John Legend and Alicia Keys are two of the world’s best known musicians on the planet. The two have worked together in the past and recently collaborated for a Juneteenth Verzuz battle.
No evidence exists that the multi-platinum, multi-award winning Grammy superstars are related. Alicia Keys and John Legend come from musical families and were both brilliant scholars but are not blood relatives.
The two share several other similarities in their prodigious talent and their individual storied careers, however, John and Alicia do not share any familial DNA.
The Individuals
John Roger Stephens, more commonly known by his stage name John Legend is a 41-year-old singer, songwriter, producer, and actor.
He was born in Springfield Ohio as one of four children into a musical family. His father, Ronald was a drummer, his mother, Phyllis was the choir director and also sang at church, and his grandmother was the church’s organist.
John himself started to play the piano at the age of four years old.
John Legend had a brief stint in the corporate world working for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999.
He nurtured his musical career playing the piano and singing in bars after work. He was later discovered through collaboration with up and coming hip hop star Kanye West.
Alicia Keys was born three years after John Legend in New York to a flight attendant father and paralegal mother.
She is biracial, her father, Craig being of Jamaican descent while her mother Teresa was of Italian extraction.
Alicia’s upbringing was fraught with difficulty mainly due to her father leaving the family when she was two years old. Despite this, her mother encouraged her musical talent by enrolling her in piano lessons even while struggling to make ends meet.
Alicia learned to play the piano at four years old, started to compose music by the age of 11, and graduated high school two years early as valedictorian.
Recognizing her beyond-her-years artistic talent, Alicia Keys was offered a full scholarship to Columbia University. This coincided with her signing her first record deal and she soon dropped out of school to focus on her music career.
The Similarities
The multi Grammy winning artist and one-time People’s sexiest man alive has previously performed with the piano prodigy even appearing in a Verzuz battle during the COVID-19 quarantine in June 2020.
John Legend sang some of the vocals on Alicia Keys’ single, ‘You Don’t Know My Name’.
They also appeared together in a 2017 episode of the ‘Carpool Karaoke’ series, inspired by the show of the same name by talk show host, James Corden.
Both Alicia Keys and John Legend are piano prodigies. They both started to play the piano at four years old and the instrument features prominently in almost all of their performances.
They each won Grammys for their first albums. John won his for ‘Get Lifted’ in 2004 while Alicia won five for her debut album ‘Songs in A Minor’.
They are very generous philanthropists and are separately involved in several causes bringing attention to the plight of children and the poor in the United States.
John has performed several benefit concerts to aid in recovery efforts for victims of devastating hurricane Katrina in 2007. Three years later he was involved in the recovery effort for victims of the earthquake in the Caribbean nation, Haiti.
They have also both been judges on television talent shows at points during their long career.
Twin Star Power
The superstars have their birthdays one month apart – John, a Capricorn celebrates in December while Aquarian Alicia has her birthday in January.
Having started their careers at a young age, they have both already had a decades-long career in the spotlight.
They continue to share their talent with the world, and if their recent Verzuz battle is anything to go by, we are likely to see future collaborations from these amazing talent powerhouses.
They do not have to be related to make beautiful music together.