This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2011)

Justin Smith, better known as Just Blaze, is an American hip hop music producer from Paterson, New Jersey.^[1][2][3] Blaze is also the CEO of Fort Knocks Entertainment.^[4] He is most well known for producing Jay-Z songs on the albums The Blueprint, The Blueprint 2, and The Black Album.^[5] He is also known for producing a number of songs on Eminem's most recent album Recovery. Blaze also appears in the video for the third single from Recovery entitled "No Love", which he also produced. Also a dock chief.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Just Blaze discography at MusicBrainz

Look up blaze in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Blaze may refer to:

Places[link]

• Blaze Island, Nunavut, Canada

Music[link]

• Blaze Bayley, former Wolfsbane and Iron Maiden vocalist
  • Blaze Bayley (band), his current band, formerly known as Blaze
• Blaze (band), an electronica band formed in 1984 in New Jersey, USA
• Blaze (Japanese band), a band currently known for their song "Fire", which appears in the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie Pyramid of Light
• Blaze (Lagwagon album), 2003
• Blaze (Herman's Hermits album)
• "Blaze" (song), a 2008 single by J-pop singer Kotoko
• "Blaze", a single by Japanese singer Kinya Kotani

Fiction[link]

• Blaze (film), a 1989 film starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich
• Blaze (novel), a 2007 novel by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
• Blaze and Satanus, comic book villains from DC Comics, enemies of Superman and Captain Marvel
• A horse featured in a series of children's books by C.W. Anderson
• A firefly, featured as a major character in Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure

Video games[link]

• Blaze Europe, video games accessory manufacturer and distributor in the UK
• Blaze the Cat, a fictional cat from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series
• Blaze (Mortal Kombat), a character from the Mortal Kombat video game series
• A special ability of some Pokémon
• A character from the Streets of Rage video game series
• A mob from the Minecraft video game
• The player character's callsign in Ace Combat 5
• Method Man's nickname in Def Jam: Fight for NY

Sports and games[link]

• Blaze (dinghy), a high-performance racing dinghy designed by Ian Howlett and John Caig
• Utah Blaze, an Arena Football League team playing their home games in Salt Lake City
• Gold Coast Blaze, an Australian professional basketball team based in Queensland, Australia
• Baton Rouge Blaze, a former team in the arenafootball2 league who played their home games in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
• Blaze the Trail Cat, mascot of the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team
• Blaze (UAB mascot), the dragon mascot of the University of Alabama at Birmingham athletic teams
• Blaze the Phoenix, the mascot of the 1996 Summer Paralympics
• Blaze the Vulcan, the mascot of the California University of Pennsylvania Vulcans.
• A non-standard poker hand

Other uses[link]

• Fire
• Blaze (toy), a rocking-horse riding toy produced by Mattel in the 1960s
• Trail blazing, the practice of marking paths in outdoor recreational areas
• An equine coat marking
• Blaze (UAB mascot)

See also[link]

• Blaise (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up just in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Just may refer to:

• "Just" (song), a song by Radiohead
• Just! (series), a series of short-story collections for children by Andy Griffiths
• Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST)
• Just, a 1998 album by Dave Lindholm
• Justice, the idea or act of being just or fair

People with the surname[link]

• Aleksandar Just (1872-1937), Croatian physicist and inventor
• Carl Just (1897–1990), Norwegian journalist
• Cassià Maria Just (1926–2008), Catalan abbot
• Ernest Everett Just (1883–1941), American biologist
• Florian Just (born 1982), German pairs skater
• Gustav Just (1921–2011), East German writer and editor
• Jesper Just (born 1974), Danish artist
• Joe Just (1916-2003), American baseball player
• John Just (1797–1852), English archaeologist and botanist
• John Augustus Just (1854—1908), German-born American chemist and inventor
• Karsten Just (born 1968), East German sprinter
• Klaus Just (born 1964), West German sprinter
• Marcel Just, American psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist
• Myron Just (born 1941), American politician and farmer from North Dakota
• Paul Just (born 1964), German-born Canadian pole vaulter
• Theodore Just (1886–1937), British athlete
• Ward Just (born 1935), American writer

See also[link]

• List of people known as the Just
• All pages beginning with "Just"
• Saint-Just (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Timothy Elpadaro Thedford (born September 19, 1976), better known by his stage name Jay Electronica, is an American hip hop recording artist and record producer, currently based in London, United Kingdom.^[2] Jay Electronica first gained significant attention after the release of the musical composition Act I: Eternal Sunshine (the pledge), made available on a MySpace page in 2007. It is fifteen continuous minutes of music, without drums, built from Jon Brion's soundtrack to the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In late 2009 he released two songs, both produced by Just Blaze, "Exhibit A (Transformations)" and "Exhibit C" the latter of which won a Sucker Free Summit Award for Instant Classic. On November 12, 2010, it was announced Jay Electronica had become an official member of Jay-Z's Roc Nation record label.^[3]

Biography[link]

1976-2006: Early life and career beginnings[link]

Thedford was born on September 19, 1976, in the Magnolia Projects of New Orleans, a place where the crime rate was infamous throughout the country before 2005, when the projects were flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Thedford began rapping after hearing his nephew Akeem Pryor rhyme. By the age of 19 Jay Electronica left New Orleans to pursue his musical career. Living a mostly nomadic lifestyle, he found refuge in cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, New York, and briefly in Atlanta. From club to club, and stage to stage, Electronica had gotten booed off and denied because of his Southern accent and slang. "In my earlier years from when I first left home, I was embarrassed from being from the South," Thedford stated. "Not in general, but as a rapper because all of the negative things that people in the States put on the South."^[4] Electronica’s career really took form in the city of Detroit when he linked up with Detroit native Johnnie Last, a friend he had spent a lot of time with at Darp Studios in Atlanta, GA. Detroit is where Electronica met producer/engineer Mike "Chav" Chavarria, who introduced him to both J. Dilla and Mr. Porter, and who is now a regular collaborator.^[5][6] Detroit, where he recorded his Style Wars-era music with several J. Dilla beats, meeting the producer subsequently to ask for permission to use the recordings as a demo.

[edit] 2007-2010: Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) and signing with Roc Nation

Jay Electronica first gained significant attention through Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge), made available on a MySpace page in 2007. It is nine continuous minutes of music, without drums, built from Jon Brion's soundtrack to the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There are five segments or movements marked by changes in music and mood, raps by Electronica, and occasional snippets of sampled dialogue including scenes from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The first segment is a spoken word piece by Just Blaze and Erykah Badu describing Electronica over piano music.

The nature of the piece of music, along with the nature of its appearance, led to a slow build-up of interest in Electronica as an enigmatic figure. Songs circulating online as the Style Wars EP gained wider circulation, and other songs, such as the dream-inspired "Dimethyltryptamine", soon appeared. In January 2008, Giles Peterson's 90-minute Gilles Peterson Worldwide was devoted to the rapper.^[7] Hiphopdx.com in 2008 called him "arguably...the most talked about new emcee last year ... at times...more like a myth or urban legend than an actual rapper",^[8] and URB ran a cover story on the artist under the banner "Jay Electronica: A Spotless Mind :: An MC’s mystery revealed", which referred to his wanderings as his being "like some sort of hip-hop Jack Kerouac".^[5]

Jeff Weiss' piece for the L.A. Weekly, "Jay Electronica: Much Better Than His Name Would Suggest", acknowledged that the rapper could be fairly described as "one of the most buzzed about rappers of 2008", but attempted to temper the hype somewhat, describing Act 1... as "ambitious, wildly original, if not slightly pretentious", while endorsing only to an extent the comparisons URB had made (referencing an "abstract rhyming style") to rappers like Nas and Pharoahe Monch.^[9][10]

[edit] 2010-present: Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn)

Jay Electronica has yet to release a full-length album, but he has released two official singles to date, "Exhibit A" and "Exhibit C", which won a Sucker Free Summit Award for Instant Classic. His music so far has been made available through the internet, either through being leaked to what URB magazine describes as "obscure web forums", or through an appearing and disappearing Myspace page (currently two seem to be in existence, at /jayelect and at /jayelectronica). Erykah Badu has questioned whether he ever will release, in her words, "actual albums".^[5] From New Orleans, LA he has lived in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Denver, and Detroit, where he recorded his Style Wars-era music with several J Dilla beats, meeting the producer subsequently to ask for permission to use the recordings as a demo. Jay met producer/engineer Mike "Chav" Chavarria in Detroit, the latter introducing him to both J Dilla and Mr. Porter, and who is now a regular collaborator.^[5][11]

According to URB, Act II: Patents of Nobility will feature Nas, and will be the second of a putative trilogy. URB also reported that digital EPs with both Guilty Simpson and producer 9th Wonder were planned. According to a Filter TV interview,^[12] Jay Electronica has partnered with Decon to release his debut project. It is being described as a multi-media release and footage from the project which was partially shot in Nepal and Dubai has begun to surface online. The first clip to leak is titled "Dear Moleskine" and can be found on YouTube, the track was produced by Just Blaze and the clip was directed by Jason Goldwatch from Decon. In June 2009, Decon and Jay's "The Dogon Society" released "Exhibit A" digitally. "Exhibit C" was released on iTunes December 16, 2009 and quickly shot to the top 10 of the iTunes Hip-Hop charts. The following week it was chosen by Hot 97's Dj Enuff as the Heavy Hitter pick of the week.

Jay Electronica appeared at the 2010 Bonnaroo Music Festival. Jay Electronica continued his scattered release practice, releasing "A Million In The Morning" on April 4, 2010. The song features a weary Electronica trying to keep himself awake to escape his nightmares.^[13] On April 30, Jay Electronica debuted "The Ghost of Christopher Wallace" via his Twitter. The song features P Diddy and is produced by London beatsmith Quincey Tones, who is known for producing such acts as Young Jeezy and Royce da 5'9".

On November 12, 2010, Jay-Z announced that Jay Electronica was officially the newest member of his own 'Roc Nation' record label/management company, which boasts such acts as J. Cole, and Willow Smith. Before signing to Roc Nation in 2010, Jay Electronica was a prospective signee of Bad Boy Records, a label owned by producer/rapper/entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs.^[14]

In late 2010, he and Lucy Liu were featured on The Bullitts' track "Close Your Eyes". It was BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe's 'record of the week' and will feature on The Bullitts upcoming album set for release in 2011. Then in July 2011, he produced and was featured on the track "Run & Hide", which will be on the same album.

In July 2011, Jay Electronica posted via his twitter that his debut album, "Act II: Patents Of Nobility (the turn)," was complete.^[15] On October 10, 2011, Jay Electronica released the song Call Of Duty, featuring Prodigy from Mobb Deep. He stated that this single would not be on his album. On March 8th, 2012, Jay Electronica tweeted that the album is complete and will be turned in to Roc Nation ^[16]

Personal life[link]

Jay Electronica and Erykah Badu have one child together, Mars Merkaba Thedford, born on February 1, 2009.^[17] He is a member of the Five Percent Nation.^[18]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn) (TBA)
• Act III: The Last Will & Testament Of Timothy Elpadaro Thedford (The Prestige) (TBA)

EPs[link]

• Style Wars EP (2007)

Mixtapes[link]

• Act I: Eternal Sunshine (the pledge) (2007)

Singles[link]

As lead artist[link]

As featured artist[link]

Guest appearances[link]

Production discography[link]

2008[link]

[edit] Nas - Untitled

• 01. "Queens Get the Money"
  • Sample Credit: John Powell - "I Am Sam (Theme)"

External links[link]

• :::::::Magnetik7::::::: (come on in, the water's fine.) - Official web site (inactive since 2005)^[19][20][21]
• Jay Electronica Official News Source
• Jay Electronica Fan Website(domain expired)
• Jay Electronica (JayElectronica) on Twitter
• URB Jay Electronica cover (left) (.gif)
• Giles Peterson Worldwide (.mp3, 80MB) - Lengthy interview and music
• Jay Electronica video interview on redbullmusicacademy.com
• Just Blaze, Jay Electronica, & Mike "Chav" Chavarria - An Interview with Jay, Chav, & Just Blaze
• Exclaim! magazine interview with Jay Electronica-Exclaim!

Sources[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2010)

Jasmine Guy
Born	(1962-03-10) March 10, 1962 (age 50) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer, dancer
Years active	1982–present

Bishop Jasmine Guy (born March 10, 1962)^[1] is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She is best known for her starring role as Whitley Gilbert in the television sitcom A Different World.

Biography[link]

Born to an African American father and Portuguese American mother,^[2] Guy was raised in the affluent historic Collier Heights neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, where she attended the former Northside Performing Arts High School (now North Atlanta High School). Her mother is Jaye Rudolph (1930-), a former high school teacher, and her father, the Reverend William Guy (1928-), was pastor of the historic Friendship Baptist Church of Atlanta, which served as an early home to Spelman College. At the age of 17, she moved to New York City to study dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.^[3]

Personal life[link]

Jasmine Guy married Terrence Duckett in August 1998, and the couple had one child, a daughter named Imani, born in 1999. On April 8, 2008, People reported that the actress and her husband of nearly 10 years were divorcing due to irreconcilable differences. Guy and her daughter live in Atlanta,^[4].

Guy was a good friend of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, whom she met through her A Different World co-star Jada Pinkett Smith. Guy collaborated with Shakur's mother, Afeni, to write a biography of her life as a former Black Panther. The book, "Afeni Shakur: Evolution of a Revolutionary" was published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster and received critical acclaim for its poignancy.

Guy was also friends with O. J. Simpson, and is still very close friends with Kadeem Hardison and many other former cast mates.^{[citation needed]}

Television roles[link]

Guy began her television career with a non-speaking role, as a dancer, in ten episodes of the 1982 television series Fame under the direction of choreographer Debbie Allen.^[5] Following a move to California, she had a role in a 1991 episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, playing Kayla, one of Will Smith's girlfriends.

In 1992, Guy appeared in CBS's Stompin' At The Savoy with Vanessa Williams and, again, under the direction of Debbie Allen,^[6] and in 1993 played the mother of Halle Berry's character in the CBS TV mini-series Alex Haley's Queen, based upon Haley's book Queen: The Story of an American Family.

In 1995, Guy appeared as Peter Burns's love interest Caitlin Mills on two episodes of Melrose Place, and in 1996, appeared on Living Single playing a psychologist advising Khadijah who had began exhibiting symptoms of bipolar disorder. She also played the recurring role of Kathleen, a fallen angel in the CBS Network drama Touched by an Angel from 1995 to 1997.

In 2002, Guy lent her voice to the PBS math-based animated series Cyberchase, performing Ava, the queen of the cybersite Symmetria, and made a cameo appearance on the Moesha spin-off The Parkers. In 2003, Ms. Guy read as Mary Estes Peters in the HBO documentary, "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narrative", a documentary which premiered during Black History month. The slave narratives were based on the WPA slave interviews conducted during the 1930s with over two-thousand former slaves.

Guy starred alongside Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin in the series Dead Like Me, created by Bryan Fuller. The show ran 29 episodes over two seasons, in 2003 and 2004, on Showtime. Guy played Roxy Harvey, a meter maid turned police officer and one of the core group of grim reapers around which the series was based. Guy was nominated for the 2005 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the role. She later starred in the feature-length series sequel Dead Like Me: Life After Death, which was released on video in 2009 before being shown on the Syfy channel.

In 2009, Guy performed in The People Speak, a documentary that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States”.^[7] A broad look at civil rights issues in America, The People Speak was executive produced by and seen on The History Channel.^[8]

In 2010, she was seen in the second season of Lifetime's Drop Dead Diva as a judge in the episode titled "Last Year's Model",^[9] and from 2009 until 2011, Guy had a recurring role in The CW's series The Vampire Diaries. Ms. Guy played Sheila "Grams" Bennett, the grandmother of Bonnie (Katerina Graham), who turned out to be a descendant of Salem Witches.^[10] Both series are filmed in the Atlanta area.

Almost 20 years after the series' sixth and final season, Ms. Guy today remains best-known for her starring role as southern belle Whitley Gilbert in the television sitcom A Different World. A spin-off from The Cosby Show and created by Cosby himself, the show aired from 1987 to 1993 on NBC. Guy wrote three episodes of the show and directed one, in addition to appearing in every episode.^[4] Guy was nominated for and won six consecutive NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, from 1990 to 1995. Ms. Guy has received that award more times than any other actress.

Film roles[link]

Guy's first appearance on the big screen came in 1988 in Spike Lee's musical-drama film School Daze. Guy played the role of Dina, a member of the light-skinned, straight-haired African American women of Gamma Ray (a women's auxiliary to the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity).^[3] Filming on School Daze was completed just prior to her joining the cast of A Different World.

The following year, Guy appeared as Dominique La Rue in Harlem Nights starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. In the 1989 film, Pryor portrays Harlem "Sugar" Ray, the owner of an illegal casino who contends with the pressures of vicious gangsters and corrupt policemen trying to drive him out of business in 1930s Harlem. Guy's character was the girlfriend of Ray's nemesis, who set out to seduce and kill Murphy.

In 1997, she provided the voice of Sawyer in the Warner Bros. animated film Cats Don't Dance. In 2011, Guy appeared in the film, October Baby.

Stage[link]

In 1987, Guy had a starring role in the off-Broadway hit musical Beehive, before traveling to France to appear in a similar musical review.^[5] Guy has performed in several Broadway productions and national tours, including as Crow in The Wiz, Mickey in Leader of the Pack, Betty Rizzo in Grease, and as Velma Kelly in Chicago.

On April 6, 2009, Playbill reported on Guy's return to the stage, starring in the True Colors Theatre Company production of Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky. Directed by Andrea Frye, the show was a last minute addition to the company's season and opened May 4 in Atlanta.^[11] Blues came on the heels of Guy's held-over run in True Colors' Miss Evers' Boys, which co-starred TC Carson (Living Single).^[12]

Guy directed the world premiere of the musical I Dream in July 2010 on the Alliance Stage of the Woodruff Arts Centre in Atlanta. Also in 2010, Guy was a member of the cast of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Alliance Theatre Company co-production of Pearl Cleage’s The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One-Hundred Years. The production ran Sept. 24 through Oct. 3 at the Festival in Montgomery, Alabama, before moving to Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre for performances Oct. 20 thru Nov. 14.

In early 2011, Guy directed George C. Wolfe's The Colored Museum for True Colors,^[13] and in June 2011, Ms. Guy costarred with Kenny Leon in their production of Sam Shepard's play Fool For Love at The Balzer Theater at Herren’s in Atlanta, Georgia.^[14]

In August 2010, Jasmine Guy joined True Colors Theatre Company in an off stage role as the company's Producing Director. In announcing the hire, True Colors said Guy's full time position would be both administrative and artistic, and both local and national. Guy continues to contribute to the company on stage as well.^[13]

Other media[link]

During the run of A Different World, Ms. Guy released her self-titled debut album in 1990. The album peaked at #143 on the US Top 200 Album Chart and spawned three singles: "Try Me" (US R&B #14); "Another Like My Lover" (US #66, US R&B #9); and "Just Want to Hold You" (US #34, US R&B #27), with the last single cracking the main US Top 40 singles chart.

In the spring of 2006, Guy spoke to the graduating class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and revealed that she planned to record a second album. She commented that of all the entertainment industries, she felt the music industry was the worst. She intended to sell her new album online herself and not through a record company.^{[citation needed]}

The actress recorded a public service announcement for Deejay Ra's 'Hip-Hop Literacy' campaign, encouraging listeners to read books about Tupac Shakur.

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Jasmine Guy (1990)

Singles[link]

• Try Me (1990)

• Another Like My Lover (1991)

• Just Want to Hold You (1991)

• Don't Want Money (1991)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jasmine Guy at the Internet Movie Database
• Jasmine Guy at the Internet Broadway Database
• Jasmine Guy at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Jasmine Guy at Yahoo! Movies
• http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/12/entertainment/la-et-people-speak12-2009dec12
• The People Speak at the Internet Movie Database