Legend, John

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John Legend

1978—

Musician

John Legend, one of the top R&B performers working today, earned his stage name by having a vocal style that recalled the soul singers of old. A child prodigy from a small Midwestern town, Legend worked as a backup singer and session musician for some of the leading singers in hip hop and R&B before making his own mark as a solo artist. His young career has been marked by critical praise and financial success.

Legend was born John Stephens in Springfield, Ohio. He came from a working-class family—his father was a factory worker and his mother a seamstress—and showed an interest in music from an early age. His mother directed the local church choir, his grandmother was the church organist, and his father and brother were drummers; at the age of four John asked for piano lessons so he could join in the musical fun. By the age of seven he was singing and playing in the church choir; by the time he was eleven he was leading the choir.

Legend's talents were not restricted to music. Although he was homeschooled until the age of six, Legend was also an academic star, winning the city spelling championship in the fourth grade and graduating from high school at the age of sixteen as his class's salutatorian. The fact that he was always young for his school class earned him the nickname "Doogie Howser," after a television show about a teenager who becomes a physician. However, his musical talent kept him from being a social pariah: In addition to being salutatorian, he was also his high school's prom king.

Graduated from the Ivy Leagues

After his early graduation from high school, Legend attended the University of Pennsylvania. There, he joined the student a cappella group, called Counterparts. He also became the director of the choir for the Bethel AME Church, outside of Philadelphia. Both positions allowed him to hone his craft as a singer and musician while majoring in English, with a concentration in African-American Literature.

In 1998 he accompanied a friend to a recording session for Lauryn Hill's debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. His friend, a backup singer on the album, bragged about Legend's musical prowess; Hill was sufficiently impressed with his keyboard skills to give him a part playing piano on the song "Everything Is Everything," which would later become a huge hit.

Hill asked Legend to audition for her band, and while he was willing to drop out of college to go on tour with Hill, he didn't make the band. "When I was younger I thought I was supposed to have a record deal by age 19 or 20," Legend later told Joss Stone in Interview magazine. "When it didn't happen, I would get frustrated, but I would keep working and progressing and making new songs and recording new demos. And I kept thinking these people are stupid, they should've signed me a long time ago."

When Legend graduated from college the following year, he took a management consulting job with Boston Consulting Group. Although the job paid much better than what most of his peers were making straight out of college, Legend's passion for music did not fade. After spending his days preparing spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations for his consulting clients, he would spend his nights pursuing nightclub gigs along the Boston-Philadelphia corridor. He lasted three years in the consulting job before quitting to pursue music full time.

Discovered by Kanye West

During his nightclub period, Legend released two independent albums under his given name, the self-titled John Stephens (2000) and Live at Jimmy's Uptown (2001). Selling the discs at his gigs and through his Web site, Legend sold thousands of copies, but his big break came in 2002, when his college roommate, DeVon "Devo" Harris, introduced Legend to his cousin, hip hop producer Kanye West.

West and Legend became fast friends and collaborators. Through West, Legend got opportunities to play piano and provide backup vocals for established artists such as Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, and Jay Z, and even earned cowriting credits on songs with Keys and Jackson. Legend was also lending his considerable talents to West's debut album, College Dropout. During one studio session for West's album, Chicago poet and spoken word artist J. Ivy heard Legend sing. Ivy dubbed him "the Legend" because he sounded like a soul singer from the old school. The name stuck, and afterward John Stephens adopted the stage name John Legend.

College Dropout proved to be a major hit, and West founded his own label, G.O.O.D. ("Getting Out Our Dreams") Records, under Sony/BMG. G.O.O.D.'s first album was Legend's major-label debut, Get Lifted, which West executive-produced. Released in the last week of 2004, Get Lifted was a major critical success, but its commercial success built slowly. The album's major hit was the ballad "Ordinary People"; it also featured the West-penned "Used to Love U" and a duet with Hill, "So High." Legend's sentimental favorite on the album was the gospel-inflected "It Don't Have to Change" a recording that featured fifteen members of Legend's extended family singing with him.

Get Lifted garnered eight Grammy nominations for Legend, who along with his mentor, West, and Mariah Carey, earned the most nominations at that year's awards show. Legend took home three awards: best new artist, best R&B album, and best R&B male vocal performance for the song "Ordinary People," which he performed at the Grammy ceremony.

At a Glance …

Born John Stephens on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, OH; son of a factory worker and a seamstress. Education: University of Pennsylvania, BA, English, 1999.

Career: Bethel AME Church, choir director, 1995-2004; session musician and backup vocalist for various artists, 1998—. Boston Consulting Group, management consultant, 1999-2001(?); G.O.O.D. Records, recording artist, 2004—.

Awards: BET Award, best new artist, 2005; Soul Train Music Awards, best male R&B single, for "Ordinary People," and best male Ramp;B album, for Get Lifted, both 2006; Grammy Awards, best R&B male vocal performance, for "Ordinary People," best R&B album, for Get Lifted, and best new artist, all 2006, best R&B vocal performance by a duo or group, for "Family Affair," and best male R&B vocal performance, for "Heaven," both 2007.

Addresses: Office—c/o G.O.O.D. Records, Sony Music, 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022.

Evolved as an Artist

Despite his early success, Legend did not rest on his laurels after his first album. A self-proclaimed "workaholic," he spent much of 2005 on tour, opening for West's College Dropout tour and Keys's Diary of Alicia Keys tour. While Legend had been singing his whole life, he had never faced the rigors of singing ninety minutes per night, every night, as he would on tour. As he told Margaux Watson in Entertainment Weekly, "My voice was hurting…. I had to get [a vocal coach] because I'd never sung so much in my life." As a result of this vocal training, Legend's voice, which was often described as "raspy" or "raw," changed: "My tone got smoother and cleaner," he told Watson. "I didn't plan to [change my style]. I had to switch it up."

That new style, which was featured in the performer's follow-up to Get Lifted, entitled Once Again, proved to be as popular as the original style. Legend's smoother vocals are evident on tracks such as the spiritual meditation "Show Me" and the Grammy-winning "Heaven." The album, which lacked a breakout single like "Ordinary People," nonetheless matched Get Lifted's multiplatinum sales, thanks in part to Legend's relentless touring. As he told The Guardian's Angus Batey, "It always amazes me that I stand out among other artists for working hard. Shouldn't everybody work hard? Why wouldn't they work hard?… If you don't seize this opportunity, it's going to go away. You might not be as smart or you might not have as good a record, but there should be no excuse for not working hard."

Legend's hard work has not been limited to the studio or the stage but also includes the business side of the recording industry. In an innovative arrangement, his third major-label release, the concert album Live from Philadelphia (2008), was created as an exclusive for the Target department store chain. In 2007 he started his own record label, HomeSchool Records, to be distributed by Atlantic. The first artist Legend added to the HomeSchool talent stable was the British rapper and singer Estelle; the second was his younger brother, who performs under the name Vaughn Anthony. In addition to these business ventures, Legend is also active in charity, founding the Show Me Campaign to help end poverty in rural Tanzania, and representing the Gentleman's Fund, a consortium of five charities established to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of GQ magazine.