Ray Dalton

Ray Dalton balanced his role in the Total Experience Gospel Choir with daytime work teaching tennis before hip-hop carried the Seattle vocalist into the Top 40 through his featured appearance alongside Macklemore & Ryan Lewis on “Can’t Hold Us.” Prior to that breakthrough he had already tested the genre by supplying the hook for Dyno Jamz, a hip-hop and jazz fusion outfit, on their 2010 single “Kingdom Come,” marking his first recorded performance. Social networking brought Macklemore into contact with him in 2011, resulting in Dalton’s contributions to both “Wings” and “Can’t Hold Us” for the duo’s album The Heist. Once “Thrift Shop” turned Macklemore & Ryan Lewis into household names in 2012, the previously unsuccessful “Can’t Hold Us”—originally issued in 2011—was revived as their next single in 2013. Dalton’s live performance of the track with the pair on Saturday Night Live helped drive the song to the top of the U.S. charts.