Actors You Don’t Know Are Also Musicians

Hugh Laurie was often seen singing on his hit show “House.” After the show ended, he added blues musician to his resume. The British actor has two blues albums to his name. The first one, “Let Them Talk,” was released in 2011. Two years later he released his second, “Didn’t It Rain.”

British actor Idris Elba, before becoming famous, was also known by his DJ name, DJ Big Driis. He has been part of the DJing industry since his teenage years, long before he started to focus his career on acting, and has performed throughout the U.K. (Elba was also the DJ at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding reception in 2018.) He was on the 2019 Coachella lineup.

Before Jack Black was an actor and the leader of the School of Rock, he was already a rock musician. Black was part of the comedic rock duo, Tenacious D, which was formed in 1994. The other half of the duo was Kyle Gass. As of 2021, the group has released six albums. The two starred together in the 2006 movie “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny” about two wanna-be rockers who want to become the best rock band ever formed.

Jada Pinkett-Smith is better known these days as a talk show host and an actor, but for a few years she played metal. Back in 2002, Pinkett-Smith formed the nu-metal band Wicked Wisdom. The group released two albums — one in 2004 and another two year later. Though Wicked Wisdom has been inactive for several years now, they did open for Britney Spears once in 2004.

Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for playing the Genius musician Ray Charles. Foxx has released five R&B albums. The first one came out in 1994, long before Foxx made it big in Hollywood. Foxx was also featured on Kanye West’s Grammy award-winning “Gold Digger” single in 2005.