The nature of "soul in suburbia" — or in a posh townhouse like the one John Legend shares with a bunch of multicultural honeys in the video for "Save Room," the first single from his second album — has absorbed black folks since long before Bill Cosby donned a $300 pullover as Dr. Cliff Hux-table. The tensions of black middle-class life are played for laughs by the Wayans brothers, somberly discussed in college seminars and made danceable by artists such as Legend, the sweater-wearing college graduate who applies hip-hop's street-driven intensity to resoundingly bourgeois scenarios.

Legend makes real hip-hop soul, not rhythm-driven rap with a little melody thrown in, or ballad-based song craft plus samples, but a genuine marriage of the two sensibilities. Like his mentor Kanye West, who goes the same distance from the opposite starting point, Legend pinpoints where soul's vulnerability meets hip-hop's self-sustaining braggadocio — where the lover and the fighter become one complex character. Exploring that juncture with elegance and passion on "Once Again," he moves through "neo-retro" soul's cliches to flesh out his vision of love, loss and happiness.

As a soul man, Legend values virtuosity and emotional nuance; his piano playing is light as egg whites, and he demands equal refinement from his collaborators, from fusion guitarist David Torn to bluesman Doyle Bramhall III, and from top-shelf producers including West, Will.I.Am, Craig Street and Raphael Saadiq.

And like his R&B role model Marvin Gaye, Legend focuses on the interpersonal to get to more cosmic matters. With its mix of eroticism and philosophical seriousness, "Once Again," released this week, recalls "Let's Get It On"-era Gaye; beneath the sheet-ruffling, its songs eloquently express the fears and uncertainties of middle-class life.

Legend's accounts of serial cheating, couples' blood feuds and paramours haunted by loss are as visceral and sophisticated as the street stories of rappers including Nas and 50 Cent. Even his happy songs — the exhibitionist romp "PDA," the deliciously greasy "Slow Dance" — play with ideas of pain and danger. Like Spike Lee in domestic mode — think "Crooklyn" or "Jungle Fever," not "Do the Right Thing" — "Once Again" uncovers personal anxieties that can't be separated from the larger social picture. The pain his characters endure reflects deep ambivalence about the very idea of happiness.

Although "Once Again" includes the by-now obligatory song questioning the Iraq war, Legend makes his most profound connections within his music. He and his producers weave a sticky web of references, from art rock to cocktail jazz, to good old gospel to the bubblegum of "Save Room," which reworks the Classics IV AM-radio staple "Stormy." As each song moves through its song quotes and style slippages, soul itself becomes something new: a repository of half-buried memories and unresolved impulses.

Unlike West, Legend makes such intricate moves without fanfare. "Once Again" seems almost monotone on first impression, diminished by the middling tempos that weigh down many a ballad-driven album. Legend's singing voice, his one wild card, sometimes drags things down, too, as he strains to be more versatile than he's able. But peel back the layers of this suburban soul, and you'll find ... more layers.