His debut album, Get Lifted, defined the cool new sound of rythm and Blues.  Now Grammy winner John Legend is singing all the way to heaven.

The legend of John Legend, Ivy Leaguer-turned-triple-Grammy-winning R&B sensation, begins back in the days when he was still known as Johns Stephens-When he was a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvainia who aslos happened to be Kanye West’s secret weapon.

Like some kind of superhero, Legend lived a double life.  By day, he donned a business suit and worked as management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.  By night, he indulged his music jones by working in the studio with West (the cousin of Legends college roommate) and laying down piano and vocal parts for artists such as Alicia Keys, Eve, and Britney Spears.

“Whatever Kanye ws working on at the time I’d be involved with,” recalls Legend, finishing off his lunchtime omelette in an East Village café near his New York City apartment.  Ultimately, he left the corporate gig to make his music dream come true, but that didn’t mean his double life was finished. As he worked part-time teaching business skills to minority college students for a nonprofit company, he was also having West produce his demos. “I was just scraping by,” Legend recalls now. “And borrowing money off Kanye!”