John Legend Biography
John-Roger Stephens was born on December 28, 1978. His professional name is John Legend. He is an American singer, songwriter. John Legend real name is John-Roger legend. He also acts in films and is also a film producer. John legend also collaborated with Kanye West. This was a contract with Kanye West. The legend has sung on JayZ's "Encore," Alicia Keys's "You Don't Know My Name," Dilated Peoples' "This Way," Ghetto's "Selfish," and Fort Minor's "High Road," and on Lauryn. Hill plays the piano in "Everything Is Everything." Legend's single "All of Me" on his fourth studio album Love in the Future (2013) is number one on the Billboard Top 100 Singles chart. John Legend age is 42 years.
We will learn more about who is John Legend in John legend biography.
John Legend Biography
In 2007, the legend won the Haar Satellite Light Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Legend won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe in 2015 for co-creating the song "Glory" for the film Selma. He has also won 11 Grammy Awards. In 2018, Legend played Jesus Christ in the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" adapted by NBC. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for acting and won an award for being the show's producer. This made him one of 16 people and the first to win four major entertainment awards in the United States at the same time: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. He is the second youngest person on this planet who has achieved this milestone. Since 2019, Legend has been the coach on “The Voice”.
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Figure: John Legend
John Legend Early Life
John Legend's biography reveals that he was born on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, Ohio. He is one of four children of tailor Phyllis Elaine and International Harvester factory worker Ronald Lamar Stephens. His father was a drummer and "his mother sang and led the church choir, and his grandmother was the church organist." Legend was taught by his mother at home. John went to North High school in Springfield, Ohio. He also started playing the piano at the very early stages of his life.
Four years later, he graduated from the class as a salutatorian. At the age of 15, Legend won the essay contest held by McDonald's African American History Month and received the message "How do you plan to create African American history? Legend was admitted to Harvard University and received scholarships from Georgetown University and Morehouse College. He finally decided to study at the University of Pennsylvania.
Start of Career
After graduating from college, Legend worked as a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and began to produce, create and record his own music. He independently released two albums: his demo with his own name (2000) and Live at Jimmy's Uptown (2001), which were sold in his performances. Then he began to produce his demos and began to submit his works to various record companies. In 2001, Devo Springsteen introduced Legend to Kanye West, when he was a rising hip-hop artist; while he was a music fan in West, Legend was hired to sing.
After signing with West Records, he chose his stage name based on the idea given to him by the poet J. Ivy, because he thought it was an "old school voice." You sound like a member of the legend. In fact, that's what I want to call you from now on! I want to call you John Legend" After J. Ivy continued to call him by the new nickname "John Legend," others quickly became popular, including Kanye West. Although Stephens did not want to adopt a stage name, he eventually announced his new artist name as John Legend.
Breakthrough
Get Lifted on GOOD Music in December 2004 was the first album of John Legend. The album was produced by Kanye West, Dave Tozer, and will.i.am, and ranked No. 7 Billboard 200 in the United States, with 116,000 copies sold in its first week. Then it sold 540,300 copies in the United States and was certified as a gold record by RIAA. Get Lifted is an international hit, which also ranked number one on the Norwegian album chart, and is among the top ten in the Netherlands and Sweden, with 850,000 copies sold worldwide. Critically acclaimed, it won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, and also won two other Best Newcomer Awards and Best R&B Male Vocal Performance Nominations for Legend.
A total of four singles were produced on the album. The first single "Used to Love U" entered the top 30 singles charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and the Grammy Award "Ordinary People" entered the 24th on the Billboard Hot 100.
Popularity Rises
In January 2008, Legend sang in a video made for Barack Obama, which was produced by will.i.am and titled "Yes We Can." In the same year, Legend played a supporting role in the 2008 film "Soul Man," in which he played the late lead singer of a fictional group of souls, including Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mack. In October, he released his third studio album Evolver.
Discussing the reason for naming the album Evolver, he said: "I think people sometimes expect certain things from certain artists. They want you to stay where you were when you started. And I think I hope my career is defined by him whereas I feel I want my career to be defined by fact that I will not stay in the same place, and will always try new things and experiments. Therefore, when I thought this album represented this, I came up with the title "Evolver". This album was previously a fast-paced single "Green Light '' influenced by Dance Poppin. This single featured OutKast rapper Andre 3000 and on March 30, 2008, Legend was on sale. "America the Beautiful '' was performed in front of an exhausted 74,635 audience. The Orlando Citrus Bowl, now known as Camping World Stadium, was used for WWE WrestleMania XXIV.
Personal Life
The legend met model Chrissy Teigen in 2006, then director Nabil Elderkin. The two appeared in the music video, and they appeared in their song "Stereo". They were engaged in Como, Italy in December 2011 and on September 14, 2013, they got married. The 2013 song "All of Me" was written for her, and a music video was reportedly played at her wedding. The couple gave birth to a daughter in April 2016 and a son in May 2018. Both children were conceived through in vitro fertilization. In the PBS series "Finding Your Roots", Legend is 64% of Europeans and 32% European and 4% Native American. The couple announced in August 2020 that they will have a third child. On September 30, 2020, Tegen had a miscarriage.
Touring Nations and Exploring the World
Legend received an honorary doctorate from Howard University at the 144th graduation ceremony held on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Legend served as the judge on the ABC music show “Duets” with Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Nettle and Robin Thicke. Legend’s position was originally Lionel Richie, who had to leave the show due to schedule conflicts. The “Duet” made its debut on Thursday, May 24, 2012.
He released his fourth studio album "Love in the Future" on September 3, 2013, which made it to No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 for the first time and sold 68,000 copies in the first week. This album was nominated for the Best R&B Album in the 2014 Grammy Awards. The third single "All of Me" from the Legend album became a popular single on the international charts, ranking first on the Billboard Top 100 singles chart. It was at the forefront of the top six countries for three consecutive weeks and had entered the top ten in many other countries. It became one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. It was named the third best-selling song in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2014. This song is a ballad dedicated to his wife Chrissy Teigen and was performed at the 56th Grammy Awards.
In 2014, the legend collaborated with the rapper Common to compose the song "Glory", which appeared in the film Selma, which recorded the parade from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. This song won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. And the Oscar for best original song. Legend and Ordinary performed "Glory" at the 87th Academy Awards on February 22, 2015.
To sum up, this biography helps us to understand who is John Legend and the story of his life.
FAQs on John Legend Biography
1. Name the famous studio albums of John legend.
Ans: The name of the albums are:
Get Lifted (2004)
Once Again (2006)
Evolver (2008)
Love in the Future (2013)
Darkness and Light (2016)
A Legendary Christmas (2018)
Bigger Love (2020)
2. Which campaign was founded by John Legend?
Ans: In 2014, Legend launched the FREE AMERICA campaign to help reform the American incarceration system. He also supports the 2018 ballot initiative to pass Florida's Amendment 4, which restores the voting rights of Floridians convicted of felonies. In 2016, the legend, along with Richard Branson, Jane Fonda, and George Schultz, signed a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, calling for a more humane drug policy. The following year, the legend appeared in a series of speeches at Salem State University and was recognized by Voice Against Injustice as an Advocate for Salem Social Justice.