One of the most amazing things about the way in which Ruben Studdard became a pop sensation is the apparent ease with which he did it. Winning American Idol is no walk in the park, but Ruben seemed to lumber past the rest of the competition (save for eventual runner-up Clay Aiken) with a laid-back stroll. And even before he decided to try out for the show, Studdard had moseyed through a football scholarship at Alabama A&M University, putting other priorities in front of tuning his vocal chords. It was only after college that the so-called "velvet teddy bear" began to really pick up the pace in order to build a music career for himself.

He tried out for American Idol in its second season, but not before paying his dues as a backup singer for a Birmingham-based jazz and R&B group, Just A Few Cats. While on the show Ruben impressed the judges and the voting public with a kind of understated confidence, a trait which stood out amid the crowd of Barbies and Kens who all had the typical reality show strategy: win at all costs.

Winners from American Idol automatically earn a recording contract with an established record label (in Ruben's case it was J-Records), plus they spend countless hours building a vast audience of fans while performing live in front of millions of viewers around the world. So in a way, Ruben Studdard's rise to mainstream pop super stardom was a bit unconventional. Only two other artists before him, Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, had used AI to launch singing careers. But Ruben managed to blaze his own trail nonetheless, because he did it without trying to conform to the cookie cutter image of what an "idol" ought to look or sound like.

ok or sound like.