THE LEGEND GIVES ON

John Legend won an essay contest as a kid predicting that he would one day become a celebrity and use his fame to better the world. Three decades, 12 Grammys, an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony later, the 45-year-old musician is right on track

- BY BRANDE VICTORIAN

Back in 2006, while John Legend was recording his second studio album, Once Again, he started asking himself some tough questions — not about melody or production or track sequencing, but about the state of the world. One of those questions became a song.

"It was a prayer asking God why there was so much suffering in the world," Legend says of “Show Me,” which ended up as the closing track on the album. “And then I turned the question on myself — what was I going to do about it?”

The answer, or at least the beginning of one, came a year later, with the 2007 launch of Legend’s Show Me Campaign, which funded classroom supplies and scholarships in the U.S. and built schools in villages in East Africa.

On 24 July, Legend was honoured as Philanthropist of the Year at The Hollywood Reporter's second annual Social Impact Summit — a recognition of the nearly 20 years he's spent answering that prayer by turning his fame into a force for good. What began with the Show Me Campaign has since evolved into a wide-ranging portfolio of organisations and initiatives tackling everything from education and criminal justice reform to affordable housing and voting rights.

Legend's interest in activism started long before the music industry came calling. At age 15, growing up in Springfield, Ohio, he won a national McDonald's Black History Makers of Tomorrow essay contest, envisioning — with shocking prescience — a not-too-distant future in which he is a successful performer using his platform to give back.