So So Def Recordings is a record label based in Atlanta, Georgia, and owned by producer Jermaine Dupri, specializing in Southern hip hop, R&B; and bass music.

Company history

Beginnings

Distribution

In 2005, Dupri was appointed Executive Vice President of Urban Music at Virgin Records, causing So So Def to move again, this time over to Virgin and EMI—resulting in the loss of acts such as Bone Crusher and the YoungBloodZ. So So Def, meanwhile, was able to retain J-Kwon and Anthony Hamilton, despite their still being signed to Zomba. In 2006, Dupri had a falling out with Virgin, resulting in his leaving his post at the company. Intermittent, he was appointed President of urban music at Universal Music Group's Island Records, resulting in So So Def once again making a move to UMG's The Island Def Jam Music Group.

In 2009, it was reported that Dupri had been terminated from his post at Island Records. Later in the same year, it was rumored that So So Def had moved back to Sony Music, where it reportedly operated under Zomba Label Group once more.

Artists

Current

Discography

Planned Releases

Trivia

External links

References

Biography

After he established his new record label So So Def Recordings, his next big break would come in 1993 in the form of Xscape, a female R&B; group he discovered during a festival in Atlanta and signed to So So Def Recordings. After signing, they released their debut Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha and went platinum. During the same year, on Yo! MTV Raps he met Chicago rapper Shawntae Harris, A.K.A Da Brat through Kris Kross, signed her to his label So So Def Recordings, and released her debut Funkdafied (1994). It went platinum making her the first female hip hop artist to sell 1,000,000 units. Dupri subsequently built on this success through working with other R&B; artists such as Boyz II Men, as well as R&B; singers Mariah Carey, Luther Vandross and Babyface, achieving multi-millionaire status for himself by the age of 24. His finances were not hindered by a distribution deal made with Columbia Records in 1993. Since its inception, over 20 gold and platinum records have accumulated on So So Def's studio walls. He met Jagged Edge through Xscape band member Kandi Burrus, who at the time was dating one of the members, in 1996.

In 1998, Jermaine Dupri surpassed all of his prior commercial ventures with his involvement in the release of Destiny Child's eponymous debut album. The same year, he began work on his own music career with the albums The Party Continues and Jermaine Dupri Presents Life In 1472: The Original Soundtrack. The same year, he met 10 or 11 year old rapper Lil Bow Wow through one of his influences, Snoop Dogg, when signed to Death Row Records. He signed him to his So So Def Recordings and got to work. Then in 2000, they released his debut Beware of Dog, which was certified double platinum. After releasing Doggy Bag (2001) for him, the two broke up their relationship before releasing Unleashed (2003), but certified it gold. Many believe Dupri was his biggest source to his career, so they went back on track and became close again.. The deal with Columbia was terminated in 2002, and in 2003 Dupri switched to Arista Records. Jermaine worked on Mariah Carey's recent Christmas album, Merry Christmas II You.

Discography

References

External links

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Joseph Ward Simmons (born November 14, 1964), known by the stage name Rev. Run or DJ Run, is one of the founding members of the influential hip hop group Run–D.M.C., and a practicing minister, known as Reverend Run. Simmons was born in Hollis, Queens, New York. He is the younger brother of Daniel "Diggie" Simmons, Jr. and Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Records.

He found new popularity in 2005 with his family MTV reality show Run's House.

Career

External links

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In late 1994, after her duet with Luther Vandross on a cover of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love" became a hit, Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas. It contained cover material and original compositions, such as "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became Carey's biggest single in Japan Although many critics proclaimed Daydream as the best album of 1995, she ended that night with no awards. Carey eventually was able to deal with this incident. "What can you do?" The singer asked. "I will never be disappointed again. After I sat through the whole show and didn't win once, I can handle anything." In 1995, due to "Daydream's" enormous Japanese sales, "Billboard" declared Carey "Artist of the year" in Japan. and the success of the former made Carey the only act to have a number-one single in each year of the 1990s. A cover of Phil Collins's "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" went to number one in the UK, after Carey re-recorded it with boy band Westlife. Media reception of Rainbow was generally enthusiastic, with the Sunday Herald saying that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B; heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Usher [...] It's a polished collection of pop-soul." and there was a recurring criticism that the tracks were too alike. When the double A-side "Crybaby" (featuring Snoop Dogg)/"Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" became her first single to peak outside the U.S. top twenty, Carey accused Sony of underpromoting it: "The political situation in my professional career is not positive [...] I get a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people," she wrote, on her official website. Carey parted from Columbia and signed a contract with EMI's Virgin Records worth a reported US$80 million. She often stated that Columbia had regarded her as a commodity, with her separation from Mottola exacerbating her relations with label executives. Just a few months later, in July, 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left messages on her website that complained of being overworked, but the album's follow-up singles failed to chart; however, a live rendition/medley of the single, "Never Too Far", made its way to number 81.

Later, in the year, Columbia released the low-charting compilation album Greatest Hits, shortly after the failure of Glitter, and, in early 2002, Virgin bought out Carey's contract for $28 million, and created further negative publicity. Carey later said that her time at Virgin was "a complete and total stress-fest [...] I made a total snap decision which was based on money and I never make decisions based on money. I learned a big lesson from that." Sales of Charmbracelet were moderate and the quality of Carey's vocals came under severe criticism. The Boston Globe declared the album "the worst of her career, and revealed a voice [that is] no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos",

"I Know What You Want", a 2003 Busta Rhymes single on which Carey guest starred, fared considerably better and reached the U.S. top five; it was also included on Columbia's release of The Remixes, a compilation of Carey's best remixes and some new tracks. That year, she embarked on the Charmbracelet World Tour and was awarded the Chopard Diamond award for selling more than 100 million albums worldwide. When Carey incorporated hip-hop into her sound, speculation arose that she was making an attempt to take advantage of the genre's popularity, but she told Newsweek, "People just don't understand. I grew up with this music". with whom she collaborated on the single "The Roof (Back in Time)" (1998).

During Carey's career, her vocal and musical style, along with her level of success, has been compared to Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. Carey and her peers, according to Garry Mulholland, are "the princesses of wails [...] virtuoso vocalists who blend chart-oriented pop with mature MOR torch song". Some have noted that unlike Houston and Dion, Carey co-writes her own songs, and the Guinness Rockopedia (1998) classified her as the "songbird supreme".

Voice experts expressed mixed statements about Carey's voice. French-American baritone and singing teacher in the Conservatoire de Paris Malcolm Walker as well as music critic Stephen Holden of The New York Times said,

"The low register is "tired", "distended." The belting register is "pure, full, ample and warm, but this register is often forced, scratchy above E-flat one octave and an half above middle C [E5]." The head voice as well as the whistle register are "pure, bright and ample, with an impressive power until B nearly three octaves above middle C [B6]."

"Although she can reaches alto bottom notes, she does not have a good control of the low register. Until she stays in soprano bottom range, it's easy, well mastered, but when she passes in mezzo or contralto low range, the sound is unhealthy. In contrast, she possesses a superb top. It's crystal-clear—thought sometimes it's breathy—it's effortless, agile, sweet, and luminous. She also have rounded, warm, full medium and upper chest register, especially in 1996. Though the medium is often breathy and thin—for example: "Butterfly", "Without You" or "Against All Odds"—and that her highest notes in upper chest register sometimes sounds strained and raspy—like the high E's in "Butterfly", the high F at the end of "Prisoner" or the high D's at the end of 'Make It Happen'." and, according to music critic Jim Faber of New York Daily News, she can "cover all the octaves between [those voice types], and [possesses] the agility to move between ... with swiftness and aplomb." Carey also possesses what she calls "whisper register". In an interview with the singer, Ron Givens of Entertainment Weekly described it this way, "[f]irst, a rippling, soulful ooh comes rolling effortlessly from her throat: alto. Then, after a quick breath, she goes for the stratosphere, with a sound that nearly changes the barometric pressure in the room. In one brief swoop, she seems to squeal and roar at the same time: whisper register." Jeanette Lo Vetri states, "Carey is really a great technician. The staccatos are pin point, executed with amazing speed and control, the legato is a marvel of smoothness, she is the supreme mistress of melismas, she always keeps a neutral larynx position— except sometimes in her lower register— and she glides effortlessly from bottom to top and vice versa." Malcolm Walker adds her vocal lines are "very well led, especially in piano register."

Themes and musical style

Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has written about themes such as racism, social alienation, death, world hunger, and spirituality. She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical, but TIME magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial—NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict." The Village Voice wrote in 2001 that, in that respect, Carey compared unfavorably with singers such as Mary J. Blige, saying "Carey's Strawberry Shortcake soul still provides the template with which teen-pop cuties draw curlicues around those centerless [Diane] Warren ballads [...] it's largely because of [Blige] that the new R&B; demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it's the Christina Aguileras and Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands." but she has said, "My voice is my instrument; it always has been." She continues to consult on remixes by producers such as Morales, Jermaine Dupri, Junior Vasquez and DJ Clue, and guest performers contribute frequently to them.

Legacy

Carey's vocal style and singing ability has significantly impacted popular and contemporary music. Music critic G. Brown from The Denver Post wrote, "For better or worse, Mariah Carey's five-octave range and melismatic style have influenced a generation of pop singers." Sasha Frere-Jones, editor of The New Yorker commented, "It became standard for R&B; stars like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including Britney Spears, 'N Sync, and Christina Aguilera—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R&B.;" According to Pier Dominguez, author of Christina Aguilera: a star is made : the unauthorized biography, Aguilera has stated how she loved listening to Whitney Houston, but it was Carey who had the biggest influence on her vocal styling. Carey's carefully choreographed image of a grown woman's image, struck a chord on Aguilera. Her influence on Aguilera also grew from the fact that both were of mixed heritage. Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lists Carey as the third best-selling female artist, with shipments of over 63 million units in the U.S. In 1994, Carey released her holiday album "Merry Christmas", which became one of the best-selling Christmas album of all time, selling over 12 million copies. After Carey's success in Asia with Merry Christmas, Billboard estimated Carey as the all time best-selling international artist in Japan.

On November 19, 2010 Billboard magazine named Carey in their "Top 50 R&B;/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" chart at #4.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1999 | The Bachelor | Ilana | |- | 2001 | Glitter | Billie Frank | 2001 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress |- | 2002 | WiseGirls | Raychel | |- | 2003 | Death of a Dynasty | Herself | Cameo appearance |- | 2005 | State Property 2 | Dame's Wifey | |- | 2008 | You Don't Mess with the Zohan | Herself | Cameo appearance |- | 2009 | Tennessee | Krystal | |- | 2009 | Precious | Mrs. Weiss | Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film FestivalSupporting Actress of the Year at the Capri Hollywood International Film FestivalNominated — Black Reel Award for Best Supporting Actress & Best Ensemble. Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion PictureNominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture. |}

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 2002 | Ally McBeal | Candy Cushnip | "" (Season 5, episode 8) |- | 2003 | The Proud Family | Herself | Voice role |}

Discography

1990: Mariah Carey

1991: Emotions

1993: Music Box

1994: Merry Christmas

1995: Daydream

1997: Butterfly

1999: Rainbow

2001: Glitter

2002: Charmbracelet

2005: The Emancipation of Mimi

2008: E=MC²

2009: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel

2010: Merry Christmas II You

See also

List of best-selling music artists

List of best selling music artists in U.S.

List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)

List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart

List of awards received by Mariah Carey

List of Mariah Carey tours

Notes

References

and Nielsen SoundScan ; see http://web.archive.org/web/20080409233339/http://www.mariahdaily.com/corantofiles/news-archive-1-2006.shtml. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

"Mariah Carey – Artist Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

UK charts compiled by The Official UK Charts Company ; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/UKTop40.htm. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

Canadian charts compiled by Jam Canoe and Nielsen SoundScan; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/Canada.htm. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

Australian charts compiled by the Australian Recording Industry Association ; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/Australia.htm.

Japanese charts compiled by Oricon; see http://www.oricon.co.jp/artists/163336/. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

People in the News. CNN. Airdate: April 30, 2005. Larry King Live. CNN. Airdate: December 19, 2002.

"Mariah Carey to Receive Congressional Award for Charity Efforts". MTV.com. April 13, 1999. Retrieved April 22, 2006.

Duffy, Mike. "Mariah Carey leads heartfelt holiday special to promote adoption". Detroit Free Press. December 21, 2001. Retrieved from the Wayback Machine on April 22, 2006.

"The fall and rise of Mariah Carey". Bbc.co.uk. February 8, 2006. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

Norris, John. "Mariah: Remixes, Reunions and Russia". MTV.com. October 2003. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

Frere-Jones, Sasha. "On Top: Mariah Carey's record-breaking career". The New Yorker. April 3, 2006.

"Awards". MariahCarey.com. Retrieved April 22, 2006.

Fred Bronson's Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition (ISBN 0-8230-7677-6)

Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties (ISBN 0-89820-074-1)

Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Nineties (ISBN 0-89820-137-3)

Additional information concerning Carey's chart history can be retrieved and verified in Billboard's online archive services and print editions of the magazine.

External links

Official website

[ Mariah Carey] at Allmusic

Mariah Carey at Billboard.com

Mariah Carey at LAUNCHcast

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Official Mixtapes

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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Discovery and early life

Music career

2008-Present: Dondria Vs. Phatfffat

Dondria released a mixtape for fans, titled "Dondria Duets" on November 6, 2009. The Mixtape was available for download on Global14.com, for free. She recorded popular male R&B; songs that included verses by herself, turning them into duets. The Mixtape was released in order to promote, Dondria's single You're The One which dropped a few weeks later.

Her full-length debut album, titled Dondria Vs. Phatfffat, was released on August 17, 2010. It debuted at #43, with first week sales of 9,422, which is notable since she was discovered off Youtube. The official debut single for her album "You're The One" was released on November 23, 2009. The single debuted on Billboard Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs charts at #100 and peaked at #14. It's also charted at #21 on the Christian Songs chart the single is has reached at #70 on the radio songs. It is now a #10 on Heetseekers Chart. The video has peaked at No. 1 on 106 & Park. Her second single is titled "Shawty Wus Up" which features label-mate Johnta Austin and Diamond.

Dondria will be touring as the opening act on Trey Songz and Monica's "Passion Pain & Pleasure" Tour. The tour will begin on August 6, 2010 in Shreveport, Louisiana. On August 4, 2010 "Makin Love" from Dondria's debut album leaked to the Internet, getting overall good reviews from fans.

The third single from the album will be "Where Did We Go Wrong", the only song on the album co-written by Dondria.

Discography

Studio albums

Mixtapes

Singles

Tours

As supporting act

References

External links

Early life

Career

Discography

Studio albums

Mixtapes

EPs

Awards

References

External links

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