For the first half of his career, Charlie Wilson performed classic jams as the lead singer for funk outfit The Gap Band. Impressively, after two decades fronting the group throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, he opted to launch a solo career, beginning with a 1992 debut that featured collaborations with Snoop Dogg. Since then, Wilson has continued to write and record on his own, and is frequently brought in as a guest performer by hip-hop and R&B performers like Kanye West.