He performed on Guru's 1993 jazz-rap album, "Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1, " and his recordings were sampled on more than 100 hip-hop songs by such performers as Black Moon, Nas, Ludacris and A Tribe Called Quest.
The televised presentations target pop, country, urban, rock, and rap categories, leaving the jazz, gospel, classical, Latin and other categories to the pre-show.