Curated category
African-American male singer-songwriters
- Jimi HendrixJimi Hendrix died in London on the 18th of September 1970, at the age of 27, from barbiturate-related asphyxia. He was, by then, the world's highest-paid…
- Kanye WestKanye Omari West was born on the 8th of June 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, and by the time he was done reshaping American music, he had become one of the most…
- Roddy RicchRodrick Wayne Moore Jr. arrived in Compton, California on the 22nd of October 1998. He grew up within a Christian household that shaped his early years.
- Young ThugJeffery Lamar Williams was born on the 16th of August 1991, in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up in the Jonesboro South projects near Cleveland Avenue as the…
- Prince (musician)Prince Rogers Nelson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis on the 7th of June, 1958, and for the next 57 years he operated at a pitch that most…
- Marvin GayeOn the 1st of April 1984, in a house in the Western Heights area of West Adams in Los Angeles, Marvin Gaye was shot twice by his own father.
- Sam CookeSam Cooke walked into a recording session in the mid-1950s and began singing George Gershwin. Art Rupe, the head of Specialty Records, was furious.
- Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red Gibson ES-355 guitar bolted to the inside lid of his coffin. That image captures something essential about the man…
- Lil WayneLil Wayne left school in tenth grade because his mother found a gun in his school bag. He was fifteen years old, already signed to a major label, already…
- Will SmithWill Smith was born on the 25th of September 1968 in Philadelphia, and before he turned thirty, he had already won Grammy Awards as a rapper, anchored a hit…
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar Duckworth was five years old when he watched a teenage drug dealer get killed in a drive-by shooting outside his apartment in Compton…
- Snoop DoggCalvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born on the 20th of October 1971, in Long Beach, California, to a Vietnam War veteran who walked out on the family just three…
- Bo DiddleyBo Diddley stepped onto The Ed Sullivan Show on the 20th of November, 1955, and promptly ignored every instruction he had been given.
- Billy PrestonBilly Preston was the only artist to receive a co-performer credit on a Beatles recording after the band began recording as independent artists.