A child prodigy who grew up in Ohio, John Stephens began playing the piano and
singing gospel from five years old, leaving college at 16 for college in
Philadelphia. It was while still in his teens, Stephens played piano on Lauryn
Hill's single Everything Is Everything in 1998. After college, he moved to New
York to play nightclubs and sell his CDs at shows, becoming a popular session
musician and working for artists such as Kanye West and Alicia Keys. It was
Kanye West who signed Stephens to his G.O.O.D. label where he adopted the Legend
name. Legend's first studio album Get Lif...