Happy Birthday to Ya!

No-one defines our mantra, A World Without Limitations better than Stevie Wonder.

A child prodigy, Wonder began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica and drums. He signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11 and since that time, he has delivered numerous hits and some of the most iconic soul music ever recorded. His passion appears never ending, continuing to write, record and tour to this day. Born six weeks premature which, along with the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the hospital incubator, resulted in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP-a condition in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach), he became blind.

His musical legacy is absolutely stunning. Wonder has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and won 25 Grammy Awards (the most ever won by a solo artist) as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song (I Just Called to Say I Love You), and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame.

He has had ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts as well as 20 R&B number one hits, has sold over 100 million records, 19.5 million of which are albums and is one of the top 60 best-selling music artists of all time. Wonder has recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and writes and produces songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as well. Over his life, he’s mastered the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bongos, organ, melodica and Clavinet. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. The 1984 hit single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie The Woman in Red enshrined him as the first Motown artist and second African-American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

His charitable and political work are well-documented, most notably humanitarian activities such as successfully championing a National Holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, ensuring the fight against Apartheid in South Africa will never be forgotten, fund raising for AIDS research and numerous Children’s and Cancer charities. Music has always been a consistent theme in his life though and ever since 1995, he has held his “House Full of Toys” annual charity concert to raise funds for underprivileged children during the festive Christmas season.

Conspexit is currently prototyping and designing an application that will personally assist people with a visual impairment to gain greater independent mobility but we’ve also taken on another challenge; raising awareness around sight loss and celebrating figures who truly inspire and live by the code of a World Without Limitations. Happy 67th Birthday Stevie!!

His wonderful talent and infectious sense of humour are superbly captured in this appearance in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke:

#StevieWonder #happybirthday #conspexit #Blindness #VisuallyImpaired