I was a busy kid in high school - a little bit of an overachiever, I guess. Prom king was kind of silly, but the rest of the stuff was important to me.

But in my mind I've always been a solo artist- I've just been working with a lot of great people like Kanye and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z.

At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.

Now that I'm coming out with my own record people can see I'm a solo artist.

John Legend is a nickname that some friends started calling me, and it kind of grew into my stage name.

Well, Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range, amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have, and he passed at a very young age.

As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.