John Legend had to 'negotiate' with porn producer to keep stage name
John Legend had to "negotiate" with a porn producer named Johnny Legend in order to secure his stage name.
John Legend had to "negotiate" with a porn producer to secure his stage name.
The All of Me hitmaker had been performing under his real name, John Roger Stephens, when he landed the nickname during a studio session with then-friend Kanye West and spoken-word artist J. Ivy, but his lawyer told him he needed to trademark the moniker if he wanted to use it professionally.
However, before he could do that, it was discovered there was someone else with a similar name, but he and John managed to make a deal without any money changing hands.
Speaking on Word+Music, he said: "Lo and behold, there's a porn producer - I kid you not - a porn producer who dabbled in rockabilly music, and he went by the name Johnny Legend.
"The fact that he made music, rockabilly music, and his name was Johnny Legend, meant that there was a possible trademark infringement case.
"We had to find Johnny Legend, negotiate with him, cut a mutually exclusive deal stating that he was Johnny Legend, and I was John Legend.
"He wouldn't sue me. I wouldn't sue him. He wouldn't try to get into the soul music business pretending to be John Legend.
"And I'm happy to make clear that I kept my side of the agreement. I didn't produce any porn, didn't make any rockabilly music pretending to be Johnny Legend."
The 46-year-old singer recalled how J. Ivy was blown away by his vocals when they were in the studio working on Kanye's debut album, The College Dropout.
He said: "Now J. heard me singing, playing and doing all I was doing on those College Dropout tracks, and he was impressed.
"He said, 'Man, we're gonna have to call you the legend.' "
And as an "old soul" with a "throwback voice, this throwback style," John liked the nickname and it didn't take long before other people started to call him John Legend too.
He continued: "So I had to decide whether or not I was going to assume this stage name.
"Now part of me is saying, 'How you going to call yourself Legend? You don't even have a record deal yet.' "
The Ordinary People hitmaker decided to make the change anyway.
He recalled thinking: "It's going to make people pay attention, and then I just got to go live up to it."
John added: "And you know what? It really did feel like a new birth."
