John Legend Story

Legend was homeschooled by his mother on and off throughout his entire childhood. He first started performing with his church choir when he was only four years old. He began playing the piano at the age of seven.

Education and Early Life

Legend attended North High School when he was twelve years old, and he graduated from there four years later. As per Legend, he was also offered admission to Harvard University and scholarship to Georgetown University and Morehouse College. But, he opted for the University of Pennsylvania where he studies English with an emphasis on African-American literature. While being in college, Legend served as president and musical director of a co-ed jazz and pop a cappella group called counterparts. Legend was also a member of the prestigious senior societies Sphinx Senior Society and Onyx Senior Honor Society while he was an undergraduate there. When Legend was in college, he was introduced to Lauryn Hill by a friend and later on Hill hired Legend to play piano on “Everything Is Everything,” which is a song from Hill's album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”

Career

When Legend was in college, he began to hold a number of shows around Philadelphia which expanded his audience base to New York, Boston, Atlanta, and Washington D.C. He graduated from college in 1999 and after that began producing, writing and recording his music. During that phase, he released two albums independently; his self-titled Demo in 2000 and Live at Jimmy's Uptown in 2001, and he sold them at his shows. In 2001, Legend was singing to Kanye West's Label and there, poet J.Ivy gave Legend his stage name 'John Legend' as he felt the Legend's voice sounds like old school legends.

Legend released his debut album “Get Lifted” in December 2004. It featured production by Kanye West, Dave Tozer, and will.i.am and debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 and 116,000 copies were sold in its first week itself. It went on to sell 540,300 copies in the United States and was certified gold by RIAA. “Get Lifted” was an international success and also reached number one on the Norwegian Albums Chart and peaked within the top ten in Netherlands and Sweden and it all led to worldwide sales of 850,000 copies. In October 2006, Legend's second album Once Again was released. Legend co-wrote and co-produced the bulk of the album. It was also a huge commercial success and reached number three on the Billboard 200 and debuted on top of the Top R&B/Hip-hop Albums chart. It was eventually certified Platinum by RIAA and reached gold status in Italy, Netherlands and United Kingdom.

In January 2008, Legend sang in a video for Barack Obama which was produced by will.i.am called “Yes WE Can.” In 2008, Legend played a supporting, singing-only role in the 2008 movie Soul Men. In October 2008, Legend released his third album, Evolver.

Personal Life

After dating model Chrissy Teigen for four years, he got engaged in 2011. They got married on September 14, 2013, in Como, Italy. In 2016, the couple had a daughter named Luna Simone Stephens.

Achievements

Legend won the Best R&B/Soul Album Male award in 2006 for his albums Get Lifted and Ordinary People and won the same award for his song “Save Room” in 2007.

Legend won the Record of The Year award in 2014 for “All of Me.”

Legend won the Ashford and Simpson Songwriter's Award in 2015 for “Glory.”

Legend has won ten Grammy Awards from twenty-seven nominations.

Legend won the Academy Awards in the best Original Song section for his album Glory in 2015.

He won the AAFCA Award for best music section for 'Glory' in 2014.

He also won the BET Award for the Best New Artist in 2007 and won the same award in 2015 for Best Collaboration for “Glory.”

He won the Billboard Music Award for the 'Top Radio Song' and 'Top Streaming Song(Audio)' in 2015 for “All of Me.”