Featured Artists

One of the most successful pop-R&B artists of the late 20th century and the early 21st century, Usher scored his first charting single as a fresh-faced teenager with "Call Me a Mack" (1993). As part of the thriving LaFace label roster, he then had an instant impact on the post-new jack swing era and successfully rode mainstream songwriting and production trends across three decades. He achieved platinum status for the first time with My Way (1997), and soon won Best Male Vocal R&B Performance Grammy awards in consecutive years with "U Remind Me" (2001) and "U Don't Have to Call" (2002). Remarkably, he hadn't yet peaked, not until the arrival of his landmark fourth album, Confessions (2004). That LP generated four straight number one pop hits, won a Grammy for Best Contemporary R&B Album, and joined the ranks of Thriller, Whitney Houston, and CrazySexyCool by reaching diamond platinum status -- over ten million copies sold in the U.S. It also started a streak of four releases, including another Grammy winner for Best Contemporary R&B Album, Raymond v Raymond (2010), that simultaneously topped the Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop charts. Usher's achievements since then include his 12th and 13th number one R&B/hip-hop hits, "Climax" (2012) and "I Don't Mind" (2014), the Top Five album Hard II Love (2016), and the surprise release "A" (2018). More than anyone else, as a singer, songwriter, producer, dancer, and all-around entertainer, Usher has been the successor to Michael Jackson.

The self-proclaimed "Ambassador of Rap for the Capital," Wale (pronounced "wah-lay") was able to transcend his status as local sensation and become a national rap contender using go-go-inspired hip-hop as the vehicle for his clever wordplay and music. Most of the major singles that ensued for him, however, were melodic slow jams spread across the tail-end of the 2000s and well into the late 2010s. These hits, such as "Lotus Flower Bomb" and "Bad," supported albums that regularly landed near or at the top of the Billboard 200, including the chart-topping The Gifted (2013) and The Album About Nothing (2015). The proper full-length studio releases were supplemented with numerous mixtapes, featured appearances on hits by the likes of Waka Flocka Flame and Rick Ross, and starring roles on multiple volumes in Maybach's Self Made compilation series. The rapper closed out the 2010s with Wow...That's Crazy (2019), his fourth solo full-length release to enter the Top Ten of the Billboard 200.  

Young M.A is a hardcore rapper from New York City's Brooklyn borough. Her approach is summed up by "It's a cold world, so fuck it, I'm a cold girl" -- a line from her introspective track "Through the Day," in which she also raps about the murder of her brother. Part of RedLyfe (aka RedLyfe Pain Gang), she turned heads with that crew in 2014 through "Brooklyn (Chiraq Freestyle)."

Atlanta rapper, eccentric fashion icon, and status quo-challenging Young Thug broke through in the early 2010s with a string of successful trap mixtapes, including the Slime Season series and U.S. Top Ten albums Jeffery (2016) and Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017). With his recognizable delivery and vocalizations, he has also guested on dozens of collaborations, notably the U.S. number-one hit "Havana" with Camila Cabello and "Heatstroke" with Calvin Harris, Pharrell Williams, and Ariana Grande.