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Billy Porter is a Tony Award-winning vocalist who has released multiple solo albums while maintaining a successful career in musical theater. He was born as "William Ellis Porter II" on September 21, 1969, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, he moved to Los Angeles and appeared on the television show Star Search, which effectively launched his professional career in 1992. By the mid-1990s, he'd returned to the east coast and landed multiple on roles on Broadway, appearing in Grease, Songs for a New World, Smokey Joe's Cafe, and Miss Saigon by the end of the decade. He released Billy Porter, his self-titled debut album as an R&B singer, in 1997. The singles "Love Is on the Way" and "Show Me" both charted on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and Porter released a second album, At the Corner of Broadway + Soul, in 2005. By the time he released Billy's Back on Broadway in 2014, he had reached a new level of Broadway fame as an original cast member of Kinky Boots, eventually winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for "Best Actor in a Musical" for his performance. The Kink Boots soundtrack, with featured Porter's voice on multiple songs, also won a Grammy Award for "Best Musical Theater Album" in 2014. A fourth solo album, Billy Porter Presents the Soul of Richard Rodgers, was released in 2017. From 2018 to 2021, Porter starred in the TV show Pose. He was praised for his performance in the show, becoming the first gay black man to win "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" at the Primetime Emmys. Releasing standalone singles during the early 2020s, he reached the Top 30 of the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart with 2021's disco song "Children" and hit Number 19 on the Top 40 UK Airplay Charts with 2023's "Baby Was a Dancer."
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