Byron Stingily

A falsetto is the first thing to know about Byron Stingily, an American R&B and house singer born in Chicago, Illinois. Those high registers have carried him through a career that began with Ten City, where he sang lead on a run of hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Stingily has kept performing alongside a day job of sorts: he is now a part-time principal at a school in Chicago.

As a solo artist, his biggest success has come on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, where he reached No. 1 three times. In 1997 "Get Up (Everybody)" spent a week at the top, sampling Sylvester's "Dance (Disco Heat)", and in 1998 a remake of Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", produced by Damien Mendis and Stuart Bradbury, returned him to the summit. He revisited Ten City's "That's the Way Love Is", a 1989 dance No. 1 hit, and took his own version back to No. 1 in 1999. Recent singles have appeared on the UK label Defected Records, and in 2021 "Be Free", made with producer Marshall Jefferson, became the first single in 25 years credited to Ten City.