Two decades after his groundbreaking debut, John Legend is celebrating the album that changed his life—and modern R&B—with the Get Lifted 20th Anniversary World Tour. Backed by his full band, the EGOT winner is performing the album in its entirety, from “Ordinary People” to “So High,” alongside fan favorites from across his catalog. The milestone isn’t just about nostalgia—it’s a testament to how Get Lifted, released on Legend’s 26th birthday, bridged genres with its blend of R&B, neo-soul, and hip-hop, earning him three GRAMMYs and a permanent place in the cultural conversation.
This year’s anniversary edition expands the legacy with remixes featuring Black Thought, Tems, Killer Mike, Lil Wayne, and more—adding fresh perspectives to songs that shaped a generation. But for Legend, the tour is also about reconnecting with the fans who have been with him since the beginning. “I feel like I’ve been in a 20-year relationship with my fans,” he says. “The fact that we get to reminisce together about how we first connected—I love it.”
From his early days playing piano on Lauryn Hill’s “Everything Is Everything” to headlining sold-out arenas worldwide, Legend’s career is a masterclass in persistence, craft, and vision. In this conversation, he opens up about revisiting songs he hasn’t performed in years, the influence of Philadelphia’s music scene, and how reimagining his classics with new collaborators keeps his artistry evolving. Here, Legend reflects on the journey from being turned down by every major label to becoming one of music’s most enduring voices.
ESSENCE: It’s been over 20 years since Get Lifted was introduced to the world. When you reflect on that particular time in your life—what stands out the most?
John Legend: Well, I just think about how excited I was to share this music with the world, how excited I was to make an impact, how many challenges I faced leading up to it because I was turned down by every major label, including the one that I eventually signed with and just knocking on all those doors, being told no multiple times. But persisting through all of that and then finally sharing Get Lifted with the world. It was such a thrill because I know I had been working on that album for years. I’ve been trying to launch my career for years and finally getting to share that with the world. It was an exhilarating feeling. And when you launch, you never know what’s going to happen. You never know if it;s going to be received the way you want it to be. You never know if it’s going to get heard, but it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
Since your debut, you never were really out of the spotlight in my opinion. But how does it feel to perform those songs from your first album now for a new generation?
I love it because once you have such a body of work over 20 years, you can’t play all the original songs and the score because I’ve got records that people want to hear from throughout my career. So you don’t really have that chance to just revisit the entire album like this anniversary gives us the opportunity to do. It’s really fun going back to some of the songs that I haven’t played in a while, really transporting myself and my audience back to that time. That was so important for me and really meant a lot for a lot of my fans too. I feel like I’ve been in a 20 year relationship with my fans and the fact that we get to reminisce together about how we first connected. I love it.
You also released an album for the 20th anniversary Gift Lifted last year. You had a couple of new tracks on that particular project. What was the vision behind re-imagining some of those classics and how do you choose which artists that you felt were best for those remixes?
Well, we did a whole LP of remixes, so quite a few of the original songs we took from Remixed and Reimagined. My philosophy going in was we knew we were going to include the original versions as the main body of the album and that these remixes were just going to be kind of a bonus LP. I wanted any remix we did to actually be an interesting twist on the original. And I wanted to have great guests that would be excited to introduce new energy and new creativity to the original. So, we were able to get some great producers to give us great remix ideas. Then, guest vocalists like Killer Mike, Lil Wayne, Simi, Tems and Black Thought—everybody just made every record sound fresh, and everybody did amazing verses on the project. And I’m just excited that we were able to make that happen. It really did add something new and fresh to the original versions.
When you were recording that first album, did you feel any pressure due to your long journey?
I didn’t feel pressure. I felt excited. I felt like I had this secret that the world just didn’t know yet. I was sitting on this music that the world didn’t know yet, but that it was going to make a huge impact and I was really excited about it. And you have to remember right before my album was released, nine months earlier, 10 months earlier, College Dropout had come out.
I did a lot of work on that as well. And so our whole camp just felt like we were on the precipice of making a big impact in the world of music. And so I just felt excited. It didn’t feel pressure. It felt like we had something special to offer the world and I couldn’t wait for everybody to hear it.
Now, you’ve already started the tour, but in the tour going forward, do you have any special moments or surprises that we can expect on this particular tour? Any surprise guests or anything like that?
We’ve been doing surprise guests. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of my Instagram posts from Europe, but we definitely have some great surprise guests throughout that tour. Not every night, but when schedules aligned with the right people at the right time. We had some great guests—we had Corinne Bailey Rae, Slum Village. So, I really believe we’re going to be able to get some great guests in the States. And so it’ll just be a matter of timing and when our schedules align. But we’re definitely actively reaching out to some of my friends and collaborators from over the years to see who the right people at the right location would be. And we’re definitely going to have plenty of surprises throughout the tour.
We’re definitely doing every song from Get Lifted, every track, and then we’ll do a few songs from throughout my career as well. And then we’re having some dope throwback moments just taking us back to that time in my life and in all of our lives, some of the music that inspired me and influenced me, we do a little segment on Philadelphia. I spent a lot of my formative late teens and early 20 years in Philadelphia, and the music scene there really inspired me. So we spent a little time reminiscing about that. So I really feel like it’s a great nostalgic celebratory show, really soulful and really taking us back to a really special time for a lot of people.
How would you define the Philly sound? I think about just all the legends that came out of that city and everything. We just had Patti label at ESSENCE Fest this weekend too. So I’m thinking about her too. What do you define?
Yeah, I saw you guys had a whole Philly night—Jill, Jasmine, Patti.
Yes.
I talk about that in the show because I was around in Philly as a student. I was at the University of Pennsylvania and right when Jill was coming onto the scene, and when The Roots were hosting the Black Lilly Open Mic night, I was going to a lot of those events around Philly. And I was still unknown at the time, but I was just a student being inspired by the music that was being made there. And obviously some of it was so influential and important to my career. And not only that, it just inspired me because it made me believe that I could do what I wanted to do in music too, because I was watching all these great artists who were collaborating and making great music in Philadelphia. So, I feel like it was really God’s grace and such a blessing that I was in Philly at that time because there was no other place that would’ve been better for me to be. I didn’t know that when I picked which college I would go to. But it just really worked out that I was in the right place at the right time.
You also have a really unique skillset. I wanted to ask, do you have any younger artists that you enjoy listening to or younger artists that you may see yourself in at all?
Oh yeah. There’s a lot of great, young R&B artists right now. I love Leon Bridges, I love Daniel Caesar, I love Leon Thomas. I feel like there’s a lot of great male R&B artists that I’m into. Those are just a few. I love Frank Ocean, I love who else. PJ Morton is great. I wouldn’t call him young, he’s probably close to my age. I feel like there’s just a lot of great R&B out there if you know where to look. And it inspires me and makes me want to keep making R&B that makes us all proud.
So looking back almost 21 years after the release of your debut album, how do you feel about the impact that album has made on music culture?
Oh, I feel proud of the impact we made. I feel proud of the career that it spawned for me, the relationship that it created with me and my fans, and it was nominated for eight GRAMMYs and won three of them. I won Best New Artist, which you can only win that award once in your career.
I also won Best New Artist at the BET Awards as well. And it really did make a huge impact and it set me on the path to really achieve so much in my career beyond my wildest dreams, honestly. And I’m still going; I’m making new music that I’m so excited about too that will come out next year. But it set me on that path to really achieve all my dreams and made the kind of impact that I really believed that I could make. But you never know until it happens. Like I said, when we were making that music, our whole crew, the whole G.O.O.D. Music crew, we believed that we had something special to offer to the world and we were excited to share it and I’m so glad we were able to do that and make the impact that we did make.