Roots of James Brown

Abdel Hakim Abdel Samad Kamel, known by the mononym Hakim, is an Egyptian shaabi singer.

Daniel Earl Hartman was an American pop rock musician. Among songs he wrote and recorded were "Free Ride" as a member of the Edgar Winter Group, and the solo hits "Relight My Fire", "Instant Replay", "I Can Dream About You", "We Are the Young" and "Second Nature". "I Can Dream About You", his most successful US hit, reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. The James Brown song "Living in America", which Hartman co-wrote and produced, reached No. 4 on March 1, 1986.

McFadden and Whitehead were an American R&B duo, best known for their signature tune "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now". They wrote and produced some of the most popular R&B hits of the 1970s, and were primarily associated with the Gamble and Huff record label, Philadelphia International Records.

Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot was a Canadian-American composer, pianist and writer of musical theater. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1961. His most successful musicals were Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971). MacDermot also composed film soundtracks, jazz and funk albums, and Western classical music. His music has been sampled in numerous hip-hop songs and albums. He is best known for his work on Hair, which produced three number-one singles in 1969: "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In", "Good Morning Starshine", and the title song "Hair".

Abner Wingate Jay was an American multi-instrumentalist from Georgia, best known for performing eccentric, blues infused folk music as a one man band. His idiosyncratic lyrics and style have led some to consider his work outsider music; he considered himself to be "the last working Southern black minstrel".

David Porter is an American record producer, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Flora Yvonne Fair Strain was an American singer, best known for her 1975 recording of "It Should Have Been Me".

"Another One Bites the Dust" is a song by the British rock band Queen. Written by bassist John Deacon, the song was featured on the group's eighth studio album, The Game (1980). It was a worldwide hit, charting at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, from 4 October to 18 October. The song spent 15 weeks in the Billboard top 10, including 13 weeks in the top five, and 31 weeks total on the chart. It reached number two on the Hot Soul Singles chart and the Disco Top 100 chart, and number seven on the UK Singles Chart. The song is credited as Queen's best-selling single, with sales of over 7 million copies. This version was ranked at number 34 on Billboard's All-Time Top Songs.

"What'd I Say" is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in June 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.