Jovanotti

Born 27 September 1966, Cherubini meant to call himself "Joe Vanotti" when he broke in as a DJ and rapper, but a promoter's typo gave him "Jovanotti" - giovanotti being Italian for "young men" - and the anglicized spelling stuck. Through the late 1980s he worked the keyboard-heavy pop and disco-rap lane, then began widening the palette: funk, world music, ska, classical threads, lyrics that drifted from party material toward the cantautore tradition of political and spiritual reckoning. He recorded a Spanish greatest hits, covered "Rapper's Delight" on a live album, sang Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" for a 1998 Red Hot compilation, and shared a stage with Pavarotti in 1996. Fans call him Jova; he launched a web channel under that name in 2014, still moving.