John Legend believes parenting has changed his music career.
The 38-year-old singer-songwriter has claimed he has matured "a lot" over the past decade and he believes marrying his 31-year-old wife Chrissy Teigen and having 10-month-old daughter Luna has added "new perspectives" and "new layers" to his songs and their subject matter.
Speaking about his songwriting style and how it has differed from his 2004 debut album ‘Get Lifted’ to Fault magazine, the dark-haired hunk said: "I’ve grown up a lot in the last twelve years and had a lot more life experiences. Getting married and having a baby have added new perspectives and depth to the subjects I sing about too. Just from living in the world and seeing more contemporary issues have added new layers to my music which weren’t there before."
And the ‘All of Me’ hitmaker – who married his partner in 2013 – has praised his family for bringing more meaning and "positivity" to his new album ‘Darkness and Light’, and for making him think "more philosophically".
He explained: "I think I’ve always been an optimistic person and I think that streak of optimism runs through each of my albums. I think there is just more depth to what I’m feeling because everything means more to me now I have a wife and daughter. Everything is more significant and I’m thinking more philosophically about things and thinking about life and death a lot more. Before what I sang about were my ambitions of making money, getting girls and having fun which was a lot more selfish but now I have better perspective and depth on what’s really important in life."
And the vocalist is "more excited" about revealing his fifth studio album, which has been described as his "best work".
He said: "The feedback from ‘Darkness and Light’ has been amazing and it has been my best-reviewed album to date. When I was finishing it, a lot of my friends felt like it was my best work and I felt the same so I was more excited than nervous for people to hear it."
John – who starred in the Oscar award-winning film ‘La La Land’ – is desperate to work on more movies in the future.
He said: "I loved it and it was really fun to be a part of it. I loved working with Ryan [Gosling] and I didn’t work much with Emma [Stone] but she’s a wonderful actress and did great in the movie. It was a really cool experience to be part of something so special and meaningful to so many people.
"There will definitely be more acting and producing films as well. We have a production company called ‘Get Lifted Production Company’ and we are the executive producers of ‘La La Land’ and we have a couple of new movies releasing next year."