Get Lifted

deprived yourself.

That Get Lifted album is crazy.

Yeah, Get Lifted.

That's the only one I've ever heard.

The second one

I think is my favorite one.

Get Lifted was, whoo.

Get Lifted is special.

And we know it's a nickname that was given to him by a colleague that stuck, even though his people soon discovered there was already a porn star by the name of John Legend, and that's another story.

22 years ago, Get Lifted introduced John Legend to the world, but excellence isn't something he only achieved once.

It's something he continued to chase every single day, and still does.

This isn't just another story about some guy who loved music, though John Legend certainly does.

No.

It just depends on the song.

You know, um, my first album, Get Lifted, it had a few cheating songs.

So Number One, the first line is, "You can't say I don't love you just because I cheat on you.

Yeah

... my debut album, Get Lifted.

Kanye would just find opportunities for me to sing on records that he was producing.

So Jay-Z, I sang on Encore.

Old friend.

And David and a guy that worked with him named Seth Freedman, they both thought that I should connect with Will.

I was still unsigned at the time, and so the first song we wrote together was a song that made Get Lifted, a song called She Don't Have to Know.

Mm-hmm.

when they first fell in love with you.

So if they fell in love with my first album, Get Lifted, or Once Again, they want you to just keep making a version of that.

And then some fans enjoy the evolution and enjoy, um, that each album, um, has its own personality and own vibe.

And as artists, I think we're pulled in both directions, but I think my urge as an artist is always to explore and make every album feel, um, like a discovery for me.

Yeah.

Right? Get Lifted, still one of my favorite top songs of all time.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It was, it was this one song.

I had some cheating songs on Get Lifted.

[laughs]

We were making Kanye's album, College Dropout.

We were making my album, Get Lifted.

Mm.

This is before I had a record deal, and J. Ivy started calling me that name, and I wasn't even sure that I was like...

Uh, so they were married until I was, like, 10, 11 years old.

They were estranged until I was, like, 21.

Got married again, and then by the time I was making Get Lifted, they were getting divorced again.

So when I was writing Ordinary People, I was writing about the ups and downs of, of real life and real love, and I was inspired by what they were going through.