♫ John Legend and The Roots | B

John Legend and The Roots have taken their notable musical talents and created an enchanting album. Wake Up! is a 12-track concept album clinging to one simple idea — the world needs to wake up. The album begins with one of its best works, titled "Hard Times." The song begins with Legend showing off his vocal abilities as the percussion builds and the bass and guitars play soulful riffs. As the song progresses, brass instruments are added to create an even more passionate sound, a great way to introduce the funky, blues vibe of the album.

Legend holds true to his typical, heartfelt vocals throughout all of the album's songs. He belts out meaningful lyrics pertaining to world issues, such as lack of love, excessive amounts of greed and the necessity for the world to fix its existing problems. The third track on the album, titled "Wake Up Everybody," embarks with Legend singing, "Wake up everybody no more sleeping in bed/ no more backward thinking, time for thinking ahead/ the world has changed so very much from what it used to be/there is so much hatred, war and poverty." This lyric, in essence, sums up the prominent idea of the concept album.

The only downfall to the album is the lack of participation from The Roots. The idea of the collaborative album between The Roots and John Legend is a very exciting endeavor on both artists' behalves. However, listeners may be let down by the lack of tracks that The Roots are on. Out of the album's 12 tracks, Roots members are only featured on four. The only reason this may be viewed as a disappointment to listeners is because there are minimal songs that contain The Roots' hard, hip-hop vibes, falling short of a true collaboration.