John Legend

John Legend is the first to poke fun at his image as a silver-tongued, ivory-tickling crooner. He’s parodied his image on Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special, where he sang a typically sensual song about nutmeg, and in his own video for his 2008 hit “Green Light,” which opened with him boring a party with a quiet rendition of his signature ballad “Ordinary People.” His 2008 album Evolver, though, upended his image, adding an electronic dance pulse to his smooth soul songs. His latest album, Wake Up!, is another change of pace, a politically minded set of vintage soul and funk covers he recorded with The Roots.