About Roger Troutman
Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999), also known simply as Roger, was an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and influenced West Coast hip-hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music. Troutman frequently used the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument (frequently a keyboard, but most commonly a guitar) to create different vocal effects. Troutman used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix "Golden Throat"—through a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s and regularly collaborated with hip-hop artists in the 1990s.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.