David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group formed in the New York City borough of Staten Island in 1992, originally composed of rapper-producer RZA and rappers GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa. An important act in the East Coast and hardcore hip hop styles, Wu-Tang Clan are regarded as one of the most influential hip hop groups of all time. Their 1993 debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang , is considered one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time.
Robert PeterWilliams is an English singer-songwriter and entertainer. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1989 to 1995, but achieved greater commercial success with his solo career, beginning in 1997. Williams has released seven UK number one singles and eleven out of his twelve studio albums have reached number one in the UK. He is the best-selling British solo artist in the United Kingdom and the best selling non-Latino artist in Latin America. Six of his albums are among the top 100 biggest-selling albums in the United Kingdom–four albums in the top 60–and in 2006 he entered the Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1.6 million tickets of his Close Encounters Tour in a single day.
William Martin Joel is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his first major hit and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released twelve studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 150 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the US.
Prince Rogers Nelson was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor, and filmmaker. A guitar virtuoso known for his genre-crossing work, wide-ranging singing voice and flamboyant stage appearances, Prince is regarded as one of the greatest musicians of all time. His innovative music integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, rock, R&B, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. Prince pioneered the late 1970s Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre drawing from synth-pop and new wave.
RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, actor, model, singer, songwriter, and television personality. Since 2009, he has produced and hosted the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, for which he has received six Primetime Emmy Awards, in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. RuPaul is considered to be the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States. In 2017, he was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2019, Fortune noted RuPaul as “easily the world's most famous” drag queen.
Sir Roderick David Stewart is a British rock singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. Stewart is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 120 million records worldwide. He has had nine number-one albums in the UK Albums Chart and his tally of 62 UK hit singles includes 31 that reached the top ten, six of which gained the #1 position. Stewart has had 16 top ten singles in the US, with four reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. He was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity.
O'Shea Jackson, known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, producer, director and writer.
Christopher Brian Bridges, known professionally as Ludacris, is an American-Gabonese rapper and actor. Ludacris is the founder of Disturbing tha Peace. Ludacris has won Screen Actors Guild, Critic's Choice, MTV, and 3 Grammy Awards. Along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential "Dirty South" rappers to achieve mainstream success during the early 2000s. In 2014, Ludacris was featured in Forbes list titled "Hip-Hop Cash Kings", as he earned $8 million.
Billy Ray Cyrus is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has released 16 studio albums and 53 singles since 1992, and is known for his number one single "Achy Breaky Heart", which became the first single ever to achieve triple platinum status in Australia. It was also the best-selling single in the same country in 1992. Due to the song's music video, the line dance rose in popularity.
Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler is a Spanish-Filipino singer, songwriter, actor and record producer who is widely regarded as the King of Latin Pop.
Kenneth Arnold Chesney is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has recorded 20 albums, all of which have been certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. He has also produced more than 40 Top 10 singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, 30 of which have reached number one. Many of these have also charted within the Top 40 of the US Billboard Hot 100, making him one of the most successful crossover country artists. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Armando Christian Pérez, known professionally as Pitbull, or nicknames "Mr. 305" and "Mr. Worldwide", is an American rapper, brand ambassador, entrepreneur, actor, and philanthropist.
Keith Lionel Urban is a New Zealand-Australian singer, songwriter and record producer well known for his work in country music. In 1991, he released a self-titled debut album and charted four singles in Australia before moving to the United States the following year. He found work as a session guitarist before starting a band known as The Ranch, which recorded one studio album on Capitol Nashville and charted two singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
Richard Kylea Cowie Jr,, better known by his stage name Wiley and in his early career Wiley Kat, is a British grime MC, rapper, songwriter, DJ and record producer from Bow, East London. He is regarded as a key figure in the creation of grime music and often labelled the "Godfather of Grime". In the early 2000s, he independently released a series of highly influential eskibeat instrumentals on white label vinyl, most notably the first in the series "Eskimo" and rose to fame as a grime MC both for his solo work and for material released with his crew Roll Deep.
Christopher Maurice Brown is an American singer, songwriter and dancer. Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. Having signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut studio album the following year, which became certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer and record executive. He is one of the most successful artists of the 21st century. In addition to his solo career, Eminem was a member of the hip hop group D12. He is also known for his collaborations with fellow Detroit-based rapper Royce da 5'9"; the two are collectively known as Bad Meets Evil.
Aubrey Drake Graham is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and businessman. Drake initially gained recognition as an actor on the teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation in the 2000s; intent on pursuing a career in music, he left the series in 2007 after releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement. He released two further independent projects, Comeback Season and So Far Gone, before signing to Young Money Entertainment in June 2009.
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. In 2010, he anonymously uploaded several songs to YouTube under the name "The Weeknd" and released the mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence in 2011 which quickly gained him a following and recognition from several mainstream publications due to his dark wave-style of R&B and the mystique surrounding his identity.
Jacques Berman Webster II, known professionally as Travis Scott, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. In 2012, Scott signed his first major-label deal with Epic Records. In November of the same year, Scott signed a deal with Kanye West's GOOD Music, as part of its production wing Very GOOD Beats. In April 2013, Scott signed a record deal with T.I.'s Grand Hustle imprint.
