Charles Daniel Drake (April 11, 1811 – April 1, 1892) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he attended St. Joseph's College (Bardstown, Kentucky) in 1823 and 1824, and Patridge's Military Academy (Middletown, Connecticut) in 1824 and 1825; he was appointed midshipman in the United States Navy in 1825 and served four years, when he resigned. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1833 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1834 and continued the practice of law.

Drake was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1859-1860 and a member of the State constitutional convention in 1865; he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1867, to December 19, 1870, when he resigned to accept a judicial position. While in the Senate he was chairman, Committee on Education (Forty-first Congress). He was appointed chief justice of the United States Court of Claims and held that position from 1870 to 1885, when he retired. He published a Treatise on the Law of Suits by Attachment in the United States (1854) and Union and Anti-Slavery Speeches (1864).

Jean-Charles Brisard (1968) is a left wing French author and consultant on international terrorism. He authored the first and most exhaustive study ever written on the financial network of the Bin Laden organization, "The economic environment of Osama Ben Laden". His report was written for the French intelligence community and published by the French National Assembly in 2001.

He testified on his work before the US Congress Joint Inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and before the US Senate Banking Committee. He served as an expert or witness in prosecutions of terrorism financing and money laundering cases in France, Switzerland, the UK and the United States. He also provides training to the French authorities on terrorism and terrorism financing.

Since June 2002, he is serving as lead investigator for lawyers representing families of the 9/11 victims in the course of civil lawsuits.

In November 2008, he was appointed Knight of the National Order of Merit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”

The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such as Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences from country blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.

Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004, and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"

Kanye Omari West ( /ˈkɑːnjeɪ/; born June 8, 1977) is an American musician, film director and fashion designer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used pitched-up vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. However, subsequent productions saw him broadening his musical palette and expressing influences encompassing '70s R&B, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock, folk, alternative, electronica, synthpop, and classical music.

West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, his second album Late Registration in 2005, his third album Graduation in 2007, his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, and his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. West released a collaborative album, Watch the Throne with Jay-Z in 2011, which is the duo's first collaborative album. His five solo albums, all of which have gone platinum, have received numerous awards and critical acclaim. As of 2012, West has won a total of eighteen Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time. All albums have been very commercially successful, with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy becoming his fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. upon release. West has had 5 songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of July 2011, with "Gold Digger" selling 3,086,000, "Stronger" selling 4,402,000, "Heartless" selling 3,742,000, "E.T." selling over 4,000,000 and "Love Lockdown" selling over 3,000,000 placing him third in overall digital sales of the past decade. He has sold over 30 million digital songs in the United States making him one of the best-selling digital artists of all-time.

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, rapper, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host who began playing the piano when he was five years old. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy. He is also a Grammy Award winning musician, producing three albums which have charted highly on the Billboard 200: Unpredictable, which topped the chart, Best Night of My Life and Intuition.

Born in Terrell, Texas, Foxx was raised by his mother's adoptive parents. He performed in high school and was awarded with a scholarship to United States International University. In his twenties, Foxx began performing stand-up at comedy clubs, and eventually joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991; this exposure helped him land film roles and star in his own sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show. He released his debut album, Peep This, in 1994, but he did not gain significant musical success until 2004 when he was featured in Twista's song "Slow Jamz". Also in 2004, Foxx played critically acclaimed roles in the films Collateral and Ray. He released his second album, Unpredictable, in 2005, which was helped by his collaboration on Kanye West's number-one single "Gold Digger". His third album Intuition was released in 2008 and was anchored by the single "Blame It". Foxx released his fourth studio album, Best Night of My Life, in 2010.