He self-released two albums as John Stephens, and worked as a session musician for artists like Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, and Talib Kweli. One of his choir members introduced him to Lauryn Hill, and he ended up playing piano on her single “Everything Is Everything” when he was just 19.Īfter graduation, Legend moved to New York and worked as a consultant while playing shows and recording music at night and on weekends. He was also a choir director at his church. He was gifted academically, graduating from high school at 16 and going on to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in English. “As soon as I started singing and playing, I wanted to be doing it on TV,” he told the Guardian in 2005, “and I knew I would.” He grew up the son of a seamstress and a factory worker in Ohio, and sang and played piano at church.
Like many a young, confident musical upstart, Legend says he was always convinced of his talent. How has Legend managed to remain unscorched? And does his crossover appeal (read: white people know who he is) come at the cost of making interesting music? His anodyne public and artistic persona, wedded as it is to progressive politics, feels increasingly like a feat in 2018, when the polarization of public figures has resulted in stars as dispositionally muted as Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé nevertheless being flamed by conservatives as radical leftists. The holiday album is a mainstay for many musicians, but it does reveal the extent to which Legend seems no longer interested in making thought-provoking music.
(He will also be starring with Teigen in an NBC holiday special, A Legendary Christmas with John and Chrissy, later in November). Today, Legend makes a big play for pop ubiquity with the release of his first holiday album, A Legendary Christmas.
He’s strategically prolific, releasing new music every two to three years, even as each album’s quality has fluctuated, never quite tapping into his full potential as an obviously talented musician. He’s a strange mixture of things: a guarded, old-fashioned R&B artist in a genre in which specific, confessional lyrics and vulnerability are prized an affable celebrity with outspoken, politically progressive views a man whose quiet arrogance doesn’t activate obvious asshole alarms. Legend’s marriage to Chrissy Teigen has helped introduce him to a wider audience (their family exploits are now covered enthusiastically by People magazine and other tabloids) and as his visibility as a public figure has grown, some interesting contradictions have come into view. (He literally played Jesus Christ, and not badly.) 1 single with the 2013 earworm “All of Me.” In September he became the first black man to ever EGOT, winning the Emmy for his role as a producer of Jesus Christ Superstar Live! - the NBC live broadcast of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that Legend also starred in this past spring. So I’ve invited the pressure on myself.”Ībout 13 years after that interview, John Legend is, if not quite a legend, certainly someone who has acquired an impressive (maybe even surprising) number of accolades: After winning Best New Artist at the 2005 Grammys (one of 10 Grammys he’s won yes, 10!), he got his first Billboard No.
“I didn't want to go into this at all thinking I possibly would fail. “I decided that if my only reason for not doing it was because I was worried about failing to live up to it, that would not be enough reason,” he told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in 2005. It was for these reasons, said a 26-year-old John Legend (legal name John Stephens), that he was at first wary of releasing his debut studio album, Get Lifted, under that moniker. Suddenly, you’re susceptible to a lifetime of corny newspaper puns and reviews will forever be determining if your latest album “lives up to the name.” As much as it’s an old-fashioned play for timelessness, it’s also very on the nose. It takes a certain kind of brazen self-confidence to give yourself the last name Legend - especially if you’re a musician.