John Legend Part 1

John Legend joins Shannon Sharpe at Club Shay Shay for a conversation that starts off with a surprise gift from Shannon to John to celebrate his 11th wedding anniversary with his wife Chrissy Teigen. John reflects on the challenge of buying gifts for his wife, Chrissy Teigen, including a memorable year when he gave her a cookbook and a crockpot. He shares the story of how they met during one of his music videos, how he hand-selected her for the role, and when he knew she was "the one." John reveals that Chrissy is the funniest woman he’s ever dated, has great values, and even though her personality is quite different from his, these attributes cemented the idea that she is "the one" for him. He talks about how they made their relationship work even though they slept together on the first date, a moment many couples struggle to get passed. Many consider John and Chrissy "relationship goals," and he discusses how they navigate the ups and downs of their marriage. John explains why it took them so long to get married, recalling his near-botched proposal in the Maldives due to airport security.

 

John reflects on his upbringing in a big family in Springfield, Ohio. John addresses false comments made by Donald Trump during a debate about Haitian immigrants in his hometown and how those statements created unnecessary conflict. Shannon recalls attending one of John’s concerts and being struck by the way John tells stories during his performances, with his father's influence being a major theme. The conversation turns somber as John discusses how his grandmother’s death deeply affected his family, especially his mother, who struggled with addiction afterward. John shares how being homeschooled and growing up with his cousins shaped him, how entering high school at age 12 and college at 16 made him feel smaller than his classmates, and why he gave up organized sports. He reflects on how lessons from his father helped him through personal struggles, especially during tough times with Chrissy.

 

John opens up about Chrissy’s life-saving abortion, which made him pro-choice as an adult. John talks about his son’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis and the challenges that came with it, especially after the repeal of Obamacare made insulin more expensive. He shares the story of how they discovered his son’s condition after he got sick at football camp. On a lighter note, John reminisces about a family trip to Lake Como and how they celebrated their love there, a theme captured in his song “I Don’t Love You Like I Used To.” The song title is meant to trick listeners but reflects his evolving love for Chrissy.

 

John reflects on his early career, working with Kanye West 20 years ago, and the strong artistic chemistry they shared. He reveals that he originally wrote “Ordinary People” for the Black Eyed Peas and that it was inspired by his parents. He discusses how the name "John Legend" came about, gifted by people in Kanye’s camp, and shares the story of negotiating with a musician and porn producer named Johnnie Legend to avoid a legal dispute over the name. John finishes Part 1 by talking about his work on Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He says, they're poisoning the blood of America. So what
he's saying is the ideal version of America is a
white America. And anytime brown people infiltrate America, they're messing
up the blood of America. They're messing up the gene

(00:20):
pool of America. And that takes us back to Hitler,
That takes us back to eugenics. That takes us back
to folks who believe there's a genetic hierarchy that's racially
determined superior to yes. And I just can't imagine it
couldn't be me, a black man, voting for somebody who

(00:44):
believes so deeply that black men are inferior to him.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
All my life, grounding all my life, sacrifice, hustle, ped
price one slice all my life, grinding all my life,
all my life, all my life, sacrifices, Fussel, petrickris One Slight,
doctor Brolist, Swat all my Life, Poppy grind in all

(01:08):
my Life.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Hello, Welcome to another episode of Club Shay Shay. I
am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the propriet of
Club Shasha. The guy that's stopping by for conversation and
a drink today. He really needs no introduction, but here
we go. He's one of America's most versatile artists. He's
one of the most respected and acclaimed singers and songwriters.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
In the music industry.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
He's one of the most awarded musicians of our generation.
He's the first African American and the one of the
youngest men ever to join the exclusive Egoch Club, which
means he's won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar Anatoni.
He's won two Emmy Awards, twelve Grammys, an Oscar an
Antonia Award. He's also won the Golden Globe and an
NAACP Image Award. He also has a star in the

(01:49):
Hollywood Walker Fame, A writer of some of the most
world's most romantic ballads who He's a gold, multi platinum,
Diamond selling artist. Diamonds means he's sold at least ten
million units. He's in a Songwriter's Hall of Fame. A
talent is celebrated, accomplished pianist, producer, composers, vocalist, actor, host, poet, entertainer,
music and choir director, and international performer, and a list celebrity,

(02:13):
a soul for superstar, A dedicated and global humanitalian humanitarian,
a philanthropist, a gift to the world, a fan favorite,
an icon, A savvage businessman. He was a child prodigy.
He's a proud dad, he's a loving husband. Let's give
it up for the one, the only, John Letch Shannon.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Wow, that introduct you, man.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
I ain't know I was getting an introduction like that. Bro.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
We don't give people what they deserve. We give people
what they earn. And everything that I read up this card,
you've earned that.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
So I know you're very busy, John. We've been trying
to set this thing up for a better part of
the year.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
I'm happy to be here, man, I'm a fan.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
I've been I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
I want to toast you. Say you haven't had my cognact.
This is shape by Laportier here. I wanted to toast
you for everything that you've done, the great man, the
great father, the great dad that you are, and everything
you've done to help our community.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Cheers, brother, appreciate you, son. Oh yeah, I thought you
was gonna you. I took a.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Shot, man, I well, I thought, but clearly were not.
We're not sipping out.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Let's put a little bit more if everybody need to sip,
you know, I have a little sipping man man.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
All right, I mean just a little early in the
morning too, John's early. But I was prepared though, you know. Yeah, yeah,
you used used a little food beforehand. Okay, so we're good.
Make sure the stomachs lined and everything.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
You know, John, I want to congratulate you on your
level of reading anniversary, and I understand how important family
is to Yeah, your kids, your wife, and so I
went shopping yesterday on Amazon. Scrolling through, I was like,
what can you get the person to have everything?

Speaker 4 (03:56):
Uh huh?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
So I did come up with a gift, all right,
I think you'll be big the Amazon box. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So I wanted to give you this. I wish Amazon.
We love this.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
This is great because you know, it's got pictures of
my family and it's digital.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
And I'm the yearbook maker in our family.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Oh really, every year for Mother's Day, I make a
yearbook for Chrissy.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
So I'm always collecting the.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Photos throughout the year and a folder on my phone
and then I edited and send it to my guy.
He makes a yearbook every year. Wow, for the family.
And so this is this is.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
Exactly so you know what? So I did pretty good, Yes, sir,
just right in my alley.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Since you are the gift giver, I read that in
twenty eleven you got Chrissy a cookbook and a crop pot.
Does it after being with someone for almost two decades,
does it get easier or harder to get gifts?

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, I've set the bar pretty high for myself. That
wasn't the highest bar back then. But you know, I've
gotten her some nice jewelry, but I tried to really
know what she loves, right, And I think the more
you know somebody, it's actually easier in that sense to
get them a gift. But if you continually raise the bar,
then you know you got to you gotta high bar

(05:10):
to jump over.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Let me ask you this, Like, Okay, obviously like anniversaries
and things like that, that's very important. So you're not
trying to be funny, but something like for a birthday,
are you like are you trying to be serious? Are
you're trying to be funny? Knowing that she has an
incredible sense of you, She does have a sense of humor.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
But I like to get her something nice, you know,
something special for her birthday, for our anniversary, and then
we also like to just have fun. So I talked
to her about what kind of party she wants to have,
and we try to just you know, do stuff that
appeals to her.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sometimes she just wants to sit in her robe and chill.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
One time, we just had a pajama party at the house,
and so I try to like think.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
About what she would actually love. And she don't like
a big hoopla.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
A lot of time, really, so she don't like a
whole lot of people around. She likes you to be
a more intimate set. He's just a more chill person.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
And if she could get everybody to come over the
house and watch Bravo with her and sitting in the pajamas,
she'd be happy.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Right now, we all know how the meeting took place.
You met on one of your music video, Yes, Stereo,
Did you request her or was the talent agency sent her?

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, it's funny because the music video wasn't even an
official music video.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
It was something my friend Nabelle.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
He's a photographer and now he's a director, but at
the time he was just a photographer. But he wanted
to show people he could make videos, and he was like, John,
I have this idea to shoot a video for you
for this song I really like. And it wasn't a single,
so we weren't putting a budget toward that video, and
he just decided he wanted to shoot this video. And
then he showed me pictures of this model he had
just worked with, and he was like, do you think

(06:41):
you want to cast her in the video?

Speaker 4 (06:43):
And I was like, yes, I saw the pictures.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
I was like yeah, yeah, and then so she got
cast in the video and then we just hit it off.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
As soon as we started working together.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
We had chemistry and we started hanging out like literally
after the video shoot. And that was two thousand and six,
so it's been eighteen years since we met.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Right, Yeah, so you okay, you look at he showed
you the book and says, okay, I just work with
this one. I mean, is there's someone that you think
you could have chemistry with, you work with and be
worked great on?

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Salem? He's like, yeah, but when did you know? I
think I.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Started to know like a year, little less than a
year in because our relationship started with us not being
together in the same place a lot. I was living
in New York. She was living in Los Angeles, and
then I had to travel all the time. This is
the beginning of my career. This is my second album. Yes,
and I'm hustling, like I'm traveling the world. I'm doing
everything I need to do to get my career off

(07:43):
the ground.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
And she's modeling.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
She's modeling in LA and in Miami, and so we're
not in the same place a lot. But the more
we were together, I'm just like, we have chemistry. She's funny,
she's beautiful, she's sexy. We have great like interactions with
each other. She makes me laugh, she makes me have
more fun than I would have without her.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
And I just started to fall in love with her.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
And that was about a year, like almost a year
in while I'm like, okay, this is something special, and
so you know, we started to act accordingly. And then
I didn't propose till twenty eleven, but I knew I
was in love before then.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
How different is she from the women that you've dated
in your past. She's funnier than anyone I've dated before.
I always dated beautiful women, but yeah, musician and singers
always get the beauty.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
So but she was a perfect combination of like beautiful, cool, funny.
She has great values, yes, as a person, and I
felt like we aligned. We're different in a lot of ways,
but our sense of humor aligned, and there's certain things
like taste wise, where we align and we're on the
same page. And then she's different enough to make me

(08:53):
have more fun than I would have without her, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
Because i'd be I'm kind of chill. Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna chill.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
And she's obviously more dynamic, and I think having that
kind of yin and yang in a relationship is actually good.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Right now, a lot of experts says sleeping with someone
on the first date is not really conducive for a
long term relates.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
To saying that, but but here.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
We are, here, and we are eighteen years later, here
we are. Why do you think you guys have success now?
I've had a conversation with some women and they say, Shannon,
the type of women, the type of men that are
in the bracket that we're looking at.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Yeah, there's a scarcity if they're not going to wait.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Like John, when you and I were growing up, the
thought of somebody sleeping on the first night was slim
to nun. You had to wait a month, two months,
three months, And they say the women and men aren't
waiting because there's so many out there that they can
pick from. So a woman says, well, I'm gonna make
you wait three months. You might wait. He not waiting.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
That is true. That is often the case.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
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Speaker 3 (11:20):
So people call you for a relationship goal, John, how
did that make you feel? Because, like you said, you
waited five years and but now you seem to be
the standard of this young, healthy relationship. You're so happy
you got this loving family, and you do post a
lot of you. You know, your off you had some
some tragedy, some some trials and tribulations.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
In your life, but you'll share that.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
How does that make you feel that you being so young,
It's not like y'all been mad fifty years.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
John, Yeah, you know I feel like, sometimes you hear
folks talk like, oh man, relationships are such hard work,
and Christy and I will watch people say that, and
if that's your story, if that's your experience, then that's
what it is. But for us, it's really not hard
work for us to be together. And there's challenges that

(12:11):
we've had, like tragedies that we've had to deal with together,
miscarriage and other tragedies we've had to deal with together,
but us, me and her like, it's never actually been
that hard for us to be in a relationship. And
I think the reason why is it starts with a
mutual respect and being with somebody you actually like and

(12:31):
like to be around and respect and enjoy their company,
enjoy their sense of humor.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
Like I said before, like we're really compatible.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Even though we're different, we're really compatible and we have
a good time together. And I think there are things
you need to do to make sure you maintain that,
which is being honest and trustworthy, being a person of
good character, a good parent, a good co parent, taking
responsibility together.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
So there's certain things you have to do that our work.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
But I feel like if you are a person of
character and you're with somebody that you love and respect.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
It shouldn't be such hard work to stay together. You
mentioned you guys have been together for eighteen years. You
have eleven. You just had to celebrated your eleventh wedding anniversary,
So that means there are some time in between that
you guys weren't husband and wife. Sure what took you
so long? Because a lot of time, a lot of
times women say, hey, I'm gonna give him a year.
I'm gonna give him two years if he ain't asked

(13:28):
me the questions, I'm moving on.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well, you gotta think we were younger then.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
So you know, I'm forty five now, but eighteen years ago,
I was still in my late twenties.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
She was in her early twenties.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
When I met her, she was twenty years old, and
so like, she wasn't like, oh, I need to get
married right away. So we're you know, we're still young,
and we didn't feel like there was a rush to
get married.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Wow. Yeah, and she was patient. You were patient, You're like.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, but we were enjoying life. It wasn't like she
was waiting for a ring. It's like we were actually
enjoying being together. And when I proposed, she was a
little surprised, but really when I proposed, I proposed, we
were on vacation in the Maldives. We got married at
Lake come On and we were on vacation in the
Maldives when I proposed, And it was around Christmas time and.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
She had no idea. She had no idea, and I
was trying to keep it a secret.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
And I had gotten a ring and everything, and I've
been working on it for a few months, and uh,
I was like, I'm a wait till.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Christmas time when we go on this trip.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
And I had the ring in my backpack and it
was in very like nondescript package, but it was in
a box, like just a regular brown box, smaller version
of this Amazon box. And so I'm going through the
airport and you know, to go to the Maldives at
the time, you had to fly through Colombo, Sri Lanka,

(14:52):
which is right by the Maldives near India. So we're
going through the airport in Colombo and the TSA equivalent
there wants to look through my bag.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Y'all about to ruin it?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Bro yes, So I'm like, the box is in there,
and I was like, they're gonna make me propose, here
in this airport, open this box.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Here in the airport. And I was just looking at
him like, don't open it, don't open it. And they
didn't open it. Wow. And we get to the resort.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
We're there for a while, and on our last night there,
right before Christmas, I had them set it up. So
they bring it out with dessert. Bring the ring out
with dessert. They covered it up with some I didn't
ask them to do this, but they did it anyway.
They covered it up with like some lettuce, like it
was leaves. I don't even know what plant it was,

(15:50):
but it was leaves on top of the box. And
then the box is uncovered and she was like, you know,
she was in shock.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
She didn't expect it. Yeah, were you nervous?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
How long had you been thinking like, Okay, this is
the one, this is the woman that I want to
be the mother my kids, This is the woman I
want to spend the rest of my life with. How
long did that process? How long were you thinking about
popping this question? And were you're nervous?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
You know, I felt like probably a few years in
that I was probably going to marry her, But I
didn't feel any sense of like urgency, like I.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Had to propose, like right away.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
But we were together, we were living together, we were together,
and I assumed we were going to be together forever.
But then eventually I was like, you know, it's time,
I need to propose. And so I think there was
a mentally preparing for that, probably for like nine months,
and then shopping for the ring probably for a few months,
getting it all together, and then Christmas time, I was like,

(16:45):
it's time.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
When you were discussing like Chrissy, you know, you know,
obviously she knew who you were, and you're like, you
want kids, Okay, what do you see yourself in five years?
Where do you see yourself in ten years? Or do
you want to get married? Do you want one kid?
Do you want any kids? Do you want five kids?
You want a basket football team? What were those conversations?

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Like, johnn She's always wanted four kids, okay, Yeah, And
I grew up in a family of four kids. I'm
the second of four kids. I had two brothers and
one sister. I have two brothers and one sister, and
so four sounded good to me. And so we were
on the same page with four kids, and you know,
she loves to cook, She loves to have people over

(17:26):
the house. And her dream has always been, I want
to have grandkids. I want to have a family where
every Sunday they come over to the house, we cook
for them, we spend time together. You know, Jewish families
have Shabbat on Friday nights, and then a lot of
Christian families on Sunday, like Sunday dinner, get together after church,
and that's what we did in my family. And Christie

(17:47):
just has always dreamt of Sunday dinner with the family,
and she wants that kind of family where everybody feels
like the doors open and the kids can always come
back home and hang out out with us and bring
the grandkids when that's time. And she's always wanted that
kind of family. And she didn't grow up in that
kind of family. She grew up in a small family,

(18:09):
and she always wanted that. And I was used to that.
That was the way I grew up. I grew up
with a big family. My mother is one of six,
my father's one of five, and we all lived near
each other in Springfield, Ohio or in the surrounding area,
and so I was used to that kind of energy.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
You know, our Christmas is, our.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Thanksgivings, our Sunday dinners, like we just have family all
the time. And so I'm used to that. And then
Christy wanted that, and I'm like, let's go, let's do it.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
Springfull, Ohio. Yes, but Haitian's still eating the cattle. My lord.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
You know, y'all, if y'all saw my y'all saw my
Instagram video, and you know, if you watched the debate,
you saw President Trump saying some slander about the people
from Haiti that live in my hometown. And what's so
awful about what he said was one is not true.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
So to be clear, there's been no.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Satisfactionally incorrect complaints from the local residents that Haitians are
doing anything like what they've been accused of to their
legal immigrants to the country.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
They came here on protected status and then three it's
a success story.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
The reason why they're in Springfield is because there are
more jobs available than there used to be.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Springfield was shrinking for years.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
When I grew up there, there were only there were
seventy five thousand people at its speakers around eighty thousand people,
and lately, before this boom in the economy and the
opportunity there.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
It went down to fifty eight thousand people.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
So the city was withering and there was a lack
of opportunity and people were leaving. And the reason why
these Haitians were attracted to the city was because there
were jobs there that needed to be filled.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
And that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
It's a great thing that these manufacturing jobs and opportunities
are there for folks that weren't there before. And yes,
there's some difficulty whenever you have folks that come from
a different country, speak a different language, have a different
culture and they move to your city. And that's fine.
But the folks in Springfield are dealing with it. We
have a Republican mayor in Springfield, he's dealing with it.

(20:19):
We've got a Republican governor in Ohio. He's dealing with it.
Everybody's cool, and they're like, we don't need y'all coming
in Lion stirring up stuff. They had bomb threats at
the school, they had all kinds of nastiness KKK marching
in the street. All this is caused by Trump advance, lying,

(20:41):
stirring up division and creating a problem.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
That wasn't the kind of problem that they created.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
John, I went to your concert about a year ago,
and a lot of what we're going to talk about today,
because I think you do a very good job. A
lot of times, before you play a song, you'll tell
the origins of that. You will tell what I was thinking,
where I will us in the place, and how it
came to be.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Sometimes you do it afterwards.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
And what I wanted to ask you, because you have
a very fondness of your father. Yeah, and I want
to know how much of the father you are is
a direct tie to the father that.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
He Oh, it's directly related to him. One. I think
I inherited a lot of his personality. So I'm a
lot like him.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
And I think i'd be like him anyway, because we're
just built the same way.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
So that's one thing.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
But I was able to one my father stress the
importance of character, and he was intentional about teaching us
what it meant to be a good human being, person
of character, person of responsibility, person of integrity and honesty,
someone that is trustworthy and dependable and accountable, all these things.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
He taught us what it meant to be a good man.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
And so he taught us that and my mother was
a great mother as well, but she after her mother died,
she was dealing with mental health issues and then addiction
is shit, and so she was out of our lives
for a while. So he had to be a single
father for a while. And the way he stepped up

(22:08):
to that occasion, knowing that he had to do it
by himself, with help from our extended family, but he
had to do it by himself.

Speaker 4 (22:15):
Seeing him do that.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
And step up to the plate for us and always
be there for us and show us what it meant
to be a good man, I'll always honor him for
that and always look up to him for that, and
I always say he's my role model when it comes
to being a good father.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
I remember you telling the story.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, in case you guys don't know, this man is
a prodigy. He was homeschooled early on. He got bumped
up two grades. I think he graduated at the age
of fifteen sixteen sixteen from high school. He enrolled in
college at the age of sixteen. And you had the
ideal life, two parent household, kids, church going. Your mom

(22:51):
was the choir director from directory. Your grandmother played the organ.
Your father was a hard working man, but he was
in the church also, guy grew up in the church
and everything was perfect. Yeah, your grandmother, your maternal grandmother, passed,
which is your mom's mom. Yeah, and it shook the
foundation of the Legend family.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah. And my mother and her mother were very close.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yes, so they like you said, you know, one's the
choir director, one's organists. That means every choir rehearsal, they're together, Yes,
leading the choir. They spent a lot of time together.
They were very close. And it was shocking when my
grandmother died. She was only fifty eight years old and
she had heart failure.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
And it really threw my mother.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
It through her and we lost her for a while,
Like we lost her for like ten solid years. She
was out of our lives and she went to a
dark place and it was because she couldn't handle it
when her mother passed away, and it really did shake
our whole family. This happened when I was around ten
or eleven years old, and so I started going to

(23:53):
public school for the first time after my mother wasn't
able to homeschool us anymore, and she was out of
our lives for a while.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
How difficult was that for you, John, because there's one thing, Okay,
your mom. Let's just say you're in Ohio, Springfield, Ohio,
and your mom's in Detroit. She's in Chicago, she's in
New York. She's a thousand miles away. But if I'm
not mistaken, your mom was in the same city.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
She was in the same city. But I was avoiding
like she avoided. I didn't want to see her, oh,
because it was hard.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
It's hard to see your mother like strut addiction, and
like she was so beautiful and so vibrant and so talented.
She was singing at events all the time and just gorgeous,
and then to see that light go from her and
to see her addicted to drugs.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
It was very hard for me to see her.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
And so I avoided seeing her and focus on everything
else but her right because it was too hard.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
For me to see her.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
How did you stay focused knowing that your mom is
going through something and there's something that there's you can't
do anything about it. She's going to have to try
to figure this out on your own. But you realize
there's a bigger calling for John Ledge at the time,
John Steve would be well, they gave us a great foundation,
so my mother and father, them homeschooling us and giving

(25:08):
us the foundation that they gave us, It actually made
it so that we were able to cope better once
she was gone.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
That doesn't mean it was easy.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
It was easy, but at least, you know, they had
put so much time in preparation and intention into raising
us to be good young people that there was still
that after effects of that lingering after she was gone.
And then my dad did great work, and then I
think our extended family did great work too. I had
uncles and aunts that were near us that you know,

(25:38):
were part of our support system.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
You know, they say it takes a village. We had
a village around us.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
And then I had a counselor at my high school
that was a black man. And I went to a
majority white school and majority of the adults at the
school were white as well, but there was one black
man that was a counselor and he took a special
interest in me and my family and he just mentored me.

(26:03):
Neither of my parents graduated from college, so it was
good to have somebody who was a college graduate that
was mentoring me, who was a black man that looked
like me and cared about my future and didn't want
me to slip through the cracks. And then I think
because of what was going on with my parents and
with my mother, it just kind of made me want

(26:23):
to focus on something else, and music and school were
the things I focused on. How difficult was it being homeschool?
I mean, did you have a whole lot of friends?

Speaker 3 (26:31):
I mean, you say your brothers and sisters were homeschool
but after school was over, I mean, I don't know
what time, what how homeschooling worked. Are you like, you
get five hours of homeschooling? Did you go out to
play with friends that's close by or so?

Speaker 1 (26:42):
We grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids,
and I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot
of my cousins not too far from me, and so
we would go in the backyard or around the corner
and play football with them and basketball, and so we
had a really nice family network around us. But I
was a little shy and socially, you're not as used
to dealing with a lot of different new people if

(27:03):
you don't go to school.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
And so when.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
I finally went to public school, I was shy man
and the only reason that I integrated into like the
social life of the school was music. Because if there
was a talent show, if there was a choir, if
there was any opportunity for me to sing, I knew
I could sing. And so that was the one way
that I found to like introduce myself to people. Oh
that's the one who can sing. That's the young guy

(27:28):
who's two grades ahead, but he can sing.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
And so I would get to school and that was
my way of introducing myself to people. Even when I
went to college, I was still two years younger than everybody.
And I was also from kind of a background that
wasn't typical of a kid at the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
So a lot of those kids were East Coast kids.
They went to fancy private schools, a lot of them
come from money, and I'm coming there from a blue
collar family from a small city in Ohio, and I
had every reason to feel like I'm not one of them.
And music was my only way of like making myself,
making myself feel.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
A part of things and including in things.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
You said that you're two years younger, so you go
to high school, what you were you were twelve years old?

Speaker 4 (28:12):
Was my nickname was Doogie Howsing.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
You go to college, You go to college, you're sixteen
years of age? So how different? How difficult was it?
Because first of all, the upper classmen don't want to
deal with freshermen that are fourteen, let alone dealn with
one that's twelve exactly.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
And when I went to college, I lied about my age.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
I didn't even lie that hard, like I was sixteen
and I said I was seventeen.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
So I didn't want to feel like I was.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Too much of a freak being there, like, so I
just and stood up one year just so it didn't
seem odd that I was the I was just a
little young.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
But John, when people look at you, I mean, you're
an adult now, I can imagine someone your size back then.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
You look young, yeah, like you and I'm five to
ten now. Like when I was in high school, I
was four eleven. When I started high school.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
A four eleven, twelve year old, I.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Was tidy man, And you know, I was just behind
in every like obviously I'm like twelve years old.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Everybody else's fourteen. And so it's just it wasn't easy. No,
did you did you.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Play sports in high school or what what school was?
A school music?

Speaker 4 (29:21):
Was that I am a terrible athlete. Man.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Now I love sports like I watched sports.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
I watch you all the.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Time, and I played all the time with my cousins,
with my brothers. But when it came to organized sports,
the last time I played organized sports was basketball in
elementary school. And since then I played for fun all
the time. But I was never good enough. And also
when you're two years younger, like you're physically just behind everybody,
and so I ain't have a chance.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
And they don't take that into account.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah again, okay, you're a freshman, they're freshman, like you're
being measured on the same You know.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
You're absolutely right, And we were telling you were telling
the story that you're and your dad are a lot
of light and he gave you the foundation to become
the man that you became and become the father that
you become.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
So obviously he had to deal with something.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
His wife of a long period of time went through
about of depression and he kind of lost.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
It for a while. They ended up remarrying, and we'll
get to that.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
So when your situation, Christy's struggling to have kids with
that the time that you lean back and you thought about,
like my dad, how was.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
My dad out of this situation?

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, you know, I really I think part of my
journey has been forgiving my mother and learning that when
trauma happens to people, when events happen in their lives,
sometimes it's hard for them to recover, and they go
through mental health struggles and people that are in their family,

(30:51):
the people that they love, they need to have some
grace with them and help them through that. And so
whenever Christy struggled with anything, I think I did, we
had learned from what happened with my mother, And she's
also learned from what's happened with her mother too, because
when her mother's mother died, she actually went through a
similar thing where.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
She disappeared from the family.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
She went back to Thailand spent some time with her
family there, and Chrissie lost her mom for a while
after her mother's mother died, and so we've both been
through a similar sense of loss of not having our
mothers in our lives for a while and seeing what
their response was to their mothers dying. And so I
think we've both learned from that and we know we

(31:32):
need to like double up when it comes to the
energy and support that we give each other when we're
going through tough times.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
You realize, I mean, you guys started dating. She wants
four kids, You want four kids. But it wasn't that easy,
if I'm not mistaken. I think three of the four
kids ivy up with youth and the fourth was a Sarahate.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Well, actually four or five were IVF, and the only
kid we conceived naturally was the one we lost, baby Jack.
So all the rest of our kids are conceived through IVF.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
So that's tough. Yeah, that's tough for for a mom
to have to go through that. Yeah, obviously it is
tough on you. So John, when you when you have
to console your wife because you know how bad you
wanted this job.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
What what are you saying? How do you like? Chris?
I'm sorry, there's not enough. I'm sorry, there's not enough.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
And the thing you got to realize is you're not
going to solve the problem in that moment. And you know,
I'm a person that likes to solve the problem, Like
I'm very like, I want to solve it, I want
to fix it.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
And sometimes you gotta realize you can't fix it.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
You're just gonna have to live in it for a
while and you're gonna get through it. But you can't
fix it all all of a sudden. There's no magical
words you can say to fix it. But you need
to be there, you need to be supported, and you
need to work together to get through it.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Also, that she had a life saving abortion, Is that
why you're so adamant?

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, about the situation with that. The woman have the right,
it's her body, her choice and Roe v. Wade, what
made you so upset that it got overturned after fifty
plus years?

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Absolutely? Now, I was always pro choice, actually not always.
I grew up in the church, and we were taught that,
you know, we were supposed to be pro life what
I was growing up in the church, But as soon
as I became an.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Adult, I just realized that we need that choice.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
We don't need the government telling us what to do,
and women don't need the government telling them.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
What to do with their bodies.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
And life is complicated and there are all kinds of
reasons why people might want or need an impression, and
the government has no place in that decision. But then
when we went through all these fertility struggles and then
had a miscarriage. It made it even more clear to

(33:57):
me how personal everything that happened in that room with
your obgyn. Everything that happens in that room is private,
and it's so intensely personal and intensely physical. A woman
feels every aspect of this thing forcing them to carry
something for nine months. If they don't want a government

(34:18):
doing that.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
That's crazy to me.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
And then what people don't realize is when you say, oh,
I'm fine with it as long as it's you know,
up to fifteen weeks. Like people that have an abortion
after fifteen weeks almost always they wanted to keep the baby,
but there's some kind of complication that came up that
they have to have an abortion. So my wife, she

(34:41):
was well past fifteen weeks when she had to have
an abortion.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
She was miscarrying and bleeding out and all these things
were happening. Her life was in danger, her life was
in danger.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
And for the government to say, we need to evaluate
this to make sure you're sufficiently dying before you can
have an abortion, that's what they're saying in Texas and
in Georgia and in all these states, where they have
Trump abortion bands.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
They're saying, we need to the government needs to evaluate
whether you are sufficiently dying before you can have an abortion.
Not your doctor, not you and your family. The government. No,
stay out of it. Let these women.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Let them and their families and their doctors make these decisions.
We don't need the government to be involved in it.
And if the government's involved, that means the police and
the district attorney are involved in medical decisions.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
That's crazy. It's crazy. I agree, and overturning Roe versus way.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Trump wants to claim credit for it, but at the
same time, like I just put it with the states.
Oh no, you put it with the states of Texas,
of States of Georgia, Alabama, of you know, you.

Speaker 4 (35:57):
Put it with these states. And by the way, that's
where most black women.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Live in the South, southern states in the South, So
that means the majority of black women or in regimes
that would rather possibly let them die before giving them.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
The life, safe and treatment that they need.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
You also, one of your sons has Type one diabetes. Correct, Yes,
he got diagnosed. How's that going. He's going good?

Speaker 4 (36:24):
You know.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Obviously we have the resources and the support we need
to take care of them. And you know, one of
the things that I think about when I think about
politics is the role that parents play in their lives.
What it means to have a health concern with your kid.
And we're very fortunate we have the resources to take

(36:47):
care of it. But insulin used to be expensive, and
it's still expensive if you're not a senior.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
And one of the reasons I voting for Kamla.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Harris is because she's already limited the costs of insulin
for seniors, and they're working to limit it for everyone
below senior citizen status. So these kinds of things directly
impact people's lives all around the country. And like I said,
we can afford it, but most people can't. And so

(37:16):
when people have these kind of medical issues they need
to deal with. This is important. And by the way,
Obamacare made it so that if you have a pre existing.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Condition, they couldn't deny which type one diabetes would be
a pre existing condition.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
So if my son grew up and tried to get
insurance under the old regime, he wouldn't have been able
to get it because they'd be like, nah, we know
he's going to cost.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
The runny Or if it'd be so high he couldn't
afford it. Yeah, exactly, it would be so high he
couldn't afford it.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
And so the fact that they make it impossible for
you to discriminate against people with pre existing conditions is
life saving and life changing for a lot of people.
And the only reason you can do that is you
increase the pool of people who are insured so that
the healthy people help pay for the sick people.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
And so you have to have them in the same pool.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
And that was the genius of Obamacare that it did that,
and it made it so they couldn't discriminate against people
who have the pre existing condition.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Would there imberbil situation where he won't have will he built?
Could he possibly get healthy enough John where he wouldn't
have to take influence?

Speaker 1 (38:13):
You know, I just had a conversation with his doctor
today and she said that's possible. And by the way,
technology keeps improving when it comes to diabetes care. And
so I hope for a day when he doesn't need
to be on insulin, but for now he does, and
lots of people do, and it over indexes with black
and brown people, and so we needed a system where

(38:35):
it's more affordable for everybody.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
How did you how did you know? How did the
doctors find out that he was he was diabetic? Well,
he got sick. He was at football camp. He was
at football camp, and the whole camp got sick.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
So it was something in the food or the drink
that they were having, and everybody got this disease.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
It's kind of like Simonell's called.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Shigella, and so everybody got sick and he went to
the hospital. We didn't know what it was at the time,
but he was one of the first people that got sick.
But the whole almost the whole camp got sick. So
he goes there and they're like, oh, it's blood sugar
is really elevated. Maybe it's because of the infection, but
maybe he actually has high blood sugar. And they kept
testing him and they did arresting blood sugar after a

(39:14):
while and they just were like, yeah, he's consistently elevated.
His A one c's higher than normal, and so we
think he has type one and so we started going
down the path.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Last year, you celebrated your tenth year wedding anniversary and
you went back to Lake Como. Yes, you and the
kids and Chrissy, Why was that important for you to
go back there?

Speaker 1 (39:35):
It was, Well, first of all, we loved our wedding
and we had such a beautiful time there. We fell
in love at Lake so one of our first vacations
together was at Lake Coma, and that's when I was.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Like, oh, I'm feeling that it felt different.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
And so I was like, this is where we fell
in love and it's a beautiful, magical place. If anybody
can afford to go there, I suggest you do it.
So we got married there and as we were coming
on this first big milestone ten years, we had four
kids now and we were like, we want to do
it again with this bigger family. And also we had

(40:13):
people in our lives that were really close to now
that we weren't close to back then, and so it's
it's nice to include them into this moment too.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
And then when we did it.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
We were so happy we did it because we basically
did a lot of the same things we did before.
We had it at the same venue and we had
the same planner, but the biggest difference was having the kids.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
Yet, Yeah, four four kids.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
There and we started crying when we pulled up to
the venue and the kids are right there to greet us.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
That sent us right there. Man.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
It was so special having that moment, celebrating this milestone together,
everything we've been through as a couple, and then seeing
the product of our love right there in front of us.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
It was beautiful. Man.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
You saying I don't love you like I used to?
What did that song mean?

Speaker 1 (41:08):
So that song is from my album Legend, And we
wrote that song because the title is kind of provocative.
I don't love you like breakup?

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Am I reading this correct you like I used to?
I'm like yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
And the whole idea once you listen to the lyric
is that it's stronger now, it's better now, it's deeper.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
Yes, it's more. I love you more than I used to.
It's more tested.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
And when you're tested through challenge and trials and all
the situations you go through together as a family, it's
it's something deeper and stronger.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
And that's what the song is really about. Wow. And
it's a perfect song for anniversary, you know, twenty year
anniversary of Get Lifted. Yeah, that was your debut album. Yes, sir,
how were you able to come out the gate so strong?
You know?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I think a lot of things came together at once.
First of all, you know, it was a great time
for me and Kanye to meet. So we met in
two thousand and one. We were both unsigned at the time,
but he had just started producing.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
With Jay Z and the Folks at Rockefeller Records.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And when we started working together, I just found that
our chemistry, our combination of different skills and different influences,
when it came together, it worked, yes, and we made
music that was really.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Interesting and different and special.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
And then he had just come out with College Dropout
in February of two thousand and four, so being signed
to his production company and then being the first artist
that came out under his production company, it was a
great setup.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
So he's already succeeding.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
And I got signed almost right after his debut album
came out because all labels that had turned us down
before they turned us down. And it was the same demo,
but when his album came out, so four hundred thousand
copies of the first week, Oh it's.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
Out a lot better, demo signed a lot better.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
So we played the same demo for him, but all
of a sudden it sounded better, and then multiple labels
wanted to sign me, and all of them had turned
me down before, and.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
So a little more now yeah calls them more.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
So signed with Columbia, but the setup was already really
nice because of what happened with Yay And so.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
His album came out in February. I got signed in May.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
My first single, used to Love You, came out in August,
but then Ordinary People came out right around when the
album came out in December, and Ordinary People was the
song that really put you put me on the map.
So you gotta remember during this period, like nothing sounded
like this on black radio. It was by itself, like
when it came on, it made people stop. People told

(43:42):
me all the time I stopped the car, I was like,
what is this because it didn't sound like anything else
on the radio, and it stood out as special and
that really became my signature, Like I'm going to sing
that heartfelt, honest song about love.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
A lot of times it's just stripped me and the piano,
and I'm.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Gonna tell it like it is in this song and
voice the things that people have a hard time voicing
in their own words, and they're gonna use my song
to do it. And so that's been my signature ever since.
But Ordinary People was the thing that really established that.
And it was the first station that played it was
WGCI in Chicago, and it wasn't even being marketed as

(44:26):
the single yet.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
When they started playing it, we had a sampler.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Out and we put used to Love You ordinary People
as full songs.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
And this is in the CD era.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
So we're hand out CDs with ordinary People used to
Love You as the full songs, and then snippets of
three other songs before my album came out, So we
would give that to folks at my shows, but also
give it to radio stations, and we were telling them
to play used to Love You. Some of them were
playing it, but wgc I was like, oh, we play
another song. We're playing ordinary People. And it became a

(44:58):
hit in Chicago, and then it started to spread to
other black radio stations around the country, and then it
crossed over some, but mostly it was a black radio
phenomenon and.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
It really put me on the map and changed my life.
Is it true now?

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Like I said at the concert at the Hollywood Bowl,
you were telling the story that it was originally written
black Eyed Peas.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yes, so me and where I Am?

Speaker 1 (45:23):
We had the same manager at the time, and we
have written together before we wrote she don't have to
know which is on Get Lifted. We had written songs
for The Black Eyed Peas and we had a nice rapport,
so whenever he was working on a new album, He's like, John,
come by, let's write some songs. And so he would
just play beats and I would just hum whatever came
to my head and we'd try to write some hooks for.

Speaker 4 (45:42):
The Black Eyed Peas.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
And Ordinary People started as a hook that I wrote
for them over a hip hop beat. But a couple
of days later, I was like, you can keep every
other idea we wrote. I think I want to keep
Ordinary And I was like, I think it's worked better
actually as a ballot, I think so. And so I
was on the road with Kanye in Europe and every

(46:06):
sound check I would write more of the verses to
Ordinate People. I finished it on the road with him,
and then I came back home to the States and
recorded it. And I recorded it as a demo and
I was like, well, you can produce it. I'm just
gonna record the piano in the vocal, and the more
we all listen to it, we were like, let's just
leave the demo alone. So the version that eventually made

(46:28):
the album was just the piano vocal demo that I
was sending to Will originally just as a as a
demo for him to produce up and the arrange and put,
you know, whatever he's gonna put on it, but it
ended up sounding better, just stripped down, so we just
left it that way.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Is it true?

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Ordinary People was about the situation that your family had
gone through because your mom and dad are separated, they
had gotten back together, and we're saying, we're just ordinary people.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
We don't know who's way to go.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
And I wasn't in like a serious relationship at the time,
so I wasn't speaking from direct personal experience in my
own own relationship.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I was still like a bachelor doing my thing, having fun.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
But my parents, I had seen the ups and downs
with them, and that was really directly.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Informing what I was writing for in Their People.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Wow, now you've mentioned Kanye, and I don't know Kanye
from this glass of water here, but I know he
seems like a perfessionist. Is that everything has to be
lining up or it's not getting out the door. Yeah,
how is his writing his style of doing things different
than yours.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
We're different, but I feel like us together works really
well because we have different strengths. And he's such a
great producer, a great beat maker, and he's also just
exceptionally creative. Like his mind it goes all over the place. Yes,
and he's created visually. So he directed the video for
Ordinary People Wow. And you know he's a fashion designer. Yes,

(47:55):
he's a director. He's a visionary. And so he just
came with different strengths than what I came with. Now,
I'm a great songwriter, obviously, I'm a pianist.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
I'm a musician.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
I have more theoretical understanding of music, and so we
just came at it with different abilities.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
I came from gospel and soul. He came from hip hop.
And so I.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Think us coming together just complimented each other and that
worked really well.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
Is this around the time. I think it was someone
in his group. Your name was John Stevens, and it
was like, come on, Legend, give us, give us that beat,
Come on Legend. Hey, they kept calling you John Legend.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
J Ivy so j Ivy. He's a spoken word artist.
He makes records himself. He's a great human being. And
a great artist himself. But he if you listen back to.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Never Let Me Down on College Dropout, he did a
verse on there, and he was hanging out with us.
We were in LA mostly when we were making College
Dropout at Record Plant, and he was at some of
the sessions. He started calling me the legend, and eventually
that morphed into John Legend. And I didn't think I
was really gonna become John Legend, you know, as a

(49:05):
stage name. I've been John Stevens my whole life, and
I wasn't you know, I didn't think there was anything
wrong with my name as a stage name. But eventually
enough people were calling me that I started thinking about it,
and part of me like, how you gonna.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Call yourself legend? You don't even have a record deal.
Part of me said that, but the other part was like.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
You know what if I call myself this, it's gonna like,
it's gonna make people pay attention to what I asked, Yes,
And it's a great stage name in the sense that
it makes people take notice. And then the only thing
I had to do was try to live up to
it once they took notice.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
And so my goal was, don't.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
This up like, if you're gonna call yourself this, you
better callah.

Speaker 4 (49:52):
And so that my whole career.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
I feel like part of my mission is to make
sure I live up to this name that was given
to me before I even earned it.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Now, a lot of people don't know there was a
gentleman had the name John Legend. So yeah, yeah, you
told a story. Tell this story. I don't know if
a lot of people know this story.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
So well.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
First of all, y'all, if you understand, Shannon's been to
my show and for the last two years, I've been
doing this show where I tell stories, yes about my
life and all these things, so he learned a lot,
he did his homework, and so anybody that's been to
my show knows the story, but a lot of people
haven't been. So so as soon as we decide, you know,

(50:33):
I'm going with John Legend as a name, I start
going to record labels introducing myself that way, and I
got signed and they understood that they were putting out
a record with John Legend. But eventually my lawyer is like, oh,
by the way, we need to trademark John Legend as
a name. And so when you start trademarking the key
with trademark is if you're in the same business, you

(50:55):
can't have a name that's too much like somebody else's
name because you could confuse people, right, Okay, So they
start researching to see if there's any other musicians named
Johnny Legend or John Legend, and they find a guy
named Johnny Legend and he's mainly a porn producer.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
That was his main day job, but he also made
music on.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
The side, and he had records like rockabilly records, and
so you could theoretically go into a record store and
find a Johnny Legend record, and if there's a john
Legend record, it could be confusing to somebody and he
could have.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
A case to say, Yo, this guy stole my name.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
So we had to find him and negotiate with him
so that he's Johnny Legend, I'm John Legend, and we're
not gonna sue each other. And we broke him offul
little money and said we're doing this so that you
won't come back and sue him later.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
And you're Johnny Legend. He's John Legend, and we've had
no problem.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
You Also was telling him to story that on Everything
Is Everything with Lauren Hill, that's you on the piano.
How many people before you started telling this story at
your show, how many people actually knew that that was
you on the piano.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Oh, they didn't know unless they saw me doing a
deep cut interview or.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Something like that.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
You know, there's a lot of songs that I was
a part of, and I do a whole little segment
during my show. I bet you didn't know this was me.
I sang back up on Alicia Keys and co wrote American.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Boy for a Stellt.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
So a lot of hit songs that you didn't know
as a part of I was a part of. And yeah,
so that was, you know, in the beginning of my career,
where I'm paying my dues and just getting in on
sessions and doing what I could do. Even though I
knew I wanted to be a solo artist and make
it as a singer songwriter, I got in where I
fit in, and I was doing this and doing that
and trying to get on any record I could.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
I think you said you got five hundred dollars for
five hundred dollars, and was that Columbia Records? With Columbia
Record that you ended up.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Signing the same signing with my coincidence was the label
that put out in this education of Lauryn Hill and
my first appearance on a major record was getting five
hundred dollars to play piano.

Speaker 4 (53:11):
For Lauren Hill.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
And uh it was the same label that ended up
signing me for a lot more than five hundred dollar.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
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Speaker 3 (54:42):
Apple Music rank Miseducation the best album of all time.
It was also the first ever hip hop album to
win Album of the Year at the Grammys and remains
Lauren Hill's only solo album to date. Are you surprised
that she hasn't put out a sophomore project or junior
prom senior project?

Speaker 4 (55:01):
That that's it?

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Well, I think we'd all love to hear what's on
her mind now, you know, and that album was so
impactful for so many people, especially artists like myself. So
not just because I was on it and that was
big too, but during that time, so I'm a young

(55:24):
soulful artist who's being influenced by gospel, R and B,
classic soul hip hop, and to have Miseducational Lauren Hill
come out just as I'm starting to form my own
vision of what i want to be as an artist.
It was so influential to me and so influential to
so many young artists at that time. It was it

(55:46):
was like the prototype for what like a new soulful
hip hop record could be. And so we were looking
to her as like the prototype for what we should say,
and we all would love to hear more, but you know,
for some reason, it just hasn't happened.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
What was she like in the studio.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
She was very vibrant, very creative, very collaborative. It was
only that one night where we were in the studio together.
We ended up making another record together, a remix to
So High from my first album, but we weren't in
the studio together when she did her part on it.
I did it with why Clef. He produced it, and
then he produced her session. So I wasn't in the

(56:32):
studio with her the second time, and the only other
time I was in the studio with her was auditioning
for her band. So the first time I was in
the studio was playing piano and everything is everything, and
that was just impromptu. I was just hanging out and
during a break when they were right it was like,
my friend was like, Johnny, get over there and show

(56:53):
where you could play. So I get over there, sitting
on the piano and sing a couple songs. She's like,
why don't you play on the record we're working on now?
Was everything is everything, and I didn't know what was
going to happen. I didn't know if they were going
to use what I did on there. But a few
months later I got the call from the label and
they were like, we need to know how to spell
your name for the credits and how much do you want?

Speaker 4 (57:14):
And you know that song was gonna do what he did.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
No, I didn't know the album was, but I think
there was a lot of expectation around her because the
Fujis had already had hit with the Score. So the
Score had come out in ninety six, and Killing Me
Softly was the biggest hit from that, and so everybody's like,
the girl that sings, we need to hear her do
a whole album together, do a whole album by herself.

(57:37):
And so everybody was wondering when she was going to
go solo, and Wycleff had done the Carnival and then
Lauren was about to put out Miseducational Lauren Hill. So
there was a lot of expectation around it, but you
never know how it's going to do, and then when
it comes out.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
It's just like epic, it's classic.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
It's immediately world changing when it comes out, and I
was just proud to be a part of it.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Yeah, This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part
two is also posted and you can access it to
whichever podcast platform you just listen to part one on.
Just simply go back to Club Shay profile and I'll
see you there.