Kashif with Whitney Houston

Songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist Kashif was part of the post-disco vanguard that revolutionized R&B with synthesizers and drum machines. In terms of commercial yet progressive pop-oriented R&B, he is the link from Patrick Adams, Leroy Burgess, and Leon Sylvers III to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and therefore part of a lineage that extends to the likes of "super producers" such as Teddy Riley and Timbaland. Active from the mid-'70s until his 2016 death, he was a major creative force for the majority of the '80s, a decade in which he advanced his genre wi...