John Legend

John Legend has come a long way since his days an in-demand session writer and musician working with Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others. Born and raised in Springfield, Ohio, the singer (born John Stephens) began playing piano at the age of four. He was singing in his church choir by seven and blossomed into a choir director in his teens. He began to work his way into the Philadelphia music scene while studying at the University of Pennsylvania (where he graduated with a Ba...

John Legend has come a long way since his days an in-demand session writer and musician working with Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others. Born and raised in Springfield, Ohio, the singer (born John Stephens) began playing piano at the age of four. He was singing in his church choir by seven and blossomed into a choir director in his teens. He began to work his way into the Philadelphia music scene while studying at the University of Pennsylvania (where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1999). Kanye West gave Legend his first big break when he signed the artist to his G.O.O.D Music production company in 2004. Since 2004, he's sold more than five million albums world wide, garnered multiple hit singles ("Ordinary People," "Used to Love U," "So High," "Save Room," "Heaven," "Another Again"), received countless awards (including five Grammys) and wowed rapt audiences across the globe. Legend does all that and more on Evolver, the follow-up to his Grammy award-winning Once Again. His new album's name is as succinct as it is bold, a one-word mission statement encapsulating the singer's ambitions. "I am constantly evolving as a person and as an artist," says Legend. "You still have the legacy of what you did before and the people's memory of that will always be there, but with each album you get to question that, to play with it and even rebel against if you want to and I did that with this album."