R. Kelly

His mother was a singer and the seeds of R Kelly's own career were sown when he first started singing in church. He was a teenage busker in Chicago before forming the R&B groups MGM and Public Announcement, whose 1992 debut album Born Into the '90s produced several hits, creating the platform for his debut solo album 12 Play. His single Bump n'Grind spent a record-breaking 12 weeks topping the US R&B chart, earning him the sobriquet "the new king of R&B", while studio work with Michael Jackson and Aaliyah alerted other artists to his studio talents as a producer and re-mixer. His biggest success came in 1996 with the uplifting I Believe I Can Fly from the film Space Jam and he had another smash in 2003 with Ignition. Lurid stories of a sex scandal threatened his reign of success, but he was ultimately acquitted on all charges and resumed his influential career.