Tyrese

If Tyrese is dismissed as the stereotypical model-turned-musician, he can hardly cry foul. The slick-domed Los Angeles singer has rarely kept his shirt on since his eponymous 1998 debut (he was sporting a wife-beater on the cover of that one), and there's undoubtedly a contingent of fans who've purchased his subsequent two releases solely for the album art, which could pass for the sophisticated quasi-porn the fashion industry stuffs into any number of magazines each month.

Gratuitous posing aside, however, the former Darnell Gibson has continued to defy his critics with surprisingly substantial R&B (of the horny-but-sensitive variety). His three solo outings are at least equal to the work of like-minded abs-barers Usher and Ginuwine, and his most recent disc, 2002's I Wanna Go There, yielded the mellow smash "How You Gonna Act Like That." While Tyrese's acting career has produced roles in 2 Fast 2 Furious and the just-released air disaster flick Flight of the Phoenix, his music has taken a back seat: A fourth album, produced in part by R. Kelly and rumored to have been completed nearly a year ago, has yet to surface.