amna: At 44-years-old, John
legend is the very portrait of
success -- he's achieved the
so-called egot, winning two
emmys, 12 grammys, an Oscar and
a Tony -- the first black man
and second youngest person ever
to do so.
Now he's on the road with
something new: Performing and
telling his own story.
Jeffrey brown met up with him
recently for our arts and
culture series, "Canvas."
♪♪
Jeffrey: Just a man and his
piano at the afternoon
soundcheck on the stage of the
wolf trap national park for the
performing arts outside
Washington, D.C.
And that night, before a packed
crowd.
John legend is doing something
new in his latest project:
Singing songs that influenced
him and that brought him fame.
♪♪
but also telling personal
stories of how he got there.
John: In addition to selling
delicious fries, McDonald's did
outreach to the black community
in the form of a black history
month essay competition.
I wrote this essay when I was 15
years old, and I said I was
going to try to make history by
becoming a successful artist and
using my success to try to make
the world better.
And I still feel that same sense
of mission, and I'm going to
keep doing it.
Jeffrey: The other thing you
talked about was living up to
this name that you chose.
John: I'm trying every day.
Jeffrey: In fact, he was born
and grew up as John Stephens,
but as John legend, he's sold
millions of albums since his
2004 debut, "Get lifted," and
his 2004 -- 2013 love song "All
of me," an ode to his wife
model, cookbook author and TV
personality chrissie Teigen --
has some 2 billion streams on
Spotify.
A throwback in part to the rich
tradition of soul and r&b, he's
also known for collaborating
with many of this era's biggest
hip-hop stars, including at this
year's grammy awards, where he
joined Jay-Z and others in a
rousing show-ender.
What is it that you're bringing
to that?
John: Well, I'm bringing soul,
I'm bringing gospel.
I'm bringing all of my own
personal experiences to that
performance.
And that's what they have me
therefore.
They don't need me to rap.
But they need me there to bring
that soul and the musicality.
And I think I've always brought
that in my collaborations with
hip hop artists.
Jeffrey: He's celebrity coach on
the hit singing competition
series "The voice," and
celebrity husband as well as dad
to the couple's children.
And he clearly thrives on
performing.
♪♪
John: I feel so connected to the
audience.
I feel so close to the music and
it feels like I'm just being
fully myself up there.
Jeffrey: Onstage now, a stripped
down version of John legend.
♪♪
it's just you and the piano.
You like that?
John: I love it.
It takes me back to being a
little boy, takes me back to the
church in some ways where I grew
up, takes me back to my family,
where I started to learn to play
the piano in our home.
Jeffrey: He grew up in
Springfield, Ohio, in a deeply
religious household.
A happy one at first, but then
frayed when John was ten and his
mother, suffering depression and
then addiction, left.
He barely saw her for ten years.
John: That was a tough time.
But it also made me more
independent and more driven as a
musician.
You don't want those experiences
to happen, but those experiences
help create the person who you
are.
And if you react to it in the
right way, then you can grow
from it, and it can inform and
inspire your music, inform and
inspire your drive and your
ambition.
And that's what it did for me.
Jeffrey: In a social media age,
legend and Chrissy Teigen are
sharers, with huge followings.
In 2020 they shared photos of
what Teigen called a miscarriage
at the time.
She has since said it was
important to clarify, in light
of the crackdown nationally on
abortion rights, that it was an
abortion to save my life for a
baby that had no chance.
Despite some criticism for
over sharing, legend says he is
comfortable with their approach
to personal and public life.
John: I keep plenty of my
private life private, even
though it feels like we share a
lot.
For me and for my wife, so much
of who we are as artists and as
creatives is inspired by and
driven by our family lives and
our relationships with our
family members.
So it's all part of who I am.
It's all part of the stories I
tell.
Jeffrey: You shared some
difficult things.
A lot of grief in your family.
Did that help?
John: Yes.
I think it helped us, but it
also helped people that we spoke
to, too, because particularly
when we went through pregnancy
loss, there were so many people
that came up to us, and they
still do.
Jeffrey: Because they felt it?
John: They felt it too.
And they've gone through it, a
lot of times in silence.
A lot of times people feel shame
about it.
They don't want to talk about
it.
And removing some of that
stigma, especially because it's
such a common occurrence, so
many people experience pregnancy
loss but we don't hear about it
very often.
Jeffrey: Legend also wants to
move the needle politically.
He's expanded his social
activism efforts, focused on
issues such as economic equity,
education, and mass
incarceration.
>> Of never really had anyone
ask what are you.
Jeffrey: His "Get lifted" film
and, now, book, companies bring
forward undertold stories and
writers.
He performed at Joe Biden's
inauguration, and says he's
impressed with the president's
legislative achievement, even
while continuing to disagree
over criminal justice policies.
And he's ready to engage what he
sees as a conservative backlash
after George Floyd's murder and
the black lives matter movement.
John: There's been a strain in
conservatism that looked at this
new awareness, this new
progressivism when it came to
race and said, no, we don't want
that.
And the backlash has been
strong.
And so people on the side of
Progressive values, people on
the side of us being on nation
together under god, where we all
have equality, have to fight
just like the folks on the side
of the backlash are fighting.
Jeffrey: At his concert legend
revealed his alternative life --
unsure of making in music, he
worked as a management
consultant for several years
after college, while recording
and performing at night.
It might not have been so bad a
life, he says now, but --
John: I love making music so
much.
It's such an inspiring and
motivating thing to be able to
do.
Get up in the morning and know
that you can create something
new that didn't exist before.
Not having that in my life, I
couldn't imagine it at this
point.
But I'm glad I made the
decisions I made and I'm glad
life worked out the way it did.
♪♪
Jeffrey: For "The pbs newshour,"
I'm Jeffrey brown at the wolf
trap national park for the
performing arts.
[Applause]
John: Thank you.
Amna: Great interview.