John Legend & The Roots, Our Generation | COVERS

In the 17th edition of COVERS (2025), John Legend & The Roots deliver a compelling rendition of “Our Generation” originally performed by Ernie Hines.

Ah, it’s time to get cozy and cover up! In COVERS, we highlight a musician or band covering songs by another musician (likely a popular musician). COVERS focuses solely on the musician who covers.  It is open to established musicians and musicians who may not be as well-known. In the 17^th  edition of COVERS (2025), John Legend and The Roots deliver a compelling rendition of “Our Generation (The Hope of the World)” originally performed by Ernie Hines.

“Hope of the world is in our generation / It’s all left up to us, to change this present situation.” Preach, John Legend, preach! The soulful baritone continues, “Take caution from our elders, don’t make the same mistake / Let’s fill the world with love, and get rid of all the hate.” Amen! Say that, say that! Preach, preacher! Okay, okay – Legend is not a preacher, but the socially conscious message he shares on “Our Generation (The Hope of the World)” is ‘the bomb dot com.’ Here’s the thing, though. Legend and The Roots, plus rapper CL Smooth did not originally write or perform “Our Generation.” Ernie Hines (1938 – ) is the original performer, while Leon Moore wrote the song. Hines’ version appeared on his 1972 album, Electrified.  An underrated, underappreciated soul cut, admittedly, the John Legend and The Roots version was the first time I had ever heard “Our Generation.” Although it is a cover, they bring the heat while fittingly, CL Smooth gets a writing credit for his rap verse.  Rap as we know it now wasn’t even a thing when Hines recorded the song.

John Legend and The Roots do a bang-up job preserving the soulfulness of Hines’ original.  The rhythm section is locked-in – on fire! The horns are dynamic, filled with a mean bite.  The instrumentalists all dig in, preserving the old but making “Our Generation” sound relevant in 2010.  It appears as the fourth track on the Legend / The Roots Grammy-winning collaborative album, Wake Up!, comprised mostly of covers. The star of the show is Legend, who wows with his legendary, earthy, gritty vocals. He sings with incredible authenticity, selling the need to clean things up, badly! Like the original, Legend gets an epic assist from the background vocals who urge us, “Let’s straighten it out.” The best section of the song is the outro, where John takes us to church, backed by those sickening background vocalists. “New York City, better straighten it out / Atlanta, better straighten it out / In Los Angeles, you better straighten it out…” Woo! Backtracking, we must highlight Smooths meaningful, wise verse:

“Need to straighten it out, seek and you’ll find

They can cage your body, but not your mind

We lay it all on the line in the struggle

We grew, but together here’s what we gotta do.”

John Legend, The Roots, and CL Smooth deserve a huge round of applause for introducing and reintroducing “Our Generation (The Hope of the World)”.  It is a killer soul record that remained relevant in 2010 and continues to be relevant well into the 2020s.  We still have so much to straighten out worldwide.