Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer who has sold more than 100 million records.

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute. His grandfather's house was across the street from the home of the president of the Institute. His family moved to Illinois where he graduated from Joliet Township High School, East Campus, in Joliet. A star tennis player in Joliet, he accepted a tennis scholarship back at Tuskegee Institute and later graduated with a major in economics. After receiving his undergraduate degree from Tuskegee, Richie briefly attended graduate school at Auburn University.

Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder (born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950; name later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Blind from birth, Wonder signed with Motown Records at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for the label. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and won twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever won by a male solo artist. Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950 as the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway Morris. The product of a premature birth, the blood vessels at the back of his eyes had not yet reached the front, and their aborted growth caused the retinas to detach. The medical term for this condition is known as retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, and while it may have been exacerbated by the oxygen pumped into his incubator, this treatment was not the primary cause of his blindness.
When Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved herself and her children to Detroit. Wonder's mother changed her name back to Lula Hardaway Morris and Morris remains Wonder's legal name. Wonder took up piano at age seven, and had mastered it by age nine. During his early childhood he was active in his church choir. He also taught himself to play the harmonica and the drums, and had mastered both by age ten[citation needed]. Wonder also learned to play the bass during his early years.

Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco

Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco (born May 10, 1992), best known as Charice Pempengco, or simply Charice (a portmanteau of her first two names), is a Filipina singer who rose to popularity through YouTube.

Pempengco was born in San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines.She and her younger brother, Carl, were raised solely by their mother, Raquel, after they left their father due to domestic violence when Pempengco was three years old.
To help support the family, she began competing in amateur singing contests at age seven, from town fiestas in their province of Laguna to several vocal competitions on TV. She is said to have joined over 80 singing contests.
In 2005, Pempengco joined ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation's Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was later called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became a finalist. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she only finished in third place via SMS voting.
Pempengco made minor appearances in local television shows and TV commercials, but essentially had fallen off the radar after her stint at Little Big Star. It was not until 2007 that Pempengco gained worldwide recognition after Dave Duenas, an avid supporter, started posting videos of her live performances onto YouTube under the username FalseVoice. The videos garnered millions of hits making Pempengco an internet phenomenon.

Allah Rakha Rahman (Tamil: born 6 January 1966 as A. S. Dileep Kumar in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) is an Indian film composer, record producer, musician and singer. His film scoring career began in the early 1990s. He has won thirteen Filmfare Awards, four National Film Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe and two Academy Awards.
Working in India's various film industries, international cinema and theatre, by 2003, Rahman, in a career spanning over a decade, has sold more than 100 million records of his film scores and soundtracks worldwide, and sold over 200 million cassettes, making him one of the world's all-time top selling recording artists.
Time magazine has referred to him as the "Mozart of Madras" and several Tamil commentators have coined him the nickname Isai Puyal (Tamil: English: Music Storm). In 2009, the magazine placed Rahman in the Time 100 list of 'World's Most Influential People'.

Great Singer Mohammad Rafi

Rafi was born the youngest of six sons of Hajji Ali Mohammad at Kotla Sultan Singh (or Kotla Sultanpur), a town near Amritsar in Punjab (British India). Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, started singing by imitating chants of a fakir in his village.In 1935-36, Rafi's father shifted to Lahore, and the rest of the family followed later. Rafi's family owned a men's salon in Lahore's Noor Mohalla.It was his brother-in-law Mohammed Hameed who spotted the talent in Rafi and encouraged him. Rafi learnt classical music from maestros Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.
Rafi's first public performance came at the age of 13, when he was allowed to sing at a concert featuring the legendary K. L. Saigal. In 1942, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut as a playback singer in the duet "Soniye nee, Heeriye nee" with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (the film was released in 1944). In that same year, Rafi was invited by All India Radio Lahore station to sing for them.

Altaf Raja

Born in 1967 at Nagpur to professional Qawwals, Altaf Raja began musical training at the age of 15. After his voice training, he began winning awards at various competitions. And finally in 1997, Venus gave him the much-deserved break and Altaf made history with his debut album "Tum To Thehre Pardesi". Since then, he has brought at least seven albums. He has also been linked with the Asian Academy of Film & Television. His songs are popular for both their lyrics and for his unique voice.
Date of Birth: 14 October 1967
Place of Birth: Nagpur, Maharashtra
Godfather: Late Mohd. Shafi Niyazi
Music Teachers: Iqbal Khan, Prakash Sharma, Pt. Govind Prasad Jaipurwala & Late Mohd. Shafi Niyazi.
Mother: Rani Roop Lata
Father: Ibrahim Iqbal
First Album: Tum To Thehre Pardesi

Sir Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

SirNusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Urdu: نصرت فتح علی خان, October 13, 1948 – August 16, 1997), was a Punjabi musician from Pakistan, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis . He featured in Time magazine's 2006 list of 'Asian Heroes'.

Sir Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born on October 13, 1948 in the city of Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was the fifth child and first son of Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and Qawwal. Khan's family, which included his four older sisters and his younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan grew up in central Lyallpur. In 1979, Khan married his first cousin, Naheed (the daughter of Fateh Ali Khan's brother, Salamat Ali Khan); they had one daughter, Nida.
Khan began by learning to play tabla alongside his father before progressing to learn Raag Vidya and Bolbandish. He then went on to learn to sing within the classical framework of khayal. Khan's training with his father was cut short when his father died in 1964, leaving Khan's paternal uncles, Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, to complete his training.
His first performance was at a traditional graveside ceremony for his father, known as chehlum, which took place forty days after his father's death.
In 1971, after the death of Ustad Mubarak Ali Khan, Khan, became the official leader of the family Qawwali party and the party became known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party.
Khan's first public performance as the leader of the Qawwali party was at a studio recording broadcast as part of an annual music festival organised by Radio Pakistan, known as Jashn-e-Baharan. Khan sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and occasionally in Persian, Brajbhasha and Hindi. His first major hit in Pakistan was the song Haq Ali Ali, which was performed in a traditional style and with traditional instrumentation. The song featured restrained use of Nusrat's sargam improvisations.
Early in his career, Khan was signed up by Oriental Star Agencies of Birmingham UK to their Star Cassette Label. OSA sponsored regular concert tours by Nusrat to the U.K. from the early '80s onwards, and released much of this live material on cassette, CD, videotape and DVD.

The composition of Nusrat's party changed over the twenty-six years that he led the party. Listed below is a snapshot of the party, circa 1983:
Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan: Nusrat's first cousin, vocals
Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan: Nusrat's brother, vocals and lead harmonium
Rehmat Ali: vocals and second harmonium
Maqsood Hussain: vocals
Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Nusrat's nephew & pupil, vocals
Dildar Hussain: percussion
Majawar Abbas: mandolin and guitar/chorus, handclapping
Mohammed Iqbal Naqvi: secretary of the party, chorus, handclapping
Asad Ali: chorus, handclapping Nusrat's cousin
Ghulam Farid: chorus, handclapping
Kaukab Ali: chorus, handclapping