Nick Jonas

Nick Jonas, the pop wunderkind-turned-Mr. Priyanka Chopra, is often seen—falsely—as a prefab star. But although Jonas (as part of the Jonas Brothers) did time on the Disney Channel, his musical talent and creative restlessness were not manufactured. Born in Dallas, TX, in 1992 and raised in New Jersey, Jonas joined his first Broadway-musical cast at age seven. By age 10, he had composed his first song. He signed a recording contract with Columbia Records when he was just 12 and then started writing material with his older brothers, Kevin and Joseph. As the Jonas Brothers, they broke out in 2007 with their second album. Nick, not only a lead songwriter, played many instruments on their string of successful albums, and the group gained an international following. He returned to solo work in 2009, and his album the next year, Who I AM, credited to Nick Jones & The Administration, showcased admirably mature pop-rock songwriting. But he found his voice on his self-titled 2014 release, which saw Jonas distancing himself from the earlier innocent vibes and attempting rock, pop, and light EDM. The hit single “Jealous,” on which he wraps his aching falsetto around a Justin Timberlake-esque pop-R&B track, established him as a solo star. The 2016 album Last Year Was Complicated unleashed the astral pop of “Close,” a hugely popular duet with Tove Lo. Not a man to take it easy, Jonas has also forged a career on stage, in film, and on television—all while finding time to marry one of the world’s most famous actresses and become a budding philanthropist, donating to UNICEF, the Equal Justice Initiative, and the ACLU, among other organizations.