John Legend brought the snap-and-clap spirit of the church to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The musician took the stage with special guest Black Thought and Tonight Show house band the Roots for a spirited performance of “Used to Love U” from his very first album Get Lifted.
The cluster of musicians were joined onstage by a soulful choir wearing black praise and worship robes. “Baby, when I used to love you/There’s nothin’ that I wouldn’t do/I went through the fire for you/Anything you asked me to,” Legend sang, reviving the 20-year-old debut single from his first record. “But I’m tired of livin’ this lie/It’s gettin’ harder to justify/I realize that I just don’t love you/Not like I used to.”
Legend celebrated the 20th Anniversary of Get Lifted in 2024 with an expanded edition that added 11 tracks, including new mixes featuring Tems, Lil Wayne, and Killer Mike, and previously unreleased recordings like “Do What I Gotta Do” and “Money Blown.”
Revisiting the songs that served as the foundation for his career has Legend feeling particularly reflective. The musician took his appearance on Fallon as a chance to tell one of his favorite stories once again, flashing back to when he stumbling into an opportunity to play piano on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
“So the first time I met Lauryn Hill, I was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, so I was going to school there, and I used to play at this church up in Scranton,” Legend said. “And one of my choir members’ name was Tara Michel, and she went to high school with Lauryn Hil… She was working on her solo album, and Tara was like, ‘Johnny, come to Jersey with me, and we’re going to meet Lauryn Hill. She’s working on her solo album.’ And so they’re working on the album, and I get on the piano just to show her what I could do.”
He continued: “It was like a mini audition. I was nervous, but, you know, I did my thing. I sang a little Stevie Wonder, sang an original song, too, and then she was like, ‘Why don’t you play piano on this song I’m working on now?’ And it was ‘Everything Is Everything’ from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That was my first credit on any album. And it was, you know, one of the greatest albums of all time.”
Legend didn’t know at the time if the song would ever be released. I was just waiting to find out, and I get a call from A&R at Columbia Records, which is where Lauryn signed, and they asked me how to spell my name for the album credits,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, OK, you want to know how to spell my name?’ So I was like… John R. Stephens. John R. Stephens— S-T-E-P-H-E-N-S. In retrospect, that was not a great stage name to put on the album credits.”
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