By John Batanchiev

John Legend’s Get Lifted is a pleasant soulful hour worth of music. Legend’s style ranges from hypnotic jams laced with vocal arrangements that are reminiscent of Stevie Wonder in the 1970s to beautiful ballads that reminds one of Marvin Gaye. Yet with these old school influences, Legend keeps it current with a hip-hop edge that does not sell out nor could be described as watered down.

Born John Stephens, Legend said on his official website that music has been with him all his life. He described his music as “real, a composite of experiences. It’s about love, not as a fantasy or fairytale,” with songs that have stories that everyone can relate to.

Legend appeared in the music industry by playing piano on Lauren Hill’s “Everything Is Everything.” That hit song launched a career of session playing with Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, Talib Kweli, Eve, Common, the Black Eyed Peas and Kanye West. West appears on “Number One,” a catchy soul song that he helped pen. Throughout Get Lifted, West penned four of the 14 songs.

On “Used to Love U,” Legend counterattacks the stereotyped role that a black man in America should strive for. An identity that is mixed with money and violence, an image that rappers such as 50 Cent and Jay-Z boast about. But Legend represents the black man that tries to woo a woman with money, power and strength, but finds out he cannot live that kind of lifestyle anymore. Legend sings “maybe I should rob somebody / so we could live like Whitney and Bobby / It’s probably my fault, my bad, my loss / that you are above cost / and all I could do was love you.”

When asked about how he got the name Legend, John stated that a friend from Chicago gave it to him, because “it sounded so much like an old school artist.” Legend thought the name was presumptuous, but he thought it would “put some pressure on myself but I’m gonna try to live up to it.”

With that statement, R&B has a new rising star in the name of John Legend. On Get Lifted, Snoop Dogg quotes Sam Green, who said, “A change is going to come” and John Legend is the change for the future of hip-hop and music. Legend delivers a magnificent debut album that blends the old and new style of R&B into something that is deep and romantic.

The Chronicle gives ´Get Lifted´, by John Legend four out of five stars.