Carlos Baute

Okay, Carlos Baute's mouth makes Angelina Jolie look like a prim-lipped British schoolmistress, but there's more to the Venezuelan than his smacker. He's never quite settled for simply crooning ballads. On 2002's Dame De Eso he looked to Venezuelan folkloric music for inspiration, while his follow-up, Peligroso ventured as far afield as hip-hop and funk. Teaming up with producers Carlos Quintero and Leon Zervos for an eponymous album, brought a new, international dimension to his feel-good pop. While he's not as tropically focused as an artist like Javier Garcia, at his best he does access a kind of rhythmic excitement that makes for great party music.