Re: John Legend Mp3 Download
Dorian Blessing
John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978), known professionally as John Legend, is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, record producer, and actor. He began his musical career working behind the scenes for other artists, playing piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything," and performing as an uncredited backing vocalist on Jay-Z's "Encore" and Alicia Keys' "You Don't Know My Name". He was the first artist to sign with Kanye West's GOOD Music, through which he released his debut studio album, Get Lifted (2004). The album reached the top ten of the Billboard 200, received double platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and spawned his first hit song, "Ordinary People."
Throughout his musical career, Legend has received a total of 12 Grammy Awards. In 2007, he won the Hal David Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[2] Legend won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Golden Globe Award for his 2015 single "Glory" (with Common), which was released for the film Selma. He won the NAACP's President's Award in 2016.[3][4] In Broadway acting, Legend won a Tony Award for co-producing the stage play Jitney (2017), and portrayed the titular character in NBC's adaptation of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar (2018). He received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his acting role, and won the award for his role as a producer of the show, making him the first Black male and second youngest recipient of all four of the major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT) in 2018.[5][6] Legend also has served as a vocal coach for the reality competition series The Voice from its sixteenth season to its twenty-second season, and again from its twenty-fourth season to its twenty-fifth season.
John Roger Stephens was born on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, Ohio.[7] He is the eldest of four children[8] of Phyllis Elaine (ne Lloyd), a seamstress, and Ronald Lamar Stephens, a factory worker at International Harvester.[9][10][11][12] His father was a drummer, while "his mother sang and directed the church choir, and his grandmother was the church organist."[13]
In 2004, Legend stated that his parents were divorced for 12 years before reuniting.[14] Legend was homeschooled by his mother.[15] He began playing the piano at age 4.[16][17] At the age of 7, he performed with his church choir.[18] Because of his academic talent, he skipped two grades.[13]
At the age of 12, Legend entered North High School in Springfield, Ohio[13] and graduated as salutatorian. At the age of 15, Legend won a Black History Month essay competition sponsored by McDonald's, following the prompt "How do you intend to make Black history?" with an essay about how he intended to be a successful musician, according to an interview on the Carlos Watson Show.[19]
At the age of 16, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he served as the president and musical director of the co-ed jazz and pop a cappella group the Counterparts. His lead vocals on the group's recording of Joan Osborne's "One of Us", written by fellow University of Pennsylvania alum Eric Bazilian of the Hooters, received critical acclaim, landing the song on the track list of the 1998 Best of Collegiate a Cappella compilation CD.[20] Legend was also a member of the Sphinx Senior Society, one of Penn's undergraduate senior societies, and Onyx Senior Honor Society. While at Penn, Legend was introduced to Lauryn Hill by a friend. Hill hired him to play piano on "Everything Is Everything", a song from her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.[21] He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English with an emphasis on African-American literature[22] in 1999.[23]
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Legend worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and began producing, writing, and recording his own music.[13] He released two albums independently: his self-titled demo (2000) and Live at Jimmy's Uptown (2001), which he sold at his shows. He subsequently began working on his demo and began sending his work to various record labels.[15][14]
In 2001, Devo Springsteen introduced Legend to Kanye West, then an up-and-coming hip-hop artist; Legend was hired to sing during the hooks of West's music. After signing to West's label, he chose his stage name from an idea that was given to him by poet J. Ivy, due to what he perceived as an "old-school sound". J. Ivy stated, "I heard your music and it reminds me of that music from the old school. You sound like one of the legends. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm going to call you from now on! I'm going to call you John Legend." After J. Ivy continued to call him by the new moniker "John Legend", others quickly caught on, including Kanye West. Despite Stephens' reluctance to adopt a stage name, he eventually announced his new artist name as John Legend.[21][24]
Legend released his debut album, Get Lifted, on GOOD Music in December 2004. It featured production by Kanye West, Dave Tozer, and will.i.am, and debuted at number 7 on the US Billboard 200, selling 116,000 copies in its first week.[25] It went on to sell 540,300 copies in the United States and was certified gold by the RIAA.[26][27] An international success, Get Lifted also reached number one on the Norwegian Albums Chart and peaked within the top ten in the Netherlands and Sweden, resulting in worldwide sales of 850,000 copies.[21] Critically acclaimed, it won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, and earned Legend another two nominal awards for Best New Artist and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Altogether, the album produced four singles, including debut single "Used to Love U", which entered the top 30 of the New Zealand and UK Singles Chart, and Grammy Award-winning "Ordinary People" which peaked at 24 on the Billboard Hot 100. Legend also co-wrote Janet Jackson's "I Want You", which was certified platinum and received a nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards.[28]
Legend was featured on several records in the following years. He appeared on albums by Fort Minor, Srgio Mendes, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, the Black Eyed Peas, Stephen Colbert, Rich Boy, J'Dillian MSTRKRFT, Chemistry, and Fergie, among others. Legend also tentatively worked with Michael Jackson on a future album for which he had written one song.[29] In August 2006, Legend appeared in an episode of Sesame Street. He performed a song entitled "It Feels Good When You Sing a Song", a duet with Hoots the Owl.[30] He also performed during the pregame show of Super Bowl XL in Detroit and the halftime show at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game.[31][32]
In October 2006, Legend's second album, Once Again, was released. Legend co-wrote and co-produced the bulk of the album, which saw him reteaming with West and will.i.am but also spawned production from Raphael Saadiq, Craig Street, Sa-Ra, Eric Hudson, Devo Springsteen, Dave Tozer and Avenue.[33] Released to major commercial success, it 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 the RIAA, and reached gold status in Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. At the 2007 Grammy Awards ceremony, the song "Heaven" was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, while lead single "Save Room" received a nod in the Best Male Pop Vocal category. Legend won a second Grammy that year for "Family Affair", a collaboration with Sly & the Family Stone, Joss Stone and Van Hunt, for the former's Different Strokes by Different Folks album.[citation needed]
In January 2008, Legend sang in a video for Barack Obama, produced by will.i.am called "Yes We Can".[34] The same year, Legend had a supporting, singing-only role in the 2008 movie Soul Men, where he plays the deceased lead singer of a fictitious soul group that includes Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac. In October, he released his third studio album, Evolver.[35] Speaking about the reasons for calling the album Evolver, he stated: "I think people sometimes come to expect certain things from certain artists. They expect you to kind of stay in the same place you were at when you started out. Whereas I feel I want my career to be defined by the fact that I'm NOT gonna stay in the same place, and that I'm always gonna try new things and experiment. So, as I think this album represents a manifestation of that, I came up with the title 'Evolver'."[36] The album was preceded by dance-pop-influenced up tempo single "Green Light" which featured rapper Andre 3000 of OutKast and became his highest-charting single since "Ordinary People"; it was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.[37] On March 30, 2008, Legend performed "America the Beautiful" in front of a sold-out crowd of 74,635 in the Orlando Citrus Bowl, now known as Camping World Stadium, for WWE's WrestleMania XXIV.[citation needed]
In 2009, Legend performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.[38] Also in 2009, Legend and the Roots teamed up to record a collaborative album, Wake Up!, which was released on September 21, 2010.[39] The first single released from the album was "Wake Up Everybody" featuring singer Melanie Fiona and rapper Common.[40][41] In November 2010, Legend was featured on West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album, listed a feature on the song 'Blame Game'. In February 2011, Legend won three prizes at the 53rd Annual Grammy Music Awards. He was awarded Best R&B Song for "Shine", while he and the Roots won Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for "Hang On in There". In March 2011, Legend and the Roots won two NAACP Image Awards, one for Outstanding Album (Wake Up!) and one for Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration.[citation needed]
7fc3f7cf58