clubs in Philly (The Trocadero, TLA, North by Northwest) and Washington, D.C.

At the same time, Philadelphia’s music scene was spitting out a new kind of artist. The soul movement of the late ’90s only grew as the new millennium approached, and The Roots, Jill Scott and others put the city back on the map as an important place for creative types and recording artists. The collaborations that resulted proved inspiring, Legend recalls. “The whole neo-soul thing was going on, and Philly was the capital of it. A lot of people were going there to record and it just felt like Philly was the locus of that [music] at the time,” he says. But when college ended, it was time for his own coming out party. Legend moved to the Big Apple and made it his first priority to get a record deal.

Not that he wanted a big gig and celebrity just for the sake of being known. To him, notoriety and the resources that come with it would provide him with the tools and a platform to accomplish another goal: giving back. “I don’t just want to be impactful as a singer, but impactful as a human being,” he explains. In 2007, Legend launched the Show Me Campaign to raise awareness of the challenges faced by those living in poverty around the world, specifically in sub- Saharan Africa. The campaign also works with nonprofit groups to provide basic goods and services like mosquito nets for beds, clean water, crop fertilizers and medical clinics.

Also last year, Legend lent his support to the Gap’s Product Red campaign to help draw attention to the AIDS crisis in Africa; proceeds from the sale of campaign T-shirts provided essential medication for African AIDS patients. Other activism has included traveling to Capitol Hill to advocate for arts funding. The work, he says, has opened his eyes to socioeconomic issues that challenge the impoverished, undereducated and marginalized populations of the world. “I feel like I’m truly a global citizen now. I feel more connected to what’s going on in the world than ever before. It makes me more politically aware,” he says.

So much that Legend vowed to help Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama get into the White House before the Illinois senator had even announced his candidacy.

“[When I met him,] I thought, ‘This guy is really about something and he’s something really special.’ He looks like the future of America in a way people relate to. Not just his skin color, but his background. He connects. I told him that if he ran I would do anything I could do to help.”

Legend kept his promise, and has been an outspoken voice in support of the candidate, from grainy YouTube interviews to televised live performances endorsing Obama. In August at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo., Legend performed “If You’re Out There,” a song he wrote after being inspired by Obama’s call to action. He also performed with Will.i.am at the convention, rousing a stadium of Obama supporters with “Yes We Can,” a song produced by Will.i.am that intertwines music with sound bites from Obama speeches. Backed by a choir and band, Legend sang as the crowd chanted “We want change” while waving tiny American flags. “It was incredible to be there. I felt like I was part of history being made,” he says.

BEYOND ELECTION DAY
So, what now? Who does John Legend want to work with next? “Maybe Prince,” he answers. “I’ve pretty much worked with all my heroes that are still around.” Other collaborations are already in progress. Legend was recently in Philly to record some of a collection of covers with Amir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots. Tentatively titled The Wake Up Sessions, the album features politically charged songs of rebellion and will be released on Columbia Records sometime next year. Legend is close-lipped about any other details.

And years from now? “Really, I just want to be a great musician. I want to make important music for a long time and stay politically aware and active,” he says. “If I just did those two things I’d be happy. Everything else is gravy.”