But short of that, a Honda Fit would work.
You’ll get the same effect as you cruise past empty storefronts; past a man sleeping in the doorway of an abandoned factory; past vacant houses with legal documents taped to the picture windows as a grim reminder that you, too, are only a pink slip away from losing it all.
“Havin’ hard times,” he sings, “in this crazy town.”
The music sounds exactly like something out of a ’70s blaxploitation flick — and the imagery matches.
Only it’s not 1972 and this is no movie, although the album’s fifth song, “Little Ghetto Boy,” was, in fact, once used in a blaxploitation movie 38 years ago.
But honestly, you don’t even have to be cruising the so-called “ghetto” to see some of this stuff.
Hard times are everywhere in Legend’s hometown. Every town for that matter.
“I wanted to do something musically that reflected what was going on politically and socially,” he said recently.
Proving that the more things change, the more they stay the same, Legend has teamed up with The Roots for an album of ’70s soul covers.
With material spanning from 1969 (Roberta Flack’s “Compared to What”) to 1979 (Prince Lincoln’s reggae tune “Humanity”), they manage to hit all the epicenters of soul: Detroit. Chicago. Philly.
What could have been a gimmicky undertaking, the week-old “Wake Up!” album instead reveals the timelessness of even some of the more obscure soul songs from that golden era.
“We could’ve covered the most obvious songs,” Legend said, “but we wanted to do something fresh.”
The former John Stephens, already a six-time Grammy winner in the five years since his debut, set out to reinterpret 11 lost classics by everyone from Marvin Gaye on down to Donny Hathaway on down to Baby Huey.
All of them speak about society’s ills in a way that seems frighteningly contemporary.
The Roots, best known as of late as Jimmy Fallon’s house band, were born to play it.
Legend had his biggest hit to date a couple of years ago with “Green Light,” but that’s not really him.
This is him.
After just the first song, a super-bad rendition, complete with horn section, of Baby Huey’s super-obscure, Curtis Mayfield-penned “Hard Times” from 1970, you’re ready to concede that, “Good God, John Legend is one bad mutha — shut yo’ mouth!”
“You can’t think about trying to outdo the original,” Legend said. “You just go into it trying to make a good recording.”
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