John Legend made his 10th career appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday (March 18).
During his visit, the father of four discussed family life, his Get Lifted (20th Anniversary) album and how he landed a placement on Lauryn Hill‘s immortal album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, including how much he got paid for playing the piano on “Everything Is Everything.”
Legend was a student at the University of Pennsylvania when a friend connected him to Hill, who was working on her solo album at the time.
“I didn’t know if the song was going to make the album. I didn’t know if my parts were going to make the album. I was just waiting to find out,” Legend recalled during the interview. “And, I get a call from an A&R at Columbia Records, which is where Lauryn signed, and they asked me how to spell my name for the album credits. I didn’t become John Legend for a while, but I was John R. Stephens on track 13.”
Legend went on to share the story behind getting compensated for his work. “She was asking me, ‘How do you want to be credited? How much you want to get paid?’ And I really didn’t know what to ask for, and so I asked my friend, who had been interning in the music business that summer, came back to school, and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m about to be on the Lauryn Hill album. How much should I ask for?’ He was like, ‘$500’.”
“So I’m like, ‘OK, $500.’ So I got $500. No publishing, no nothing,” the EGOT winner chuckled before acknowledging the “full-circle moment” when Hill hopped on his “So High (Cloud 9 Remix),” which appeared on the Get Lifted.
Later, Legend plugged his upcoming Get Lifted 20th Anniversary World Tour, which will visit 40 cities across the U.K., Europe and North America. The tour kicks off May 28 and concludes Dec. 9.
Legend not only sat down for an interview, he also performed a remix of “Used To Love U” with Black Thought of The Roots. The song appears on the special anniversary edition of his debut, Get Lifted, released in November 2024.
The original version of “Used To Love U” was the first single from Get Lifted. The song, which Legend co-wrote and co-produced with Kanye West, peaked at No. 74 on the Hot 100.
Watch John Legend’s interview and performance on The Tonight Show below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHnlBu2yyuo
