Of all the places you might expect to find John Legend, an innocuous co-working space in central London is pretty far down the list. Yet, on an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon, this is the venue the singer has been corralled into, somehow making his way past workers on their lunch break, playing ping pong, gathered by the coffee machine or savouring the last bites of their Pret lunches.
“I’m great!” beams 45-year-old Legend as he enters a clinically trendy meeting room, all good manners and seasoned professionalism. One imagines a celebrity of his stature (that is: 10 million albums sold, 16 million Instagram followers hooked on his every move) might prefer the view of a king-sized bed in a palatial hotel room over the quasi-inspirational artwork that hangs on the walls — not least because he arrived in the capital only three hours ago and has a gig tonight, the latest stop on his two-year An Evening with John Legend tour. During the tour, he was joined in Ohio by family members for a rendition of I Don’t Have to Change from his debut album Get Lifted, the 20 year anniversary edition of which, is released next month (December 20).
