John Legend

Before he was John Legend, John Stephens was a management consultant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group, writing reports by day and playing piano and singing in clubs at night. He had already played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything" while still in college, but it took years of disciplined, double-shift work before Kanye West signed him and his 2004 debut, Get Lifted, made him a star.

He was born on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, Ohio, at 8:25 in the morning, the time on his birth certificate. Capricorn holds his Sun, with Mars also in Capricorn, both in the twelfth house, and Capricorn is his rising sign. Capricorn is the sign of discipline, patience and long-term ambition. With the Sun and Mars in the twelfth, much of that effort happens behind the scenes, and Legend's career was built slowly, through years of quiet work as a session player and songwriter before his own voice was heard.

He grew up in a musical, religious family in Springfield. He was partly home-schooled, skipped grades, and graduated from high school at sixteen as salutatorian of his class. At Penn he studied English, focusing on African American literature, and led an a cappella group. The poet J. Ivy gave him the nickname "Legend," and it stuck.

Venus in Scorpio shares his tenth house with Uranus. Venus in the tenth is a classic placement for a public career built on love songs and charm, and Scorpio adds depth and intensity. Legend's biggest hits, "Ordinary People" and "All of Me," are ballads about committed, imperfect love.

Jupiter, retrograde in Leo, falls in his seventh house of marriage and partnership. Jupiter in Leo is big, generous and theatrical, and in the seventh it describes a partner with a larger-than-life presence. In 2013 he married the model and writer Chrissy Teigen, whose outspoken personality made them one of the most visible couples in entertainment. "All of Me," written for her, went to No. 1 in 2014.

His Moon and Mercury are both in Sagittarius in the eleventh house, the domain of causes and communities. Sagittarius is idealistic and outspoken, and in the eleventh it ties his emotional life to social causes. Legend has campaigned for criminal justice reform and voting rights, and he founded FREEAMERICA to work against mass incarceration.

In 2015 he and Common took home an Oscar for "Glory," from the film Selma, about the civil rights marches. In 2018, after producing and starring in a live television version of Jesus Christ Superstar, he won an Emmy, completing an EGOT and becoming the first Black man to win all four major awards. He has also been a longtime coach on The Voice.

The Capricorn Sun did the patient work in private; the tenth-house Venus turned the love songs into a public career.