John Legend
Ohio-born Legend is a critically acclaimed, multi-award winning, platinum-selling singer-songwriter. His work has garnered him nine Grammy Awards, five Soul Train Awards, the BET Award for Best New Artist and the special Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. A graduate of University of Pennsylvania, Legend participated in a wide range of musical activities while in college. After college, Legend was introduced to then up-and-coming hip-hop artist Kanye West, who quickly signed Legend to his G.O.O.D. Music imprint and hired him to sing vocal hooks on some of his music. Legend started gaining momentum through a series of similar collaborations with established artists, adding vocals to an impressive list of chart-topping hits including West's "Never Let Me Down,” Jay-Z's "Encore" and back-up vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song, "You Don't Know My Name." Legend’s debut album, “Get Lifted,” was released in December of 2004 through Columbia Records. The critically acclaimed album spawned the artist's first hit single, “Ordinary People,” and scored Legend multiple Grammy Awards in 2006, including Best R&B Album, Best New Artist and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. The follow up was 2006’s platinum-selling “Once Again,” which brought Legend another Grammy, Best Male R&B Performance, for his single “Heaven,” and included collaborations with West, will.i.am and Raphael Saadiq. Legend’s next release was 2008’s “Evolver,” led by the hit single "Green Light" featuring Andre 3000. His 2010 collaboration with the Roots, “Wake Up,” earned three Grammys including R&B Album of the Year. Legend’s highly acclaimed fourth studio album, “Love In the Future,” continues to gain momentum on the Billboard 200 Chart and is now certified Gold. Produced by Legend and longtime collaborators Kanye West and Dave Tozer, the album’s break out hit, “All of Me,” spent three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart and marks Legend’s highest selling and charting single of his career to date, with sales of more than 4 million in the U.S. and 6 million worldwide. The music video for Legend’s latest single, “You and I (Nobody In The World)” explores an ensemble of diverse women from a wide range of ages, ethnicities, shapes, and sizes. The music video acted as a platform to raise awareness and increase engagement in the #OperationGirl Charity Challenge, a six week campaign which concluded in August and lived on fundraising website CrowdRise.com. The campaign successfully brought together the best organizations in the world focusing on empowering, educating and protecting the rights of women and girls.
