John Legend

R&B singer/songwriter John Legend will follow-up his Grammy-winning 2004 debut "Get Lifted" with a new album, "Once Again" on Oct. 24. Among the producers involved with the project are Kanye West, Raphael Saadiq and will.i.am., with whom Legend wrote seven songs in their first five days of collaboration, including the single "Save Room."

"I didn't go into the new album thinking about the Grammys I had won," Legend tells Billboard. "It's one of the greatest challenges of writing music ? for it to not sound like what you think it's supposed to sound like or sound like the last album."

"The mind state we kept while working on this record was one of hunger, humility and fear," will.i.am says. "Since John and I first met, both of us have sold a lot of albums and won a bunch of Grammys. But we didn't think about that."

Saadiq adds that the pressures of recording a follow-up to a Grammy-winning album can be extraordinary. "You always put the pressure on yourself," he says. "That's how bad [songs] happen."