John Legend is doing a lot of reflecting these days as his debut album, Get Lifted, turns 20.
In addition to discussing his upcoming anniversary tour on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he also opened up about receiving his first album credit on Lauryn Hill‘s solo debut, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill.
“So the first time I met Lauryn Hill, I was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I was going to school there, and I used to play at this church up in Scranton [which was] a couple hours north of Philly, and I would drive up there every weekend. One of my choir members’ name was Tara Michel, and she went to high school with Lauryn Hill,” the crooner remembered.
Legend recalled that, at that time, The Fugees’ The Score was already “a huge success” with many “wondering when Lauryn’s going to go solo.”
So, Tara said, “Johnny, come to Jersey with me, and we’re going to meet Lauryn Hill. She’s working on her solo album.” Upon meeting her, he said, “They’re working on the album, and I get on the piano just to show her what I could do. It was like a mini audition.”
Legend was admittedly nervous, “but, you know, I did my thing. I sang a little Stevie Wonder [and] an original song.” Hill then asked him to play piano on a record she was working on, which happened to be “Everything Is Everything.”
Legend noted, “That was my first credit on any album. And it was, you know, one of the greatest albums of all time.” However, it was a rare instance when he was credited under his birth name, John R. Stephens.
“I didn’t know if the song was going to make the album,” the father of four recalled. “I didn’t know if my parts were going to make the album. And so I was just waiting to find out, and I get a call from A&R at Columbia Records, which is where Lauryn signed, and they asked me how to spell my name for the album credits.”
So, he spelled his name and teased, “I was like, in retrospect, that was not a great stage name to, like, put on the album credits.”
For him, the moniker John Legend was “a lot better,” despite him not becoming so “for a while.” Yet, he does have found memories of being “John R. Stephens on Track 13 of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
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