Common

Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Erykah Badu feat. Common - Love Of My Life

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Colorado
Colorado (ⁱ/kɒləˈrædoʊ/ or /kɒləˈrɒdoʊ/) is the US state that encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, and the Mountain States. Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 22nd most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,116,796 on July 1, 2011, an increase of +1.74% since the 2010 United States Census.
The state was named for the Colorado River, which early Spanish explorers named the Río Colorado for the red colored (Spanish: colorado) silt the river carried from the mountains. On August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as the 38th state. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because it was admitted to the Union in 1876, the centennial year of the United States Declaration of Independence.

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Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( /ˈkoʊpənheɪɡən/ or /ˈkoʊpənhɑːɡən/; Danish: København pronounced [kʰøb̥m̩ˈhɑʊ̯ˀn] ( listen), Latin: Hafnia) is the capital of Denmark and its most populous city, with an urban population of 1,213,822 (as of 1 January 2012 (2012 -01-01)^[update]) and a metropolitan population of 1,935,746 (as of 1 April 2012 (2012 -04-01)^[update]). With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region. Within this region, Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö are growing into a combined metropolitan area. Copenhagen is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager.
First documented in the 11th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the beginning of the 15th century. During the 17th century, under the reign of Christian IV, it became a significant regional centre.
Copenhagen is a major regional centre of culture, business, media, and science, as indicated by several international surveys and rankings (see International rankings below). Life science, information technology and shipping are important sectors, and research & development plays a major role in the city's economy. Its strategic location and excellent infrastructure, with the largest airport in Scandinavia,Kastrup, located 14 minutes by train from the city centre, have made it a regional hub and a popular location for regional headquarters and conventions.

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Denver
Denver ( /ˈdɛnvər/) (Arapaho: Niinéniiniicíihéhe' ) is the largest city and the capital of the U.S. state of Colorado. As Denver County, it is the second most populous county in Colorado after El Paso County, which surpassed Denver County as of the 2010 Census. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Denver downtown district is located immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is nicknamed the Mile-High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile (1.6 km) or 5,280 feet (1,609.344 m) above sea level, which is defined by the elevation of the spot of a benchmark on the steps of the State Capital building. The elevation of the entire city ranges from 5,130 to 5,680 feet. The 105th meridian west of Greenwich passes through Union Station and is the temporal reference for the Mountain Time Zone.

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Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem (often stylized as EMINƎM) and by his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group, D12, to mainstream recognition. As well as being a member of D12, Eminem is also one half of the hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, with Royce da 5'9". Eminem is one of the best-selling artists in the world and is the best selling artist of the 2000s. He has been listed and ranked as one of the greatest artists of all time by many magazines including the Rolling Stone magazine which has ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The same magazine has declared him The King of Hip Hop. Including his work with D12 and Bad Meets Evil, Eminem has achieved ten number-one albums on the Billboard 200. He has sold more than 42 million tracks and 41 million albums in the United States, and nearly 90 million albums worldwide.
Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP. That first album, The Marshall Mathers LP and his third major album, The Eminem Show, all won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win Best Rap Album for three consecutive LPs. The Marshall Mathers LP is also considered one of Eminem's best and most successful albums. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004's Encore, titled Relapse, on May 15, 2009. In 2010, Eminem released his seventh studio album Recovery, which was an international success. Recovery was also named the best selling album worldwide of 2010 joining The Eminem Show, which was the best seller of 2002. Eminem won Grammy Awards for both Relapse and Recovery, giving him a total of 13 Grammys in his career. Eminem has named Masta Ace, Big Daddy Kane, Newcleus, the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, AZ, Nas, and Ice-T amongst others as his influences.

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Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education (law, medicine, podiatric medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, architecture) and prepares the largest body of professional practitioners in Pennsylvania, offering over 300 academic degree programs at seven campuses and sites in Pennsylvania and its international campuses in Rome, Tokyo, Singapore and London. It is the 26th largest university in the United States with more than 37,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.
Temple is one of Pennsylvania's state-related universities, meaning that it receives state funds but is independently operated. It shares this status with the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Lincoln University.
Temple University has over 300 degree programs from 17 schools and colleges and 4 professional schools. The university is known for its programs in areas such as business, communications, education, art, music, science, and the health professions. Temple is ranked 132nd amongst national universities and 66th amongst public institutions in the US according to U.S. News & World Report's 2011 rankings, placing it 3rd in Pennsylvania for public universities. Temple is also regarded as one of the "Best Northeastern Colleges" and having the 35th best entrepreneurial undergraduate program in the nation according to Princeton Review. The Princeton Review and Forbes also named Temple one of the most connected campuses in the United States in their 2006 survey.

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Tribeca
Tribeca (sometimes stylized as TriBeCa, pronounced /tɹaɪbɛkə/) is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street": the triangle is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street. The neighborhood is home to the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Tribeca name came to be applied to the area south of Canal Street, between Broadway and West Street, extending south to Chambers Street. The area was among the first residential neighborhoods developed in New York beyond the boundaries of the city during colonial times, with residential development beginning in the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century the area transformed into a commercial center, with large numbers of store and loft buildings constructed along Broadway in the 1850s and 1860s.
Development in the area was spurred by the extension of the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line, which opened for service in 1918, and the accompanying extension of Seventh Avenue and the widening of Varick Street during subway construction in 1914. That resulted in better access to the area both for vehicles and for travelers using public transportation. The area was also served by the IRT Ninth Avenue Line, an elevated train line on Greenwich Street demolished in 1940.

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White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.

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A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of MC/producer Q-Tip, MC Phife Dawg aka Phife Diggy (Malik Taylor), and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 1991. Along with De La Soul, the group was a central part of the Native Tongues Posse, and enjoyed the most commercial success out of all the groups to emerge from that collective. Their innovative fusing of hip hop and jazz has had a lasting impact on hip hop music, helping to expand the art of hip hop production. Many of their songs, such as "Bonita Applebum", "Can I Kick It?", "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo", "Scenario", "Check the Rhime", "Jazz (We've Got)", "Award Tour" and "Electric Relaxation" are regarded as classics by the hip hop community.
They released five albums between 1990 and 1998. The first three LPs were highly acclaimed, but the group disbanded in 1998. In 2006, the group reunited and toured the U.S., and planned to release an album after some works in the studio. The group is regarded as iconic pioneers of alternative hip hop music, having helped to pave the way for innovative hip hop artists. John Bush of Allmusic called them "the most intelligent, artistic rap group during the 1990s," while the editors of About.com ranked them #4 on their list of the "25 Best Rap Groups of All Time." In 2005, A Tribe Called Quest received a Special Achievement Award at the Billboard R&B Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta. In 2007, the group was formally honored at the 4th VH1 Hip Hop Honors.

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Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa (born April 19, 1957) is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal Hip Hop Culture as well as the Father of The Electro Funk Sound. Through his co-opting of the street gang the Black Spades into the music and culture-oriented Universal Zulu Nation, he is responsible for spreading hip hop culture throughout the world. On September 27, 2007, he was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Afrika Bambaataa grew up in The Bronx River Projects, with an activist mother and uncle. As a child, he was exposed to the black liberation movement, and witnessed debates between his mother and uncle regarding the conflicting ideologies in the movement. He was exposed to his mother's extensive and eclectic record collection. Gangs in the area became the law in the absence of law, clearing their turf of drug dealers, assisting with community health programs and both fighting and partying to keep members and turf. Bambaataa was a founding member of The Bronx River Projects-area street gang The Savage Seven. Due to the explosive growth of the gang, it later became known as the Black Spades, and Bambaataa quickly rose to the position of warlord. As warlord, it was his job to build ranks and expand the turf of the Black Spades. Bambaataa was not afraid to cross turfs to forge relationships with other gang members, and with other gangs. As a result, the Spades became the biggest gang in the city in terms of both membership and turf.

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Akon
Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam (born April 16, 1973), better known as simply Akon, is a Senegalese American R&B and hip hop recording artist, songwriter, record producer and businessman. He rose to prominence in 2004 following the release of "Locked Up", the first single from his debut album Trouble.
He has since founded two successful record labels, Konvict Muzik and Kon Live Distribution. His second album, "Konvicted" received three nominations for the Grammy Awards in two categories, Best Contemporary R&B Album for "Konvicted" album and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Smack That" and "I Wanna Love You". He is the first solo artist to hold both the number one and two spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 charts 'twice'.
Akon often sings hooks for other artists and is currently credited with over 300 guest appearances and more than 35 Billboard Hot 100 songs. He has worked with numerous performers such as Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Eminem, Whitney Houston, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg and many more artists. He has had five Grammy Awards nominations and has produced many hits for artists such as Lady Gaga, Colby O'Donis, Kardinal Offishall and Leona Lewis. Lady Gaga and T-Pain are two artists who were given their chance at fame by Akon.

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Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Keys was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano. She attended Professional Performing Arts School and graduated at 16 as valedictorian. Keys released her debut album with J Records, having had previous record deals first with Columbia and then Arista Records.
Keys' debut album, Songs in A Minor, was a commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. She became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B artist of 2001. The album earned Keys five Grammy Awards in 2002, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Fallin'". Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and was also another success worldwide, selling eight million copies. The album garnered her an additional four Grammy Awards in 2005. Later that year, she released her first live album, Unplugged, which debuted at number one in the United States. She became the first female to have an MTV Unplugged album to debut at number one and the highest since Nirvana in 1994.

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Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie ( /dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE, born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress and director. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie promotes humanitarian causes, and is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has been cited as the world's "most beautiful" woman, a title for which she has received substantial media attention.
Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in Lookin' to Get Out (1982), but her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in the cyber-thriller Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

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Assata Shakur
Assata Olugbala Shakur (born July 16, 1947 as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard) is an African-American activist and escaped convict who was a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA). Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes and made the subject of a multi-state manhunt.
In May 1973 Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded. Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents—charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping—resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout.
Shakur was then incarcerated in several prisons, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups. She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba in political asylum since 1984. Since May 2, 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has classified her as a "domestic terrorist" and offered a $1 million reward for assistance in her capture. Attempts to extradite her have resulted in letters to the Pope and a Congressional resolution. Shakur is the step-aunt of the deceased hip hop icon Tupac Shakur, the stepson of her brother Mutulu Shakur. Her life has been portrayed in literature, film and song.

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Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

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Big Daddy Kane
Antonio Hardy (born September 10, 1968) better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is a Grammy Award-winning American rapper who started his career in 1986 as a member of the rap group the Juice Crew. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential and skilled MCs in Hip Hop. Regarding the name Big Daddy Kane, he said: "The Big Daddy part and the Kane part came from two different things. The Kane part came from my fascination with the martial arts flicks when I was young. The Big Daddy came from something that happened on a ski trip one time involving a young lady."
In 1984, Kane became friends with Biz Markie, and he would co-write some of Biz's best-known lyrics. Both eventually became important members of the Queens-based Juice Crew, a collective headed by renowned producer Marley Marl. Kane signed with Marl's Cold Chillin' Records label in 1987 and debuted the following year with the 12" single "Raw," an underground hit. Kane is known for his ability to syncopate over faster hip hop beats, and despite his asthmatic condition he is acknowledged as one of the pioneering masters of fast-rap. His sense of style is renowned and set a number of late-1980s and early-1990s hip hop trends (high-top fades, velour suits, and four-finger rings). The backronym "King Asiatic Nobody's Equal" is often applied to his moniker.

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Big Sean
Sean Michael Anderson (born March 25, 1988), better known by his stage name Big Sean, is an American rapper. Big Sean signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music in 2007, and then in 2008 signed with Def Jam Recordings.
Sean Michael Anderson was born in Santa Monica, California, and he moved at two months old to west Detroit (6 Mile and Wyoming) where he was raised by his mother and grandmother. He attended Detroit Waldorf School and graduated from Cass Technical High School with a 3.7 GPA. Big Sean is often heard saying " west side " in his songs; he is referring to the west side of his hometown Detroit, Michigan. In his later years in high school, Sean gained a valuable relationship with Detroit hip hop station WHTD; he would show his rhyming skills on a weekly basis as part of a rap battle contest held by the station.
In 2005, Kanye West was doing a radio interview at 102.7 FM. Hearing about this, Sean headed over to the station to meet West and perform some free-style. Initially Kanye was reluctant to hear the emcee, however he gave Sean 16 bars to rap for him, eventually according to Big Sean "As we get to the entrance of the radio station ... we stopped in the middle of the doorway. He starts looking at me and bobbing his head,". He left a demo-tape as well. Two years later, West finally signed Big Sean to GOOD Music.

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Biz Markie
Marcel Theo Hall (born April 8, 1964,Harlem, New York) better known by his stage name, Biz Markie, is an American rapper, beatboxer, DJ, comedian, singer, reality television personality, and commercial spokesperson. He is best known for his single "Just a Friend", an American Top 10 hit in 1989. In 2008, "Just a Friend" made #100 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest hip hop songs of all time.
Markie has been called "the Clown Prince of Hip Hop."
Biz Markie's career began on Long Island, New York in the early 1980s, where he established his reputation for beat-boxing and rapping. MC Shan and Roxanne Shante were part of Marley Marl's Cold Chillin' Records, and Biz beatboxed on Shante's underground hit "Def Fresh Crew" (1986). This lent credibility to his recording career and put Cold Chillin' on the map. In the same year, Biz Markie's debut single, "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz", was released on Prism Records. He released his debut album, Goin' Off, which attracted a fair amount of attention, largely due to the lead single, "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz". The album also featured the underground hit singles "Nobody Beats The Biz", "The Vapors" and "Pickin' Boogers".

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Black Thought
Tariq Trotter (born on October 3, 1971), better known as Black Thought, is an American hip-hop artist who is the lead MC of the Philadelphia-based hip hop group The Roots, as well as an occasional actor. Black Thought, who co-founded The Roots with drummer ?uestlove (Ahmir Thompson), is widely lauded for his live performance skills and his complex and politically aware lyrical content.
Black Thought was born Tariq Trotter and attended the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts and Millersville University. In 1987, Trotter became friends with drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson and formed a drummer/MC duo performing on the streets of Philadelphia and at talent shows. Trotter would subsequently spend some time as one of two MCs in the group The Square Roots: the other one was Malik B., who Tariq met in college. In high-school, Black Thought converted to the Islamic sect of The Nation of Gods and Earths.
The Square Roots renamed themselves the Roots and released its debut album Organix in 1993, to prepare for a concert in Germany. The Roots signed to DGC and followed up with Do You Want More?!!!??! in 1995. Recorded without any sampling, the album was more popular among alternative music fans than those of hip hop. Around the release of the album, the Roots performed at the Lollapalooza alternative music festival and Montreux Jazz Festival. Illadelph Halflife, the band's 1996 album, became its first album to chart within the top 40 spots on the Billboard 200 because of the successful single "What They Do".Things Fall Apart followed in 1999, the year the band played at the Woodstock 99 concert.

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Canibus
Germaine Williams (born December 9, 1974), better known by his stage names Canibus and Can-I-Bus, is a Jamaican-born African-American rapper, actor and member of The HRSMN, Sharpshooterz & Undergods and one-half of T.H.E.M.. Canibus rose to fame in the mid-nineties. Canibus is well known for his extensive vocabulary and vivid imagery, as well as creating intricate rhyme schemes, complex phrases and concepts that he uses in order to provide an artistic depth to his music.
Germaine Williams was born on December 9, 1974 in Kingston, Jamaica. He is of African, and Jamaican descent. His father, Basil Williams, is a former Jamaican cricketer. The family moved frequently, living in The Bronx, Queens, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Buffalo, and London due to his mother's career requiring constant relocation. Canibus stated that he was an introverted child growing up. After completing high school in 1992, he spent a year working for AT&T and another year as a data analyst for the U.S. Department of Justice. His interest in computers and the Internet led him to study computer science at DeKalb College in Atlanta.

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Chantay Savage
Chantay Savage is an R&B/dance singer who found substantial success in the 1990s with "I Will Survive", in which she reworked the Gloria Gaynor disco anthem. In total her singles have spent 452 weeks on various Billboard singles charts, and her albums have spent a total of 81 weeks on various Billboard charts.
Before Savage signed a recording contract, she parlayed success into gigs as a session musician, singer, and songwriter with artists such as CeCe Peniston and Tanya Blount, she co-wrote Peniston's number one Dance single "We Got a Love Thang". In 1993 she released her first single "If You Believe" from her debut album Here We Go..., her follow-up "Betcha'll Never Find" became a top twenty dance and R&B hit on the Billboard chart. She also released the singles "Don't Let It Go to Your Head" and "Give It to Ya".
In 1995 she teamed up with Aaliyah, En Vogue, BlackGirl, Mary J. Blige, Vanessa Williams, SWV, and others for the single "Freedom" from the movie Panther.
Savage took two years off before she returned in 1996 with "I Will Survive" from her second album I Will Survive (Doin' It My Way). The lead single became a moderate smash in the U.S., where it reached #5 on Billboard's R&B chart, and number 12 in the UK Singles Chart. The single was also certified gold by the RIAA for US single sales of over 500,000 units. In 1997 she, along with Deborah Cox, Heavy D, and Brownstone performed Janet Jackson's #1 single "That's the Way Love Goes" at the Soul Train Music Awards tribute to the popular icon. In 1998 Savage scored another minor hit with "Reminding Me (Of Sef)", performed by Common. It was a top 10 hit on Billboard's Hot Rap chart.

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Cyhi the Prynce
Cydel Young (born September 15, 1984), better known by his stage name CyHi the Prynce (sometimes stylized as CyHi Da Prynce), is an American hip hop recording artist from Stone Mountain, Georgia. He is signed to Akon's Konvict Muzik label, also Bu Thiam's BuVision label, Kanye West's GOOD Music label and Def Jam Recordings. Cyhi has made appearances on Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and has released five mixtapes, with the latest being Jack of All Trades.
Growing up, Cydel played various sports including football, basketball, and track and field, in addition to singing in school choirs and participating in school plays and dances. He was raised Baptist by strict parents, who didn't allow him to listen to rap music until he was 12 years of age. However, Young cites his parents' methods as a foundation upon which he could build himself in character.
Cyhi first gained major buzz in 2010 when he received a co-sign from Kanye West. He reports that the singer Beyonce, a friend of West and the wife of his mentor, Jay-Z, convinced Kanye to sign him to the rapper/producer's GOOD Music label. This culminated in Cydel's inclusion on the popular single to Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "So Appalled" as well as several tracks from West's GOOD Fridays series.

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Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr. Philip Chandler for six years. He has received much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas and Herman Boone.
Washington has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe awards, and a Tony Award. He is notable for winning the Best Supporting Actor for Glory in 1989; and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 for his role in the film Training Day.
Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, near New York City, New York on December 28, 1954. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor-owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. His father, Reverend Denzel Hayes Washington, Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, served as an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the Water Department and a local department store, S. Klein.

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Derrick Hodge
Derrick Hodge (Born July 5, 1979 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American bassist, composer, and music producer. He is also the founder of Son of Knowledge Music and Son of Knowledge Entertainment.
Derrick Hodge began studying electric guitar at the age of 7, inspired by the playing of West Philadelphia’s Beulah Baptist Church choir’s bassist, Joel Ruffiin. A year later, Hodge switched to electric bass guitar and began playing in the elementary school concert band and orchestra. In junior high, he was introduced to the upright contrabass. At the time, there were no bass instructors so Hodge learned the instrument by using his electric bass technique and by watching the first and second violins sitting across from him. And for jazz band, he just played the upright bass as if it were an electric bass, disallowing the lack of instructional resources to be his hindrance. He considers himself a product of a hotbed of talent from the greater Philadelphia region which had a thriving gospel, jazz, classical, R&B and emerging hip hop scene. He also credits mentors such as James Poyser, Jethaniel Nixon, and others throughout his teenage years.

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Devo Springsteen
Devon Harris (born December 9, 1977 in Columbus, GA), better known as Devo Springsteen, is a Grammy Award winning producer and songwriter. Springsteen launched the career of multi-platinum selling recording artist John Legend by signing him to Kanye West’s GOOD Music in 2003. Springsteen produced and co-wrote “So High”, “Live It Up”, and “Refuge (When it’s Cold Outside)” from Legend’s freshman album Get Lifted. Springsteen has also produced songs for The Last Poets, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Rhymefest, Estelle, Consequence, and won the Best Rap Song Grammy in 2006 for his production of “Diamonds (from Sierra Leone)” with Kanye West. In addition, he is a well known DJ featured at events in London, Sydney, Nairobi, Tokyo, and Johannesburg.
Devo Springsteen grew up in many different regions of the U.S. and lived in Germany for five years because both of his parents were in the U.S. Army. He graduated high school from The Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City, Missouri and shortly after attended the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, he wrestled and played football but also was active in the Philly club scene - DJing at clubs and parties as well as hosting local radio shows including WPPR and WQHS FM. After graduating from Penn’s Wharton School with a degree in Economics and Strategic Management, he moved to New York in 2000 with college roommate John Stephens (John Legend). A couple of months after Springsteen moved to New York, he was made aware by his Aunt that his cousin(Kanye West) was also to move to New York. Springsteen helped Kanye become adjusted to his new life and soon found himself working full time at a venture capital firm and part time on music assisting Kanye West with his production company, G.O.O.D. Music (then called Konman Productions). Devo Springsteen accurately recognized the benefits in linking Legend with West and successfully got John Legend signed to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Music record label in 2003. He holds an MBA degree from Columbia Business School.

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DJ Premier
Christopher Edward Martin (born March 21, 1966), better known by his stage name DJ Premier (also known as Preem, Premo, or Primo for short), is an American record producer and DJ, and was the instrumental half of the hip hop duo Gang Starr, together with emcee Guru. Born in Houston and raised in Prairie View, Texas, he has lived in Brooklyn, New York, for much of his professional career. Rolling Stone identified Premier as arguably Hip-Hop's greatest producer of all time.
The Source named DJ Premier one of the five greatest producers in hip-hop history, while the editors of About.com ranked him #1 on their Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers list. He also made the "Finals" in the search for The Greatest Hip-Hop Producer of All Time by Vibe. He attended Prairie View A&M University.
Premier is known for producing all of Gang Starr's songs as well as many of the Gang Starr Foundation's songs. His work also includes production for heavyweight rappers such as (alphabetic order) Apathy, Big L, Bun B, Canibus, D.I.T.C., Fat Joe, Game, Jay-Z, Kanye West, KRS-One, Lord Finesse, M.O.P., Mos Def, Nas, Rakim, Royce Da 5'9", The LOX, The Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, rock band Limp Bizkit, Big L, Big Daddy Kane, Ill Bill, Joell Ortiz, and pop/R&B singer Christina Aguilera, among many others.

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Djelimady Tounkara
Djelimady Tounkara is a Malian musician and one of the foremost guitarists in Africa.
Born in the culturally rich town of Kita, west of the Malian capital, Bamako, Djelimady grew up surrounded with traditional music played by members of his family, griots, musicians and historians by birth. Djelimady played djembe drum and ngoni, a banjo-like lute, as a boy. When he moved to Mali's capital, Bamako, during the 1960s, he had actually planned to work as a tailor. But music proved a stronger calling. He started playing guitar in a large, government-sponsored neighborhood band, Orchestre Misira. Voted the best guitarist in the band, Djelimady was selected to join the Orchestre National as rhythm guitarist, a great honor for the young player.
All his adult life, Djelimady has worked to transform his ancestral traditions into dance pop. But at the same time, he has continued to work in more traditional contexts, backing the great griot singers of Mali on records, in concerts and at the day-long wedding and baptism celebrations that are the modern griot's life blood. In recent years, Djelimady has performed in an acoustic trio called Bajourou, accompanied by another masterful griot guitarist, Bouba Sacko, and by singer Lafia Diabate, a veteran of the Rail Band.

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Dwele
Andwele Gardner (born February 14, 1978), better known by his stage name Dwele is a soul singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan.
Gardner was raised on the west side of Detroit in a musical family. He played piano from the age of six, later taking up trumpet, bass and guitar. He was deeply affected by the fatal shooting of his father outside his home when he was age ten, later stating "I learned to put my emotions into music; it was my therapy." He cites Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Roy Ayers, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard as favorite artists, and took inspiration from hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, becoming an MC, and working with Slum Village. Gardner recorded a demo in his bedroom, called, The Rize, and sold it out of the trunk of his car. He had about 100 copies, which sold out within a week. He caught the ears of local heroes Slum Village and more specifically their world-renowned producer J Dilla.Slum Village invited Dwele to sing the hook of the song "Tainted" for their album Trinity (Past, Present and Future). It became an instant classic and led to more high profile work with female rapper Bahamadia, the all-star group Lucy Pearl and London's New Sector Movement. Dwele signed to Virgin Records in 2003, who released his debut album, Subject, which mixed neo soul and hip hop. In a 2005 review in The Independent, his style was summed up: "Dwele's rooted in vintage soul but isn't stuck in the past, overly reverential or an exercise in pastiche - there's a major hip-hop edge which betrays his original incarnation as a rapper." A second album, Some Kinda..., followed in 2005. He then later signed with RT Music Group and KOCH records in March, 2008 He released his fourth album titled, W.ants W.orld W.omen on June 29, 2010. Dwele was featured on the first single off of Kanye West's fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song was entitled "Power" and was leaked on May 28, 2010.

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Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem (often stylized as EMINƎM) and by his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group, D12, to mainstream recognition. As well as being a member of D12, Eminem is also one half of the hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, with Royce da 5'9". Eminem is one of the best-selling artists in the world and is the best selling artist of the 2000s. He has been listed and ranked as one of the greatest artists of all time by many magazines including the Rolling Stone magazine which has ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The same magazine has declared him The King of Hip Hop. Including his work with D12 and Bad Meets Evil, Eminem has achieved ten number-one albums on the Billboard 200. He has sold more than 42 million tracks and 41 million albums in the United States, and nearly 90 million albums worldwide.
Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP. That first album, The Marshall Mathers LP and his third major album, The Eminem Show, all won Grammy Awards, making Eminem the first artist to win Best Rap Album for three consecutive LPs. The Marshall Mathers LP is also considered one of Eminem's best and most successful albums. Eminem then went on hiatus after touring in 2005. He released his first album since 2004's Encore, titled Relapse, on May 15, 2009. In 2010, Eminem released his seventh studio album Recovery, which was an international success. Recovery was also named the best selling album worldwide of 2010 joining The Eminem Show, which was the best seller of 2002. Eminem won Grammy Awards for both Relapse and Recovery, giving him a total of 13 Grammys in his career. Eminem has named Masta Ace, Big Daddy Kane, Newcleus, the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, AZ, Nas, and Ice-T amongst others as his influences.

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Erykah Badu
Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), better known by her stage name Erykah Badu /ˈɛrɨkə bɑːˈduː/, is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, record producer, activist and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical stylings and sense of fashion. She is known as the "First Lady of Neo-Soul" or the "Queen of Neo-Soul".
Early in her career, Badu was recognizable for wearing very large and colorful headwraps. For her musical sensibilities, she has often been compared to jazz great Billie Holiday. She was a core member of the Soulquarians, and is also an actress having appeared in a number of films playing a range of supporting roles in movies such as Blues Brothers 2000, The Cider House Rules and House of D. She also speaks at length in the documentary Before the Music Dies.
Erykah Badu was born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, Texas, on February 26, 1971. Her mother raised her and her brother and sister alone; their father, William Wright, Jr., had deserted the family early in their lives. To provide for her family, the children's grandmother often helped looking after them while Erykah's mother, Kolleen Maria Gipson (Wright), performed as an actress in theatrical productions. Influenced by her mother, Erykah had her first taste of show business at the age of 4, singing and dancing with her mother at the Dallas Theatre Centre. Erykah Badu was the owner of Focal point in Dallas, Texas.

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Fat Joe
Joseph Antonio Cartagena (born August 19, 1970), better known by his stage name Fat Joe, is an American rapper, CEO of Terror Squad Entertainment, and member of musical groups D.I.T.C. and Terror Squad.
Fat Joe's first album was Represent, released in 1993, followed by Jealous One's Envy in 1995. From 1998 to 2006, he was signed to Atlantic Records, releasing four albums under the label, Don Cartagena in 1998, Jealous Ones Still Envy (J.O.S.E.) in 2001, Loyalty in 2002, and All or Nothing in 2005. Around the release of All or Nothing, Fat Joe became involved in a highly publicized feud with another New York City-based rapper 50 Cent, who attacked Fat Joe in his song "Piggy Bank". His most popular song in which he performed was his Remy Ma duet "Lean Back" with Terror Squad. The song was a number-one hit in the summer of 2004.
Starting in 2006, when his album Me, Myself, & I was released, Fat Joe was signed to Imperial Records, which distributes through Terror Squad Entertainment. His follow up album wasThe Elephant in the Room, which was released in 2008; Jealous Ones Still Envy 2 (J.O.S.E. 2), the sequel to Jealous Ones Still Envy (J.O.S.E.), was released in October 2009. His tenth album The Darkside Vol. 1 was released on July 27, 2010.

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Fela Kuti
Fela Anikulapo Kuti (15 October 1938 — 2 August 1997), or simply Fela ([feˈlæ]), was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.
Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria into a middle-class family. His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement and his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a Protestant minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers. His brothers, Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, both medical doctors, are well known in Nigeria. Fela was a first cousin to the Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Fela was sent to London in 1958 to study medicine but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a fusion of jazz and highlife. In 1960, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni, and Sola). In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He played for some time with Victor Olaiya and his All Stars.

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Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television series, The Shield. Whitaker won an Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland. Whitaker has also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.
Whitaker was born in Longview, Texas, and his family moved to South Central Los Angeles when he was four. His father, Forest Whitaker, Jr., was an insurance salesman and the son of novelist Forest Whitaker, Sr. His mother, Laura Francis (née Smith), was a special education teacher who put herself through college and earned two Masters degrees while raising her children. Whitaker has two younger brothers, Kenn and Damon, and an older sister, Deborah.
As a teenager, Whitaker commuted from Carson to wealthy Palisades High School on LA's West Side. There, he was all-league defensive tackle on the football team quarterbacked by Jay Schroeder, a future NFL player. While in high school, he also took voice lessons, performed in musicals, and caught the "acting bug"; his first role as an actor was the lead in Dylan Thomas' play, Under Milk Wood. Whitaker graduated from "Pali High" in 1979.

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Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.
From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.
Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.

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J Dilla
James Dewitt Yancey (February 7, 1974 – February 10, 2006), better known by the stage names J Dilla, J Mukandila and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan. According to his obituary at NPR.org, he "was one of the music industry's most influential hip-hop artists, working for big-name acts like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Common."
Renowned producer Pete Rock placed J Dilla on his list of the top five producers of all time, while the editors of About.com ranked him #15 on their list of the Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers. Andy Kellman of Allmusic stated that—by 2004, after being active for well over a decade as a producer—J Dilla had accomplished enough to be considered "an all-time great." J Dilla made the "Elite 8" in the search for The Greatest Hip-Hop Producer of All Time by Vibe. Also, The Source placed him on its list of the 20 greatest producers in the magazine's twenty-year history.
Yancey's career began slowly. He has now become highly regarded, most notably for the production of critically acclaimed albums by Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Common, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde, and Erykah Badu. He was a member of Slum Village and produced their acclaimed debut album Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1) and their follow-up Fantastic, Vol. 2.

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James Poyser
James Poyser (born January 31,) in Sheffield, England is a multi-Grammy winning songwriter, musician and multi-platinum producer.
Poyser has written and produced songs for various legendary and award-winning artists including Erykah Badu, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Lauryn Hill, Common, Anthony Hamilton, D'Angelo, The Roots, and Keyshia Cole.
During his career, Poyser has toured, and played live with such distinctive artists as Jay-Z, The Roots, Erykah Badu, and Aretha Franklin. An active session musician, he has contributed to the works of Adele, Norah Jones, Eric Clapton, Joss Stone, Ziggy Marley, Macy Gray and Femi Kuti.
Poyser received a Grammy for Best R&B Song in 2003 for co-writing Erykah Badu and Common's hit "Love Of My Life." James was also the executive producer on Badu's highly celebrated albums, Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground.
A longtime collaborator and member of The Roots, James has joined them on stage, performing live as the houseband for NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series Entourage for which he has won a Golden Globe Award and three Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Piven was born in Manhattan, New York, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. He was raised in a Jewish household. He graduated from Evanston Township High School,^{[dead link]} and attended Harand Theater Camp in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, as a teenager. He played the part of "Bernardo" in West Side Story there. In Illinois, he trained at Piven Theatre Workshop, founded by his parents, Byrne Piven and Joyce Piven, both of whom were actors and drama teachers. He also attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. He spent a semester at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. He has appeared in a number of films with John Cusack, who is also from Evanston and is a fellow alumnus of the Piven Theatre Workshop (as are Cusack's sisters Joan and Ann). Piven and Cusack once shared an apartment and have been friends since high school.

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Jill Scott
Dependency or dependent may refer to:
without one, in the case of independent forms
Among monastic orders, the term denotes the relation of a monastic community with a newer community which it has established elsewhere. The relationship can be that of an abbey with a priory composed of the monks who originated from the first house. In that situation, the abbot remains the ultimate authority for the affairs of the dependent priory, which is considered an extension of the founding house. This relationship will end at such time as the daughter community might become fully autonomous and an abbey in its own right.
Smaller monasteries of nuns within a monastic congregation can make a bond with a monastery of monks within the same division of the Order, whereby the two are affiliated, and the monks guarantee pastoral care of the nuns. In this sense, the women's house is considered a dependency on that of the men.

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John Connor
John Connor is a character appearing in the American science fiction Terminator franchise and he serves as the series' main protagonist. Created by writer and director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears portrayed by teenage actor Edward Furlong in its 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The character is subsequently portrayed by 23-year-old Nick Stahl in the 2003 film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and by 19-year-old Thomas Dekker in the 2007 television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. English actor Christian Bale portrays Connor in the film series' fourth installment, 2009's Terminator Salvation.
In the narrative of his fictional universe, John Connor is a messianic figure who will lead the Resistance to defeat an empire of robotic Terminators amassed by Skynet (the rogue military supercomputer) following Judgment Day (a cybernetic revolt doomsday event). When his mother Sarah Connor became the target of a time travelling Terminator unit in the first film The Terminator, John sent resistance fighter Kyle Reese to protect her, knowing Kyle and Sarah would later conceive John himself. With foreknowledge from his parents, John fends off Terminator assassination attempts in the second and third films before Judgment Day. In the fourth film, John fights with the Resistance in a post-apocalyptic setting after Skynet has taken over. As the series' central plot heavily involves the concept of time travel, the story of the character is often non-linear and portrays many possible outcomes, for example The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator 3 both continue from the ending of Terminator 2 but are depicted as taking place in alternate timelines.

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John Legend
John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978), better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has won nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career gained momentum through a series of successful collaborations with multiple established artists. Stephens added his voice to those of other artists, assisting in them reaching chart-topper hits. He lent his voice to Kanye West's All of the Lights, on Slum Village's "Selfish" and Dilated Peoples' "This Way". Other artists included Jay-Z's "Encore", and he sang backing vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name" and Fort Minor's "High Road." Stephens played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything."
Stephens was born on December 28, 1978, in Springfield, Ohio. He is the son of Phyllis, a seamstress, and John Mills, a factory worker and former National Guardsman. Throughout his childhood, Stephens was homeschooled on and off by his mother. At the age of four, he began playing the piano and at the age of seven, he performed with his church choir. When he was ten, his parents divorced, causing his mother to suffer a breakdown. At the age of 12, Stephens attended North High School, from which he graduated four years later. He graduated salutatorian.

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Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian. He is widely known as host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central.
Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but branched into television as host of Short Attention Span Theater for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called The Jon Stewart Show, and then hosted another show on MTV called You Wrote It, You Watch It. He has also had several film roles as an actor. Stewart became the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-executive-producer of the show. After Stewart joined, The Daily Show steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim, resulting in his sixteen Emmy Awards.
Stewart has gained acclaim as an acerbic, satirical critic of personality-driven media shows, in particular those of the US media networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. Critics say Stewart benefits from a double standard: he critiques other news shows from the safe, removed position of his "fake news" desk. Stewart agrees, saying that neither his show nor his channel purports to be anything other than satire and comedy. In spite of its self-professed entertainment mandate, The Daily Show has been nominated for news and journalism awards. Stewart hosted the 78th and 80th Academy Awards. He is the co-author of America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which was one of the best-selling books in the U.S. in 2004 and Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race released in 2010.

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Kanye West
Kanye Omari West ( /ˈkɑːnjeɪ/; born June 8, 1977) is an American musician, film director and fashion designer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used pitched-up vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. However, subsequent productions saw him broadening his musical palette and expressing influences encompassing '70s R&B, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock, folk, alternative, electronica, synthpop, and classical music.
West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, his second album Late Registration in 2005, his third album Graduation in 2007, his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, and his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. West released a collaborative album, Watch the Throne with Jay-Z in 2011, which is the duo's first collaborative album. His five solo albums, all of which have gone platinum, have received numerous awards and critical acclaim. As of 2012, West has won a total of eighteen Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time. All albums have been very commercially successful, with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy becoming his fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. upon release. West has had 5 songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of July 2011, with "Gold Digger" selling 3,086,000, "Stronger" selling 4,402,000, "Heartless" selling 3,742,000, "E.T." selling over 4,000,000 and "Love Lockdown" selling over 3,000,000 placing him third in overall digital sales of the past decade. He has sold over 30 million digital songs in the United States making him one of the best-selling digital artists of all-time.

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Karriem Riggins
Karriem Riggins (born August 25, 1975) is a jazz drummer, hip hop producer, dj, and sometime rapper. He is a former member of the Ray Brown Trio and Mulgrew Miller trio and currently appears in the Diana Krall quartet.
Riggins was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father, Emmanuel Riggins, is also a musician, and Karriem would often play drums with him as a child. Riggins began producing hip hop in middle school and continued through high school. He studied music at Southfield High School as well, and joined Betty Carter's band Jazz Ahead soon after, at 17. When he was 19 (in 1994), Riggins moved to New York City, and joined the Ray Brown Trio in 1998. Riggins has also recorded and performed with Donald Byrd, Hank Jones, Mulgrew Miller, Milt Jackson, Oscar Peterson, Cedar Walton, Roy Hargrove, and Bobby Hutcherson.
Away from jazz, Riggins has done production work for hip hop artists including Slum Village, Erykah Badu, Common, J Dilla, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Phat Kat, Consequence, and Dwele. He has collaborated with the hip hop multi-instrumentalist Madlib, performing on his 2007 album Yesterdays Universe and in collaborations entitled Supreme Team and The Jahari Massamba Unit. and also produced a portion of the soundtrack for the 2007 film Smokin' Aces.

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Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves ( /keɪˈɑːnuː/ kay-AH-noo; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian film actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his role in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure as well as Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix. He has worked under major directors, such as Stephen Frears (in the 1988 period drama Dangerous Liaisons); Gus Van Sant (in the 1991 independent film My Own Private Idaho); and Bernardo Bertolucci (in the 1993 film Little Buddha). Referring to his 1991 film releases, The New York Times’ critic, Janet Maslin, praised Reeves’ versatility, saying that he “displays considerable discipline and range. He moves easily between the buttoned-down demeanor that suits a police procedural story and the loose-jointed manner of his comic roles.” A repeated theme in roles he has portrayed is that of saving the world, including the characters of Ted Logan, Buddha, Neo, Johnny Mnemonic, John Constantine and Klaatu.
In addition to his film roles, Reeves has also performed in theatre. His performance in the title role in a Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Hamlet was praised by Roger Lewis, the Sunday Times, who declared Reeves " … one of the top three Hamlets I have seen, for a simple reason: he is Hamlet."^{[citation needed]} On January 31, 2005, Reeves received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Kid Cudi

Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi (born January 30, 1984), better known by his stage name Kid Cudi ( /ˈkɪd ˈkʌdi/ KID KUD-ee), sometimes stylized KiD CuDi, is an American alternative hip hop recording artist, singer-songwriter, guitarist and actor. He first gained major attention after the release of his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. In 2009, his single "Day 'n' Nite" reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. "Day 'n' Nite" was included on Cudi's debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day, which was later certified Gold. In 2010 he released his second studio album Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, preceded by the release of two singles "Erase Me" and "Mr. Rager". In October 2010, Cudi announced that he would be forming a rock band with Dot da Genius called 'Wizard', later renamed WZRD. Their self-titled debut album was released on February 28, 2012. Kid Cudi has sold over 4.6 million digital singles and has worked with Kanye West, Common, David Guetta and other artists signed to the GOOD Music label.

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Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Noelle Hill (born May 26, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actress.
Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The recording earned Hill 5 Grammy Awards, including the coveted Album of the Year and Best New Artist.
Following the success of her debut album, Hill largely dropped out of public view, in part due to her displeasure with fame and the music industry. After a four-year hiatus, she released MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, a live recording of "deeply personal songs" performed mostly solo with an acoustic guitar. In more recent years, she has recorded songs for soundtracks and mixtapes, as well as performing live at several music festivals. Hill has 6 children, five of whom are with Rohan Marley, one of reggae musician Bob Marley's sons.
Lauryn Hill was born in South Orange, New Jersey of Haitian and African-American descent,^{[citation needed]} the second of two children born to high school English teacher Valerie Hill and computer programmer Mal Hill. As a child, Hill listened to her parents' Motown 1960s soul records. Music was a central part of the Hill home. Mal Hill sang at weddings, Valerie played the piano, and Lauryn's older brother Malaney played the saxophone, guitar, drums, harmonica, and piano. In 1988, Hill appeared as an Amateur Night contestant on It's Showtime at the Apollo. She sang her own version of Smokey Robinson's song "Who's Lovin' You?", where she was booed tremendously, but persevered and ended up with audience applause.

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Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper (born 2 May 1985), better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist, actress and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative. Allen abandoned school and concentrated on improving her performing and compositional skills. Afterwards, she created several demo songs and, near the end of 2005, she created a profile on MySpace where she made some of her recordings public.
A contract was signed with the label Regal Recordings, as the views on MySpace rose to tens of thousands. In 2006, she began to work on completing what would be her first studio album and its first mainstream single "Smile" reached the top position on the UK Singles Chart in July 2006. Her debut record, Alright, Still, was well received on the international market, selling over 2.6 million copies and brought Allen a nomination at the Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. She then began hosting her own talk-show, Lily Allen and Friends, on BBC Three.

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Lonnie Lynn
Lonnie Lynn, nicknamed "Pops" (born May 24, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois), is a retired American basketball player.
At 6'7" and 215 lb, he was a forward and played basketball at DuSable High School on Chicago's south side before moving on to Wilberforce University and Upper Iowa University.
Lynn was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks in the 12th round of the 1966 NBA Draft and later played one season for the Pittsburgh Pipers of the American Basketball Association in 1969–70, averaging 5.0 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.
Once known to Chicagoans for his play at DuSable High School, Lonnie Lynn has gathered a following in the rap world. Father of hip hop artist Common, Lynn performed on several of his son's albums.
On record, Lynn shares opinions, experiences and wisdom to a younger hip hop audience in spoken word poetry format. Many of these appearances, in particular "Pops Rap" on Resurrection, feature Lynn discussing the hippie ideals that have found their way into hip hop culture. In an article for National Public Radio, journalist Robert Siegel wrote of Lonnie "Pops" Lynn:

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Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. (born Louis Eugene Wolcott; May 11, 1933, and formerly known as Louis X) is the leader of the syncretic and mainly African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam (NOI). He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of the Nation of Islam. After Warith Deen Muhammad disbanded the NOI and started the orthodox Islamic group American Society of Muslims, Farrakhan started rebuilding the NOI. In 1981 he revived the name Nation of Islam for his organization, previously known as Final Call, regaining many of the Nation of Islam's National properties including the NOI National Headquarters Mosque Maryam, reopening over 130 NOI mosques in America and the world. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Farrakhan as an antisemite.
Farrakhan is a black religious and social leader and a critic of the United States government on many issues. Farrakhan has been both praised and widely criticized for his often controversial political views and outspoken rhetorical style. In October 1995, he organized and led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., calling on black men to renew their commitments to their families and communities. Due to health issues, in 2007, Farrakhan reduced his responsibilities with the NOI.

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Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Obama attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School before returning to Chicago and to work at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her future husband. Subsequently, she worked as part of the staff of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, she helped campaign for her husband's presidential bid and delivered a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She is the mother of two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and is the sister of Craig Robinson, men's basketball coach at Oregon State University. As the wife of a Senator, and later the First Lady, she has become a fashion icon and role model for women, and an advocate for poverty awareness, nutrition and healthy eating.

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Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Unforgiven, Glory, Seven, Deep Impact, The Sum of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, Batman Begins, March of the Penguins, The Bucket List, Wanted, The Dark Knight, and RED.
Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Mayme Edna (née Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber who died April 27, 1961, from cirrhosis. He has three older siblings. Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. His family moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois. Freeman made his acting debut at age 9, playing the lead role in a school play. He then attended Broad Street High School, later named Threadgill Elementary School, in Mississippi. At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and while still at Broad Street High School, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he graduated from Broad Street, but turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting instead to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.

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Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith (born December 11, 1973) is an American actor and MC, known by the stage names Mos Def ( /ˌmoʊsˈdɛf/) and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which released the album Black Star in 1998. He was a major force in late 1990s underground hip hop while with Rawkus Records. As a solo artist he has released the albums Black on Both Sides in 1999, The New Danger in 2004, True Magic in 2006, and The Ecstatic in 2009.
Although he was initially recognized for his musical output, since the early 2000s, Mos Def's screen work has established him as one of only a handful of rappers who has garnered critical acclaim for his acting work. He is well known for his portrayal of Brother Sam in the American drama series Dexter. Mos Def has also been active in several social and political causes.
He was born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Sheron Smith and Abdul Rahman. He was raised by his mother in Brooklyn; his father lived in New Jersey. While his father was initially a member of the Nation of Islam and later an active member in the community of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who merged into mainstream Islam from the Nation, Mos Def was not exposed to Islam until the age of 13. At 19, he took his shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith. He is friends with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest.

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Mr Hudson
Benjamin Hudson McIldowie (born 1979, Birmingham, England), known professionally as Mr Hudson, is an English R&B/pop artist based in London, England. Mr Hudson is signed to rapper and producer Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music. He has listed various influences, most notably Chet Baker, David Bowie, The Police, Andre 3000, Marvin Gaye, Phoenix, The Specials, Billie Holiday, Rosster, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzee Rascal.
Mr Hudson initially recorded with his band under the name Mr Hudson & The Library. Their first album, Tale of Two Cities, was released in 2007. The Library were Joy Joseph (Steel Pan, backing vocals, percussion), Torville Jones (piano), Maps Huxley (AKA Robin French, bass guitar) and Andrew "Wilkie" Wilkinson (drums). They were known for their energetic live performances and were nominated for "Best Newcomer" at the 2007 UK Festival Awards.
As a solo artist, Mr Hudson has worked with acts such as Kanye West, Dizzee Rascal, N-Dubz, KiD CuDi, Tinie Tempah, Jay-Z, Big Sean and Caspa, and also toured with Calvin Harris. His vocal performances have been compared to those of Sting. He is now accompanied by Joy Joseph (vocals and steel drum), Rob Barron (electric keyboard), Raphael Mann (bass guitar) and Andrew "Wilkie" Wilkinson (electric drums).

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Nas
Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones ( /nɑːˈsɪər/; born September 14, 1973), better known by his stage name Nas ( /ˈnɑːz/), is an American rapper and actor. He is also the son of jazz musician Olu Dara. Nas has released eight consecutive platinum and multi-platinum albums since 1994, four of which topped the Billboard charts upon release and has sold over thirteen-million records in the United States alone. Nas was also part of the hip hop supergroup The Firm, which released one album under Dr. Dre's record label Aftermath. Aside from rapping, Nas is also an occasional actor and has appeared in feature films such as Hype Williams' directorial debut Belly, Ticker and In Too Deep and the television show Hawaii Five-0.
His rise to fame began in 1991 with his feature on hip hop group Main Source's debut album on the track "Live at the Barbeque". In the years that followed, Nas garnered attention from music industry A & R's and record labels with more impressive features and a solo single "Halftime". His debut album Illmatic, released in 1994 by Columbia Records, received universal acclaim from both critics and the hip hop community and would go on to be widely hailed as a musical landmark and a classic in the genre and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest LP's of all time. His follow up album It Was Written debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Charts, stayed on top for four consecutive weeks and went platinum twice in only two months, propelling Nas to worldwide notoriety.

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Persia White
Persia White is an American actress and musician. White is known for playing free-spirited professional student Lynn Searcy on the long-running sitcom Girlfriends. She is also a member of the industrial rock band XEO3 and a solo singer, releasing her debut album Mecca in 2009.
White was born in Miami, Florida, U.S. and raised in Nassau, Bahamas, and Miami. At the age of three, she earned a scholarship to the Nassau Civic Ballet Company. At age eight, she joined the Miami Coconut Grove Children's Theater. As a teen, White studied dance, acting, singing, and painting.
She has appeared in various independent films, including Red Letters (opposite Peter Coyote) and the cult horror Blood Dolls. She starred in the made-for-TV movies Operation Sandman (opposite Ron Perlman), and Suddenly, opposite Kirstie Alley. Her television work includes guest starring roles on Angel, NYPD Blue, The Steve Harvey Show, Brooklyn South, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as a series regular role on Breaker High with co-star Ryan Gosling. In 2008, White appeared in The Fall of Night, as the character Dawn. She can also be seen in Chrisette Michele's video, "Be OK".

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Pete Rock
Peter Phillips (born June 21, 1970), better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapper. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth. After the duo went their separate ways, Rock continued with a solo career that has garnered him worldwide respect, though little in the way of mainstream success. Along with groups such as Stetsasonic, A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots and Gang Starr, Rock played a major role in the merging of elements from jazz into hip hop music (also known as jazz rap). He is widely recognized as one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time, and is often mentioned alongside DJ Premier, the RZA, and J Dilla as one of the mainstays of 1990s East Coast hip hop production. Pete Rock is also the older brother and younger cousin, respectively, of rappers Grap Luva and the late Heavy D.
Pete Rock was born in The Bronx, New York, the sixth of seven children of Jamaican immigrant parents. His family moved to Mount Vernon, New York when he was seven years old. During high school, he met his future recording partner CL Smooth. According to Rock, his father was also a part-time DJ who had an impressive record collection. Rock would often accompany his father to a cricket club called Wembley in The Bronx and watch as he spun records for the guests. His first job was as a paperboy, in his neighborhood.

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Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Williams (born April 5, 1973), commonly known simply as Pharrell, is an American rapper, singer, record producer, composer, and fashion designer. Williams and Chad Hugo make up the record production duo The Neptunes, producing hip hop and R&B music. He is also the lead vocalist and drummer of hip-hop band N.E.R.D, which he formed with Hugo and childhood friend Shay Haley. He released his first single "Frontin'" in 2003 and followed up with his first album In My Mind in 2006.
As part of The Neptunes, Williams has produced numerous hit singles for various musicians. The two have earned three Grammy Awards amongst ten nominations. He is also the co-founder of the clothing brands Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream Clothing. He is a member of the supergroup V.A. Playaz with Fam-Lay, Clipse, Skillz, Missy Elliott, and Timbaland & Magoo.
Pharrell Williams was born on April 5, 1973, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the eldest of three sons of Carolyn, a teacher, and Pharaoh Williams, a handyman. He met Chad Hugo in a seventh-grade summer band camp where Williams played the keyboards and drums and Hugo played tenor saxophone. They were also both members of a marching band; Williams played the snare drum while Chad was student conductor. With Hugo, Williams attended Princess Anne High School where they played in the school band; there he got the name Skateboard P.

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Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino (born 17 October 1957) is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk. His career has spanned several ensembles, including the John Mayer Trio and The RH Factor, a band mixing elements of soul, jazz and R&B, which he formed with jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove. He was also Pete Townshend's and Roger Daltrey's first choice to fill the position left by John Entwistle as the bassist for The Who. Adding to an eclectic grasp and melodic approach on his instrument, he has become one of the most sought-after session players on the bass and has played on a large number of recordings by some of the world's most successful entertainers, in part, by mastering a variety of techniques on both his late 1970s fretless Music Man StingRay bass guitar and, later in his career, adding fretted Fender Precision and Jaguar basses. His playing has earned him custom instruments bearing his name.

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Pusha T
Terrence Thornton (born May 14, 1977) better known by his stage name Pusha T is an American recording artist, occasional actor and one half of the critically acclaimed hip hop duo Clipse. Along with No Malice, his brother and fellow member of Clipse, he released the album Hell Hath No Fury, which was praised by critics, many of whom consider it to be a cornerstone in Hip-Hop and one of the best rap albums ever made. He is also the co-founder and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Re-Up Records along with his aforementioned brother. In September 2010 he announced his signing to Kanye West's GOOD Music label and on March 21, 2011, released his first solo project, a mixtape titled Fear of God.
Pusha T was born Terrence Thornton on May 13, 1977, in The Bronx borough of New York City. Thornton and his family soon relocated to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he and his brother, Gene 'No Malice' Thornton, grew up. In 1992 Terrence and his brother Gene formed the duo now internationally known as Clipse. With help from Pharell Williams the group eventually signed to Elektra Records in 1997 and released Exclusive Audio Footage, their only album under that label. Of the two brothers, Terrence was more open to features, appearing on Kelis' 1999 single "Good Stuff" and Nivea's 2001 single "Run Away (I Wanna Be with U)", respectively. In 2004, he and his brother launched their record label, Re-Up Records and formed hip hop group Re-Up Gang along with rappers Ab-Liva and Sandman. After four albums as the Clipse, under various record labels both Malice and Pusha T announced that they were taking time off from the duo to focus on their own respective solo projects.

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Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens (born March 18, 1970), better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy Award nomination and an Academy Award nomination.
Latifah was born, and primarily raised, in East Orange, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Rita (née Bray), a teacher at Irvington High School (her daughter's alma mater), and Lancelot Owens, Sr., a police officer, her parents divorced when Latifah was ten. Latifah was raised in the Baptist church and attended Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey. Her stage name, Latifah (لطيفة laţīfa), meaning "delicate" and "very kind" in Arabic, she found in an Islamic book of names when she was eight. Always a tall girl, the 5'10" Latifah was a power forward on her high school basketball team. She performed the number "Home" from the musical The Wiz in a high school play. She is of African American and Native American ancestry.

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Questlove
Ahmir Khalib Thompson (born on January 20, 1971) known professionally as ?uestlove or Questlove (also known as BROther ?uestion, Questo, Brother Question or Qlove), is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist and record producer. He is best known as the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thought) for the Grammy Award-winning band The Roots, which is now the in-house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
He has produced for artists such as Common, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa and more recently, Al Green, Amy Winehouse and John Legend. He is a member of the production teams the Soulquarians, The Randy Watson Experience, and The Grand Wizzards.
Thompson was born in Philadelphia on January 20, 1971. His father was Lee Andrews of Lee Andrews & the Hearts, one of the great 50s doo-wop groups.^{[citation needed]} His parents did not want to leave him with babysitters, so they took him on tour with them. He grew up in backstages of doo-wop shows. By the age of seven, Thompson began drumming on stage at shows, and by 13, had become a musical director.

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Really Doe
Warren Trotter (born July 21, 1980), better known as Really Doe, is a Grammy-award winning songwriter and American rapper from Chicago, Illinois.
Really Doe signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label in 2005. He became one-third of the group The Go Getters, formed by Kanye West and label mate GLC.
Really Doe made a guest appearance on Kanye West's “We Major” (featuring Nas) and Consequence’s “Disperse” (Featuring GLC.)
Really Doe signed with Cartel Records in 2009. Working with music producer Griffin Guess, he composed the single “Plastic”, featuring Kanye West available on iTunes. He performed the song with Kanye West at Fader Magazine’s FORT in Austin Texas.
Really Doe’s first album, “First Impressions”, released on August 18, 2009, addresses a litany of topics that range from personal struggles of growing up in Chicago, to the current political landscape and all that falls in between. Kanye West and up and coming producer Jaye Jeffers are featured on the album, available on iTunes and Best Buy. Since his album has been released, Really Doe has gone on a multi-city tour with Latin Hip-Hop duo, Wisin Y Yandel in California and Texas. Really Doe has also had write-ups in XXL as well as GIANT Magazine. Really Doe took to the Jimmy Kimmel Live stage in January 2010 and followed that with a performance on The Mo'Nique Show in that same month.

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Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe (born 7 April 1964) is a New Zealand born Australian actor, film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, an Empire Award for Best Actor and a London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and ten further nominations for Best Actor. Crowe appeared as the tobacco firm whistle blower Jeffrey Wigand in the 1999 film The Insider, for which he received five awards as Best Actor and seven nominations in the same category. In 2001, Crowe's portrayal of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John F. Nash in the biopic A Beautiful Mind brought him numerous awards, including an BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor category Motion Picture Drama and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.

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Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian film and television actor. Reynolds is known for playing the role of Michael Bergen on ABC's sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001), Wade Wilson / Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Hal Jordan / Green Lantern in Green Lantern. He has also appeared in films such as National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Just Friends, Definitely, Maybe, The Proposal, The Change-Up, and Safe House.
Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Jim, is a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tammy, is a retail salesperson. He is of Irish ancestry and was raised as a Roman Catholic. The youngest of four brothers, he graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver in 1994. He later attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also in Vancouver, until dropping out.
Reynolds' career began in 1990 when he starred as "Billy" in the Canadian-produced teen soap Hillside, distributed in the United States by Nickelodeon as Fifteen. As an adult, Reynolds starred in the National Lampoon movie Van Wilder and the American television series Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place, playing medical student Michael "Berg" Bergen. In 1993-94 he had a recurring role in The Odyssey as Macro. He also cameoed in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle as a nurse, appeared in The In-Laws with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, as well as the Canadian production Foolproof.

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Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.
The youngest of three children, Williams was born in Newburgh, New York. He attended Newburgh Free Academy for high school, where he would write his song "Black Stacey." After graduating from Morehouse College with a B.A. in acting and philosophy, Williams moved to New York City to earn an MFA in Acting from New York University's prestigious Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. There he found himself at the center of the New York cafe poetry scene.
Williams and artist Marcia Jones began their relationship in 1995 as collaborative artists on the Brooklyn performance art and spoken word circuit. Their daughter, Saturn, was born in 1996. His collection of poems S/HE is a series of reflections on the demise of the relationship. Marcia Jones, a visual artist and art professor, created the cover artwork for The Seventh Octave, images throughout S/HE in response to Williams, and set-designed his 2001 album Amethyst Rock Star. Saturn has recently been performing with her father on his 2008 concert tour.

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Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell ( /kəˈrɛl/; born August 16, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, and Crazy, Stupid, Love.; and voiced characters in the animated films Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, and Despicable Me. Carell was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for playing the lead role of Michael Scott for The Office in 2006.
Carell, the youngest of four brothers, was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and was raised in nearby Acton by his parents, Harriet T. (née Koch), a psychiatric nurse, and Edwin A. Carell, an electrical engineer. His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes. Carell's paternal grandfather was Italian; his father was born with the surname "Caroselli", later shortening it to "Carell". Carell was raised Roman Catholic, and was educated at The Fenn School and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey as a teenager for his high school.^{[citation needed]} He played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this, in which he earned his degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984. While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe.

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Talib Kweli
Talib Kweli Greene (October 3, 1975), better known as Talib Kweli, is an American rapper. Kweli hails from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" (طالب); his middle name in Swahili means "true". Kweli first gained recognition through Black Star, a collaboration with fellow MC Mos Def.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kweli grew up in a highly educated household in Park Slope. His mother, Brenda Greene, is an English professor at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York and his father an administrator at Adelphi University. His younger brother, Jamal Greene, is a professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School, and former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. As a youth, he was drawn to Afrocentric rappers, such as De La Soul and other members of the Native Tongues Posse whom he had met in high school. Talib Kweli was a student at Cheshire Academy, a boarding school in Connecticut. He was also a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, before being academically dismissed. He later studied experimental theater at New York University.

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Teyana Taylor
Teyana Taylor (born December 10, 1990) is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer, and actress. Her debut single "Google Me" was released in 2008, peaking at No. 90 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. She is of African American and Afro-Trinidadian descent.
Teyana was born and raised in Harlem, New York City. At age 4, she picked up a microphone in front of a crowd for the first time, and realized she wanted to become a singer/entertainer. Teyana was enrolled in many different talent competitions, including the Apollo Theater National All-Stars talent search. Taylor had strong influences from Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill.
Taylor appeared on MTV's My Super Sweet 16 in 2007. Before it aired, she signed to Star Trak/Interscope Records. "Google Me" was the first single from her debut album, From a Planet Called Harlem. The track peaked at number 90 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. She was a member of a band called U.G.L.Y. along with band mates Mijo, Braxton and Ethan. A snippet of U.G.L.Y.'s single "Wasted" was released early 2010. No further releases from the band have since been mentioned.

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The Ummah
The Ummah was a music production collective, composed of members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and the late Jay Dee (now known as J Dilla) of the Detroit-based group Slum Village. Occasional members included Raphael Saadiq, and D'Angelo. In addition to producing nearly the entirety of A Tribe Called Quest's fourth and fifth album, the Ummah provided backing tracks for a notable array of hip hop and contemporary R&B artists, including Busta Rhymes, Whitney Houston, Keith Murray, the Brand New Heavies, Janet Jackson, and Jon B. The group was so named because two of its members (Tip and Ali) are devout Muslims. The word "ummah" is Arabic for "community", "nation", or "brotherhood".
The collective took shape around 1995, when veteran keyboardist Amp Fiddler introduced Jay Dee (who at the time was shopping for a deal for his group) to Q-Tip. Tip was impressed enough by Jay Dee's soulful productions to invite him as an addition to Tribe's music-production team, which until then consisted of Tip and Ali Shaheed.

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Tina Fey
Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey ( /ˈfeɪ/; born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL), the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films such as Mean Girls (2004) and Baby Mama (2008).
Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City. She then joined SNL as a writer, later becoming head writer and a performer, known for her position as co-anchor in the Weekend Update segment. In 2004 she adapted the screenplay Mean Girls in which she also co-starred. After leaving SNL in 2006, she created the television series 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at SNL. In the series, Fey portrays the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series. In 2008, she starred in the comedy film Baby Mama, alongside former SNL co-star Amy Poehler. Fey next appeared in the 2010 comedy films Date Night and Megamind.
She has received seven Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, four Writers Guild of America Awards and has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her autobiographical book Bossypants, which topped the The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks. She was singled out as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008 by the Associated Press, which gave her its AP Entertainer of the Year award for her satirical portrayal of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a guest appearance on SNL. In 2010, Fey was the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the youngest-ever winner of the award.

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Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac, Pac, and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million records worldwide as of 2010, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time. The themes of most of Tupac's songs are the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry. Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground.
Both of his parents and several other family members were members of the Black Panthers, and Tupac made reference to the organization in the song "Changes". Shakur was involved in a West-coast East-coast rivalry after a major feud with East-coast rappers, producers and record-label members of staff.
On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center, where he died six days later.

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Westside Connection
Westside Connection was an American gangsta rap supergroup formed by Ice Cube, WC and Mack 10. The group's debut album, Bow Down, reached the number 2 position on the Billboard 200 in 1996, going platinum that year.
Westside Connection began performing together in 1994, appearing on Mack 10's self-titled debut album, Mack 10, on the song "Westside Slaughterhouse". A few months later, the group again joined forces, this time appearing on WC's album, Curb Servin', on the song "West Up!". Around this time the group began working on their debut album, Bow Down, which was released October 22, 1996.
Individually, Ice Cube, DUBC and Mack 10 continued working on solo projects in between group albums. Together, as Westside Connection, they produced several songs released on film soundtracks and compilations including "Bangin'" (from West Coast Bad Boyz II), "Let It Reign" (from Thicker than Water) and "It's The Holidaze" (from Friday After Next).
On December 9, 2003 the group released their second album Terrorist Threats, hallmarked by the lead single "Gangsta Nation" Produced by Fredwreck and featuring Nate Dogg.

wn.com/Westside_Connection
Wikipedia Persondata
wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
Yungun
Yungun (a.k.a. Essa) is a UK hip-hop artist. He released his debut album The Essance on Janomi Records in 2004. He was born in North London where he currently works and resides.
He was educated at Eton College.
He began his musical career as a host and MC on pirate radio station Parlay in Harrow during the mid-1990s. There he formed the group Dupa Styles with fellow MCs M.E. Moon and Devise.
In 1998 Yungun made contact with Harry Love who began to play the role of Dupa Styles's DJ and Producer. Whilst still recording with the group, Yungun began a solo career, appearing on projects by LG & Lopez (City Breaks), Evil Ed (The Art of Celebration) Doc Brown (Out There) and Tommy Evans (Four Horsemen, Silent Mobius).
Yungun has worked with many different UK artists including Jehst and Lewis Parker.
Yungun tours both nationally and internationally,^{[citation needed]} and regularly receives airplay from such DJs as Radio One's Steve Lamacq,Zane Lowe,Gilles Peterson Bethan and Huw,Vic Galloway and has performed a live studio set on Ras Kwame's show. Aside from this, Yungun has also presented a feature length show for Radio 1xtra as well as being interviewed and featured on shows from presenters such as DJ Blakey,DJ Semtex,Rodney P and Skitz,DJ Kayper,Benji B and Bobby Friction. He has also been interviewed by Craig Charles on BBC 6 Music, and is regularly played on the station's 6mix show, as well as by numerous other Radio 6 DJs such as Tom Robinson,Phill Jupitus,Chris Hawkins Gary Burton,Liz Kershaw and Andrew Collins, and has had live concerts broadcast on GCap Media's XFM Station.

wn.com/Yungun

Common - The People

published: 23 Nov 2009

author: CommonVEVO

Common - The Light

"The Light" is the Grammy-nominated second single off Common's 2000 album Like Water for C...

published: 20 Apr 2009

author: BVMUndergroundHipHop

Common - Be

Common - Be...

published: 24 Jul 2007

author: tiemodb

Common - Come Close ft. Mary J. Blige

published: 06 Oct 2009

author: CommonVEVO

Common - I Used To Love HER

I used to love her too......

published: 11 Oct 2007

author: johnniejade

Common - GO!

published: 24 Dec 2009

author: CommonVEVO

Common - Celebrate (Official Video)

published: 20 Dec 2011

author: thinkcommon

Common - Testify

published: 25 Dec 2009

author: CommonVEVO

Common - The Food

Awesome Artist!...

published: 24 Sep 2009

author: 1aMaOl

Erykah Badu feat. Common - Love Of My Life

High Quality DVD Rip...

published: 11 Apr 2009

author: ghettoonline

Pulp -- Common People

Videoclip...

published: 11 Dec 2008

author: alfpacino1

We The People Stimulus Package

Bob Basso author of "Common Sense" plays the role of Thomas Paine to ignite the fire of ch...

published: 17 Mar 2009

author: Funbobbasso

Common Physics Misconceptions

What if you thought the earth was flat? And then you found out it isn't? MinutePhysics is ...

published: 06 Dec 2012

author: minutephysics

Make Her Say (Clean Version)

published: 24 Nov 2009

author: KidCudiVEVO

<li class="playlistitemli thumbnail border_color bgr_color_content font_color">
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photo: AP / Aleppo Revolution Against Assad Regime

This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Revolution Against Assad's Regime which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows dead bodies on a street in Aleppo, Syria Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013.

Syria Massacre: Group Says At Least 65 Found Shot In Head, With Hands Bound In Aleppo

Huffington Post

29 Jan 2013

By Alexander Dziadosz and Oliver Holmes. BEIRUT, Jan 29 (Reuters) - At least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday in a "new massacre" in the near two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said. Opposition campaigners blamed the government but it was impossible to confirm who was responsible ... The U.N ... State media did not mention the incident ... STALEMATE ... ....(size: 9.0Kb)

photo: US DoD / U.S. Army Staff Sgt Sun L. Vega, Joint Staff

President Barack Obama delivers his remarks with the all the Senior Enlisted Members representing their perspective service at the Commanders in Chief Ball on January 21, 2013 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Obama secretly pledges to divide Jerusalem

WorldNetDaily

27 Jan 2013

TEL AVIV – Now that he has secured his second term, President Barack Obama has already secretly pledged to the Palestinians he will press Israel into a new round of so-called land-for-peace negotiations, a top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND. The negotiator said top members of the Obama administration told the Palestinians the U.S....(size: 2.2Kb)

photo: AP / Ronald Mendes-Agencia RBS

Relatives of victims react near the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria city, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013.

Brazil Nightclub Fire: More Than 230 Dead

Orange News

27 Jan 2013

Tweet. Police say at least 232 people have died in a fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil. Around 117 others were injured after the blaze broke out while a band was performing at the Kiss club in the southern city of Santa Maria at about 2am (local time). Police earlier said more than 245 people had died in the fire. It is thought pyrotechnics being used for the concert may have caused the blaze ... ....(size: 2.6Kb)

photo: AP / Khalil Hamra

Morsy declares emergency in Egypt’s restive cities

The Hindu

28 Jan 2013

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy on Sunday declared a state of emergency and a nightime curfew for one month in three restive cities after days of deadly violence. Mr. Morsy, facing his worst crisis since taking office in June, said the measures would take effect on Sunday night in the cities of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia ... Keywords....(size: 1.7Kb)

photo: AP / Khalil Hamra

A masked Egyptian protester part of the Black Bloc, flashes the victory sign during clashes with riot police, background, near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013.

Masked ‘Black Bloc’ a mystery in Egypt unrest

The Salt Lake Tribune

29 Jan 2013

Cairo • An unpredictable new element has entered Egypt’s wave of political unrest. a mysterious group of masked young men called the Black Bloc who present themselves as the defenders of protesters opposed to the Islamist president’s rule. They boast that they’re willing to use force to fight back against Islamists who have attacked protesters in the past — or against police who crack down on demonstrations ... Photos. Join the Discussion ... ....(size: 8.0Kb)

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Pinetree Capital Ltd. Acquires Securities of Augusta Industries Inc.

Stockhouse

30 Jan 2013

(TSX.PNP), announces that on January 29, 2013, it acquired ownership of 20,000,000 common shares ("Common Shares") and 6,666,666 common share purchase warrants (the "Warrants") of Augusta Industries Inc ... Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to acquire one additional common share at a price of $0.10 until January 29, 2015....(size: 2.5Kb)

Ventrus Bio (VTUS) Prices $20M in Financial Actions

StreetInsider

30 Jan 2013

The Series A is non-voting and each share of Series A is convertible into 10 shares of Ventrus common stock, provided that conversion will be prohibited if, as a result, the holder and its affiliates would own more than 9.98% of the total number of Ventrus shares of common stock then outstanding. All of the shares of common stock and Series A in these offerings are to be sold by Ventrus....(size: 2.3Kb)

Mo Cowan Senate: Deval Patrick Will Name Former Chief Of Staff To Replace John Kerry

Huffington Post

30 Jan 2013

<a href=""http.//www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Majority_Minority_Leaders.htm#2">Senate" Majority Leader</a>, 110th-112th Congress (2007-present) Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). <a href=""http.//www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Majority_Minority_Leaders.htm#2">Senate" Majority Leader</a>, 108th & 109th Congress (2003-07) Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)....(size: 9.1Kb)

Mo Cowan Senate: Deval Patrick Names Former Chief Of Staff To Replace John Kerry

Huffington Post

30 Jan 2013

Piedmont Natural Gas (PNY) Prices 4M Common Offering at $32/Share

StreetInsider

30 Jan 2013

PNY) announced that it has priced a public offering of 4,000,000 shares of its common stock at $32.00 per share ... Piedmont has granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 600,000 additional shares of Piedmont's common stock for a period of 30 days following pricing of the offering either directly from Piedmont or from the forward counterparty, at Piedmont's election....(size: 2.2Kb)

Community Bankers Trust Corporation Reports Fourth Quarter and Annual Results for 2012

Stockhouse

30 Jan 2013

Earnings per common share, fully diluted, were $0.06 in the fourth quarter of 2012 and were $0.21 for the full year 2012. This compares with $0.02 for the fourth quarter of 2011 and $0.02 for the year ended December 31, 2011, respectively ... to common stockholders of $354,000 for the year ended December 31, 2011. ... to common stockholders....(size: 9.2Kb)

Rainchief Energy Issues Shareholder Update

Stockhouse

30 Jan 2013

RCFEF) (the “Company”) today announced its intention to consolidate the Company's issued and outstanding shares of common stock on the basis of 50 existing shares for 1 new share (the “Reverse Split”) ... Pending the outcome of voting, the Reverse Split-adjusted shares of the Company’s common stock are expected to begin trading on the OTCQB on or before April 31, 2013....(size: 4.9Kb)

Piper Jaffray Companies Announces 2012 Fourth Quarter and Year-end Results

Seeking Alpha

30 Jan 2013

31, 2011 Capital Markets operating expenses $ 199,734 $ 464,334 Adjustment to exclude the goodwill impairment charge (120,298 ) (120,298 ) Capital Markets operating expenses, excluding the goodwill impairment charge $ 79,436 $ 344,036 (6) Return on average adjusted common shareholders' equity Adjusted common shareholders equity equals total common ......(size: 191.4Kb)

Bank of Montreal (BMO) Will Buyback up to 15M Shares of Common Stock

StreetInsider

30 Jan 2013

BMO) today announced that it has received approvals from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OSFI) to proceed with a normal course issuer bid through the facilities of the TSX to purchase, for cancellation, up to 15 million of its common shares commencing February 1, 2013, and ending January 31, 2014....(size: 2.5Kb)

Bank of Montreal to Repurchase Up to 15 Million of its Common Shares

Stockhouse

30 Jan 2013

... for cancellation, up to 15 million of its common shares commencing February 1, 2013, and ending January 31, 2014. The maximum number of common shares that may be repurchased under the normal course issuer bid represents approximately 2.3 per cent of the Bank's 'public float' (as such term is defined in the TSX Company Manual) of common shares....(size: 1.7Kb)

Afferro Mining Inc. - Purchase of Further Shares by International Mining & Infrastructure Corporation plc. ("IMIC")

Stockhouse

30 Jan 2013

("Afferro" or the "Company"), the exploration and development company focused on iron ore in Cameroon, was notified on 29 January 2013 by IMIC that it has purchased an additional 1,111,111 common shares of no par value ("Common Shares") and has the option to acquire a further 1,864,300 Common Shares at 90 pence per Common Share. In addition, IMIC has voting control over the Common Shares that are subject to the option....(size: 2.2Kb)

Prime Minister’s Questions: 30 January 2013 (The United Kingdom Parliament)

noodls

30 Jan 2013

Prime Minister David Cameron will answer questions from MPs in the House of Commons from 12 midday on 30 January 2013. Transcripts of proceedings in the House of Commons Chamber are available three hours after they happen in Today's Commons Debates ... Question Time in the House of Commons is an opportunity for MPs to question government ministers about ......(size: 2.1Kb)

Provincial act for unmarried couples under review

CBC

30 Jan 2013

The Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia says it is going to examine whether the provincial law that governs marriage should apply to common-law couples....(size: 1.0Kb)

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Common
At a signing for his book, One Day It'll All Make Sense
Background information
Birth name	Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr.
Also known as	Common Sense
Born	(1972-03-13) March 13, 1972 (age 40)
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop
Occupations	Rapper, actor, author, poet
Years active	1991–present
Labels	GOOD Music, Warner Bros., Think Common
Associated acts	Kanye West, Soulquarians, Erykah Badu, GOOD Music, J Dilla, Prince, John Legend, Bilal, The Roots, Jill Scott, Pharrell, Mos Def, will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kid Cudi, Mary J. Blige, Nas
Website	thinkcommon.com

Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. (born March 13, 1972), better known by his stage name Common (previously Common Sense), is an American hip-hop artist and actor.

Common debuted in 1992 with the album Can I Borrow a Dollar? and maintained a significant underground following into the late 1990s, after which he gained notable mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians.^[1] His first major-label album, Like Water for Chocolate, received widespread critical acclaim and tremendous commercial success^[2] His first Grammy award was in 2003 for Best R&B Song for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" with Erykah Badu.^[3] Its popularity was matched by May 2005's Be, which was nominated in the 2006 Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album. Common was awarded his second Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, for "Southside" (featuring Kanye West), from his July 2007 album Finding Forever. His best-of album, Thisisme Then: The Best of Common, was released on November 27, 2007.

Common has also initiated a burgeoning acting career, starring significant roles in such films as Smokin' Aces, Street Kings, American Gangster, Wanted, Terminator Salvation, Date Night, Just Wright, Happy Feet Two, and New Year's Eve. He also narrated the award-winning documentary Bouncing Cats, about one man's efforts to improve the lives of children in Uganda through hip-hop/b-boy culture.^[4] Common currently appears in Hell on Wheels, a dramatic television series on AMC that debuted in November 2011.

Early life [link]

Common was born Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., on Chicago's South Side on March 13, 1972.^[5]^[6]^[7] He is the son of educator Dr. Mahalia Ann Hines and former ABA basketball player turned youth counselor Lonnie Lynn. They divorced when he was six years old, resulting in his father's moving to Denver, Colorado. This left Common to be raised by his mother, but his father remained active in his life and even landed Lonnie Jr. a job with the Chicago Bulls during his teens. While a student at Luther High School South in Chicago, Lynn formed C.D.R., a rap trio that opened for acts that included N.W.A. and Big Daddy Kane.^[8]

Common attended Florida A&M University for two years under a scholarship and majored in business administration.^[9] After being featured in the Unsigned Hype column of The Source magazine, Lynn debuted in 1992 with the single "Take It EZ", followed by the album Can I Borrow a Dollar?, under stage name Common Sense.^[10]

Music career [link]

With the 1994 release of Resurrection, Common achieved a much larger degree of critical acclaim, which extended beyond Chicago natives. The album sold relatively well and received a strong positive reaction among alternative and underground hip hop fans at the time. Resurrection was Common's last album produced almost entirely by his long-time production partner, No I.D., who was also the then-mentor of a young Kanye West.

In 1996, Common appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, America is Dying Slowly, alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Fat Joe, among many other prominent hip hop artists. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as "a masterpiece" by The Source magazine. He would later also contribute to the Red Hot Organization's Fela Kuti tribute album, Red Hot and Riot in 2002. He collaborated with Djelimady Tounkara on a remake of Kuti's track, "Years of Tears and Sorrow".

with Mos Def 1999

Feud with Westside Connection [link]

The song "I Used to Love H.E.R." from Resurrection ignited a feud with West Coast rap group Westside Connection. The lyrics of the song criticized the path hip hop music was taking and was interpreted by some as directing blame towards the popularity of West Coast Gangsta rap. Westside Connection first responded with the 1995 song "Westside Slaughterhouse," with the lyrics "Used to love H.E.R. mad cause I fucked her". Westside Connection recorded tracks venting their issues with rival East Coast rappers (see East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry). "Westside Slaughterhouse" also mentioned Common by name, prompting the rapper to respond with the scathing Pete Rock-produced attack song "The Bitch in Yoo". Common and Westside Connection continued to insult each other back and forth before finally meeting with Louis Farrakhan and setting aside their dispute. Following the popularity of Resurrection, Common Sense was sued by an Orange County-based reggae band with the same name, and was forced to shorten his moniker to simply Common.^[10]

[edit] One Day It'll All Make Sense

Initially scheduled for an October 1996 release, Common finally released his third album, One Day It'll All Make Sense, in September 1997. The album took a total of two years to complete and included collaborations with artists such as Lauryn Hill, De La Soul, Q-Tip, Canibus, Black Thought, Chantay Savage, and Questlove – a future fellow member of the Soulquarians outfit. The album, which made a point of eschewing any gangsterism (in response to questions about his musical integrity), was critically acclaimed and led to a major label contract with MCA Records. In addition to releasing One Day, Common's first child, daughter Omoye Assata Lynn, was born shortly after the release of the album.

As documented by hip hop journalist Raquel Cepeda, in the liner notes for the album, this event had a profound spiritual and mental effect on Common and enabled him to grow musically while becoming more responsible as an artist. She writes:

Rashid found out that he was going to become a daddy in about 8 months. Stunned and confused, Rashid had life altering decisions to make with his girlfriend, Kim Jones. The situation led to the composition of his favourite cut on One Day... that offers a male slant on abortion. "Retrospect for Life", produced by James Poyser and No I.D. featuring Lauryn Hill (who was due on the same day as Rashid's girlfriend), is the song that is the driving force behind the project. Rashid listens to "Retrospect for Life" today at the mastering session geeked, as if it were for the first time. He tells me as we listen to L-Boogie wail the chorus, "when I listen to the song now, I think about how precious her (Omoye's) life is".

Common addresses family ethics several times on One Day..., and the album sleeve is decorated with old family photos, illustrating the rapper's childhood, as well a quote from 1 Corinthians 13:11, which summarizes the path to manhood:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Soulquarians era [link]

Following One Day..., Common signed a major label record deal with MCA Records and relocated from Chicago to New York City in 1999. He began recording almost exclusively with a loose collective of musicians and artists (dubbed the "Soulquarians" by central figure Questlove) throughout 1999, and made a few sporadic guest appearances on The Roots' Things Fall Apart, and the Rawkus Records compilation, Soundbombing 2.

In 2000, his fourth album, Like Water for Chocolate, was released to mass critical acclaim. Executive produced by Questlove and featuring significant contributions by J Dilla, (who helmed many tracks except – "Cold Blooded", "Geto Heaven Part II", "A Song For Assata", "Pop's Rap Part 3...All My Children" & the DJ Premier-produced track "The 6th Sense"), Like Water for Chocolate transpired to be a considerable commercial breakthrough for Common, earning the rapper his first gold record, and greatly expanding his fanbase among critics and listeners alike.

With both artists hailing from the Great Lakes region of the United States (Chicago and Detroit, prospectively), Common and J Dilla established their chemistry early on. Both became members of the Soulquarians collective, and collaborated on numerous projects together, even placing one song, "Thelonius", on both the Slum Village album Fantastic, Vol. 2, and Common's Like Water for Chocolate. As Dilla's health began to decline from the effects of Lupus Nephritis, he relocated to Los Angeles, and asked Common to make the move with him as a roommate (Dilla would later lose his battle with the rare disease).^[11]

This album saw Common exploring themes (musically and lyrically), which were uncommon for a Hip hop record, as he does on the song "Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela)"; a homage to Nigerian music legend, and political activist Fela Kuti. The most popular single from the album "The Light" was nominated for a Grammy Award.

GOOD Music era [link]

	"Go!" excerpt noicon From the album Be
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In early 2004, Common made an appearance on fellow Chicagoan Kanye West's multi-platinum debut album, The College Dropout (on the song "Get Em High"), and announced his signing to West's then-newfound label GOOD Music. West had been a longtime fan of Common and the two even participated in a friendly on-air MC battle, where West took jabs at his lyrical idol for "going soft" and wearing crochet pants (as he does for his appearance in the video for the Mary J. Blige song "Dance for Me"). The pair worked together on Common's next album, Be, almost entirely produced by Kanye West, with some help from Common's longtime collaborator the late James Yancey (J Dilla) – also a favorite of West. The album was released in May 2005, and performed very well, boosted by Kanye's involvement and the singles "The Corner", and "Go". Be earned Common the second gold record of his career, with sales topping out at around 800,000 copies. The Source magazine gave it a near perfect 4.5 mic rating, XXL magazine gave it their highest rating of "XXL", and AllHipHop gave the album 4 stars. The album was also nominated for four Grammy Awards in 2006.

Following the release of Be in 2005, several mixed-race artists from the UK hip-hop scene took exception to Common's comments about interracial relationships on the song "Real People." Yungun, Doc Brown and Rising Son recorded a track over an instrumental version of "The Corner" named "Dear Common (The Corner Dub)." Common states that he has heard of the track but never actually taken the time to listen to it, and has not retaliated in song.^[12]

2007 - present [link]

Performing at Store Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2007.

Common's seventh LP titled Finding Forever was released on July 31, 2007. For this album, he continued his work with Kanye West, as well as other producers such as will.i.am, Devo Springsteen, Derrick Hodge, and Karriem Riggins, as well as the only J Dilla-produced track, "So Far To Go". The album features guest spots from artists such as Dwele, Bilal, D'Angelo, and UK pop starlet Lily Allen. The first single from the album was "The People" b/w "The Game". West has already predicted that Finding Forever will win the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.^[13] On July 31, 2007, Common performed a free concert in Santa Monica, California on the 3rd Street Promenade to promote the release of Finding Forever. Common explained to the audience that the title "Finding Forever" represented his quest to find an eternal place in hip-hop and also his wishes to be an artist for the rest of his life. The album debuted at #1 on the national Billboard 200 charts.

In an August 2007 interview with XXL, rapper Q-Tip of the group A Tribe Called Quest stated that he and Common were forming a group called The Standard. While the two were meant to hit the studio to record a Q-Tip-produced album, possibly with contributions from Kanye West, Common put out Universal Mind Control instead and has already planned a next album, The Dreamer, The Believer, for late 2011.^[14]

Common at 2009 Obama Home States Inaugural Ball on January 20, 2009

Common was instrumental in bridging the trans-Atlantic gap by signing UK's Mr Wong and J2K to Kanye West's Getting Out Our Dreams recording outfit. Common met the pair during his tour in the UK earlier on in the year. It is speculated that the deal is not only to bring the UK and US hip hop genres together but that to rival Syco Music's cross-Atlantic success with Leona Lewis. He also has a deal with Zune mp3 players. In 2008 Common made an estimated 12 million dollars, making him equal in earnings to Eminem and Akon, tied for the 13th highest grossing Hip-Hop artist.^{[citation needed]}

The eighth album from Chicago hip-hop artist Common was originally scheduled to be released on June 24, 2008 under the name Invincible Summer, but he announced at a Temple University concert that he would change it to Universal Mind Control.^[15] The release date was pushed back to September 30, 2008 due to Common filming Wanted. The release date was set for November 11, 2008, but again it was pushed back to December 9, 2008.

The album's first single, titled "Universal Mind Control", was officially released on July 1, 2008 via the US iTunes Store as part of the Announcement EP (sold as "Universal Mind Control-EP" in the UK). The song features Pharrell, who also produced the track. The Announcement EP included an additional track track titled "Announcement" featuring its producer, Pharrell. The video for "Universal Mind Control" was filmed in September by director Hype Williams.

Producer No I.D. has stated that he and Kanye West will be producing Common's next album The Dreamer The Believer, due sometime in 2011.^[16] In July 2011, it was announced that No I.D. will be the album's sole producer.^[17] Common made an appearance on The Jonas Brothers' most recent album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times as a guest rapper for the group's new song, "Don't Charge Me for the Crime."^[18]

On July 6, 2011, Common released his first single, titled "Ghetto Dreams", from his next album. A second single,"Blue Sky", was released on October 4, 2011. On December 20th, 2011, Common released his ninth solo album titled The Dreamer, The Believer.

Other work [link]

Acting [link]

In 2003, Common appeared on the American UPN sitcom Girlfriends. In the episode "Take This Poem and Call Me In The Morning", he appeared as Omar, a slam poet who competes with fellow poet Sivad (played by Saul Williams) for the affection of Lynn Searcy (played by Persia White). He also had a cameo appearance on an episode of UPN's One on One, where he played a drama class instructor named Darius. He also made an appearance on the ABC show "Scrubs". In 2007, Common appeared with Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, and Alicia Keys in the crime film Smokin' Aces. He made his big screen debut as villainous Mob enforcer Sir Ivy. He appeared alongside Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, The RZA and T.I. in the 2007 crime thriller American Gangster. On January 20, 2007, one week before the opening of Smokin Aces, he appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch as himself. The show's host was Piven, his Aces co-star.

In 2007 Common played the role of Smokin' Aces co-star Alicia Keys's boyfriend in the music video "Like You'll Never See Me Again".

In 2008, he starred in the film adaptation of the comic book Wanted alongside Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. Common also appeared in the movie Street Kings alongside Keanu Reeves, Hugh Laurie, The Game, and Forest Whitaker. Common also starred in the 2010 movie Just Wright as a basketball player that falls in love with his trainer Queen Latifah.^[19] He also appeared in the 2009 film Terminator Salvation as John Connor's lieutenant Barnes.^[20] He starred as a corrupt cop in the 2010 comedy Date Night with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. His most recent role is in AMC's 2011 "Hell on Wheels" as Elam Ferguson, a recently freed slave trying to find his place in the world.^[21]

Modeling and clothing [link]

In 2006, Common was a model for photos of The Gap's fall season collection, appearing on posters in stores. Later that year, he performed in The Gap's "Holiday In Your Hood" themed Peace Love Gap. In February 2007, Common signed a deal with New Era to promote their new line of Layers fitted caps. Common also stars in a television commercial for the 2008 Lincoln Navigator. He appears in NBA 2K8 in NBA Blacktop mode. In the fall of 2008, Common appeared in an ad for Microsoft's Zune, comparing his new song, "Universal Mind Control", to,"Planet Rock", a song from hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. As well as that he featured in the Diesel campaign for a new fragrance called "Only The Brave". His song "Be (intro)" is featured in a commercial for BlackBerry as of January 2011.

In December 2008, Common launched a new clothing line in partnership with Microsoft titled "Softwear", based on 1980s computing.

Writing [link]

White House controversy [link]

Common was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to appear at a poetry reading on May 11, 2011 at the White House.^[22] This caused furor with the New Jersey State Police and their union,^[23] who disagreed with his lyrical content. The president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association voiced concern to the White House. They cite the song "A Song For Assata" about a member of the Black Liberation Army and step-aunt of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur named Assata Shakur, previously known as Joanne Chesimard,^[24] who was convicted in 1977 of the first degree murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster.

Common and his mother, Dr. Mahalia Ann Hines, at a September 13, 2011 signing for his memoir at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca, Manhattan.

At another poetry reading, Common said, “flyers say ‘free Mumia’ on my freezer,” a reference to Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was controversially convicted of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Common stated, "The one thing that shouldn't be questioned is my support for the police officers and troops that protect us every day".

Jay Carney, the White House Secretary, spoke for President Obama on the matter by saying the president does not support, but actually opposes, some of the kind of words and lyrics that have been written by Common and others.^[25] Even though the president does not support the lyrics in question, he believed that some reports were distorting what Mr. Lynn stands for more broadly. Common gave a single line response to the entire controversy: "I guess Sarah Palin and Fox News doesn't like me."^[25]

Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show questioned Fox News' coverage of the controversy, saying that they "took the time to ignore Common's entire body of work, save for one poem he wrote in 2007 that they appear to misunderstand." Stewart also pointed out that in 2002, George W. Bush honored Johnny Cash, whose songs contain violent lyrics. Stewart further pointed out that Fox News itself offered positive coverage of Common's career in 2010, and that Sean Hannity, who criticized Common's White House invitation, is a friend of musician Ted Nugent, who in clips played on The Daily Show, used violent rhetoric in comments he made about President Obama and Hillary Clinton.^[26] Common later discussed the matter with Stewart during a September 14, 2011 appearance on the program.^[27]

2011 book [link]

In September 2011, Common published his memoir, One Day It'll All Make Sense, through Atria Books. As the book details how his close relationship with his mother influenced his life, it is partially narrated by her.^[28]

Activism [link]

Common used to be vegan, but is now a pescetarian.^[29] In addition, he is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. He appeared in a print advertisement for PETA titled "Think Before You Eat".^[30]

Common is also part of the "Knowing Is Beautiful" movement, which supports HIV/AIDS awareness.^[30] He is featured in the video for "Yes We Can", a song in support of the candidacy of Barack Obama, which made its debut on the internet on February 2, 2008. Common has pledged to stop using anti-gay lyrics in his music.^[31]^[32]

Common is the founder of the Common Ground Foundation,^[33] a non-profit that seeks to empower underprivileged youth to be strong citizens and citizens of the world. The foundation includes programs dedicated to leadership development & empowerment, educational development, creative expression, as well as a book club.

Personal [link]

Common has had romantic relationships with Erykah Badu, Taraji P. Henson and Serena Williams, but currently maintains that he is single. ^[34]

Discography [link]

Main articles: Common discography and List of Common songs

Year	Album	Label
1992	Can I Borrow a Dollar?	Relativity Records
1994	Resurrection
1997	One Day It'll All Make Sense
2000	Like Water for Chocolate	MCA Records Universal Records
2002	Electric Circus	MCA Records Universal Records
2005	Be	GOOD Geffen Imani Entertainment
2007	Finding Forever
2008	Universal Mind Control
2011	The Dreamer/The Believer	Think Common Warner Bros.

Collaborations

Year	Album	Label
2012	Nas.Com (with Nas)^[35]	Def Jam
2012	Cruel Summer (with GOOD Music)	GOOD Music

Filmography [link]

Year	Film	Role
2002	Brown Sugar	Himself
2006	Dave Chapelle's Block Party	Himself
2007	Smokin' Aces	Sir Ivy
2007	American Gangster	Turner Lucas
2008	Street Kings	Coates
2008	Wanted	The Gunsmith
2009	Terminator Salvation	Barnes
2010	Date Night	Detective Collins
	Just Wright	Scott McKnight
	Bouncing Cats	Himself/Narrator
2011	Happy Feet Two	Seymour
	Hell on Wheels	Elam Ferguson
	New Year's Eve	Nurse Aimee's Husband; Cameo
2012	The Odd Life of Timothy Green
2012	L.U.V.	Uncle Vincent

Awards and nominations [link]

Awards	Year	Type	Song or album	Notes
BET Awards	2003	Video of the Year	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Won
		Viewer's Choice	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Won
		Best Collaboration	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
	2006	Best Male Hip-Hop Artist		Nominated
BET Hip Hop Awards	2006	Element Award – Lyricist of the Year		Won
	2006	Hip-Hop Video of the Year	"Testify"	Nominated
	2007	Lyricist of the Year		Won
		CD of the Year	Finding Forever	Won
		Best Hip Hop Video	"The People"	Nominated
		Best Live Performance		Nominated
		MVP Of The Year		Nominated
Black Reel Awards	2003	Best Film Song	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Won
Grammy Awards	2001	Best Rap Solo Performance	"The Light"	Nominated
	2003	Best Song Written for a Motion Picture/Television Movie	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
		Best R&B Song	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Won
		Best Urban/Alternative Performance	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
	2006	Best Rap/Sung Collaboration	"They Say"	Nominated
		Best Rap Album	Be	Nominated
		Best Rap Solo Performance	Testify	Nominated
		Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group	"The Corner"	Nominated
	2008	Best Rap Performance by Duo or Group	"Southside"	Won
		Best Rap Album	Finding Forever	Nominated
		Best Rap Solo Performance	"The People"	Nominated
Image Awards	2006	Outstanding Duo or Group	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
		Outstanding Song	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
		Outstanding Music Video	"Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)"	Nominated
		Outstanding Music Video	"Testify"	Nominated
		Outstanding Male Artist	n/a	Nominated
MTV Video Music Awards	2001	Best Hip-Hop Video	"Geto Heaven Remix T.S.O.I. (The Sound of Illadelph)"	Nominated
	2003	MTV2 Award	"Come Close"	Nominated
	2005	Best Hip-Hop Video	"Go"	Nominated
	2006	Best Hip-Hop Video	"Testify"	Nominated
Soul Train Awards	2006	Best R&B/Soul Single by a Duo or Group	"Supastar"	Nominated
Soul Train Awards	2006	Best Music Video	"Testify"	Nominated
Vibe Awards	2005	Reelest Video	"The Corner"	Nominated

References [link]

^ "Video: Common Speaks on Soulquarians, No I.D. & Kanye + BTS Pics of "Blue Sky" Video". okayplayer. October 11, 2011. http://www.okayplayer.com/news/video-common-speaks-on-soulquarians-no-i-d-kanye-bts-pics-of-blue-sky-video.html. Retrieved Oct. 12, 2011.
^ "Like Water for Chocolate Review". allmusic. March 28, 2000. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r470449.
^ "UMPG writers and artists receive best R&B Song of the Year Category at Grammy Awards". Universal Music Publishing Group.
^ "Bouncing Cats Synopsisl". http://www.bouncingcats.com/synopsis/.
^ Zegel, Maureen (March 27, 2012). "Rapper Common to bring his message to UMSL". UMSL Daily.
^ Williams, Thomas Chatterton (May 11, 2011). "By inviting Common to the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama miss a golden opportunity". Daily News.
^ "Common to throw White Sox 1st pitch". ABC 7 Chicago. April 13, 2012.
^ "AskMen.com's Men of the Week: Entertainment – Common". http://www.askmen.com/men/entertainment_200/219c_common.html. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
^ Yarborough, Marti (2005-06-27). "Hip-hop star Common talks about: new hit CD 'Be' being labeled a 'conscious rapper' his breakup with singer Erykah Badu who attracts him now". Jet. FindArticles.com. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_26_107/ai_n27857531/. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
^ ^a ^b Huey, Steve (2007-07-31). "Common > Biography". allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p276488. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
^ "J Dilla’s turn in spotlight comes after his death". MSNBC. August 31, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14587861/.
^ "Common Gets Thugged Out, Ghost Writing For Diddy Too". Sohh.com. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
^ Reid, Shaheem (2006-04-19). "Kanye Says He Won't Do 'Fast-Food' Music — 'M:i:III' Track Took 50 Hours". MTV News. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
^ "Hip-Hop On A Higher Level | » Q-Tip and Common Form New Group, The Standard". XXLmag.com. http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=13364. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "Common Previews 'Invincible' New Album , 29 April 2k8". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003796775. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "No I.D. & Kanye To Helm Next Common Album". Nah Right. 2008-10-09. http://nahright.com/news/2008/10/09/no-id-kanye-to-helm-next-common-album/. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
^ Horowitz, Steven J. (2011-07-05). "No I.D. To Produce The Entirety Of Common's "The Dreamer, The Believer" | Get The Latest Hip Hop News, Rap News & Hip Hop Album Sales". HipHop DX. http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.15831/title.no-id-to-produce-the-entirety-of-commons-the-dreamer-the-believer. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
^ "Common on Jonas Brothers New Album". IdioMag. http://www.idiomag.com/peek/83623/common#/83623/1/. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
^ "Four Justice League of America Casting Confirmations Arrive Early". Firstshowing.net. 2007-11-17. http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/11/17/four-justice-league-of-america-casting-confirmations-arrive-early. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "Common to appear in new 'Terminator' film | News". Nme.Com. 2008-05-07. http://nme.com/news/nme/36455. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "Common Q&A". amctv.com. 2011-11-06. http://blogs.amctv.com/hell-on-wheels/2011/11/common-interview.php. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
^ Neil Munro. "‘Burn a Bush’? Michelle Obama invites rapper Common to a poetry reading". The Daily Caller. http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/09/burn-a-bush-michelle-obama-invites-rapper-common-to-a-poetry-reading/. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "Common Controversy Comes to White House Poetry Night; Cops, Conservatives Cry Foul at Some of His Past Work (UPDATED) - Political Punch". ABC News. 1973-05-02. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/05/common-controversy-comes-to-white-house-poetry-night-cops-conservatives-cry-foul-at-some-of-his-past-work.html. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
^ "Wanted b the FBI: JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD". FBI. accessed September 19, 2011.
^ ^a ^b Dirner, Cullen. "White House Condemns Some of Common’s Lyrics but Praises his Larger Body of Work". ABC News. May 11, 2011
^ Weprin, Alex. "Common Controversy? ‘The Daily Show’ Takes Down Fox News Reports on Rapper Visit to White House". TV Newser. May 12, 2011
^ "Common". The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. September 14, 2011. Comedy Central.
^ One Day It'll All Make Sense. Amazon.com. accessed September 11, 2011. On October 18, 2011, Common made a visit to Eastern Michigan University, along with speaking, he freestyled and engaged in a book signing for One Day It'll All Make Sense. It was epic.
^ "Rapper Common Has Common Ground With Vegetarians". Vegetarianstar.com. February 3, 2009. http://vegetarianstar.com/2009/02/03/rapper-common-has-common-ground-with-vegetarians/. Retrieved Mar 8, 2010.
^ ^a ^b "Common charity biography". Look to the Stars. no date. http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/1464-common. Retrieved October 11, 2010.
^ "Common Pledges No More Anti-Gay Lyrics". NewNowNext.com. Sept 6th, 2007. http://www.newnownext.com/2007/09/06/common-pledges-no-more-anti-gay-lyrics/. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
^ ContactMusic.com. 09/05/2007 10:28:16 PM. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
^ "Mission Statement". Common Ground Foundation. no date. http://www.commongroundfoundation.org/newaboutus2.html. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
^ Gomez, Luis (9/26/2011). "Interview: Common wishes timing of White House controversy could've been better". Chicago Tribune. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/celebrity/aboutlastnight/chi-rapper-common-book-chicago-20110923,0,1327335.story. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
^ Com Sense says his album with Nasir Jones will happen and explains its origins Retrieved on 10 October 2011

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Common (entertainer)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Common

v t e Common

Studio albums	Can I Borrow a Dollar? Resurrection One Day It'll All Make Sense Like Water for Chocolate Electric Circus Be Finding Forever Universal Mind Control The Dreamer/The Believer

Compilation albums	Thisisme Then: The Best of Common Go! Common Classics

Singles	"Take It EZ" "Breaker 1/9" "Soul by the Pound" "I Used to Love H.E.R." "Resurrection" "The Bitch in Yoo" "Retrospect for Life" "Reminding Me (Of Sef)" "All Night Long" "One-Nine-Nine-Nine" "Car Horn" "Hurricane" "The 6th Sense" "The Light" "Geto Heaven Remix T.S.O.I. (The Sound of Illadelph)" "While I'm Dancin'" "Come Close" "Panthers" "The Food" "The Corner" "Go!" "Testify" "Faithful" "A Dream" "The People" "The Game" "Drivin' Me Wild" "I Want You" "Universal Mind Control" "Announcement" "Ghetto Dreams"

Featured singles	"Confusion" "Respiration" "Jam" "Hurricane" "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" "Where I'm Going" "Wouldn't You Like to Ride" "SupaStar" "Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now" "Make Her Say" "Favorite Song"

Films	Brown Sugar Dave Chappelle's Block Party Smokin' Aces American Gangster Street Kings Wanted Terminator Salvation Justice League of America Happy Feet Two The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Related articles	Discography Songs J Dilla Soulquarians

v t e Soulquarians

?uestlove Bilal Common D'Angelo Erykah Badu J Dilla James Poyser Mos Def Pino Palladino Q-Tip Talib Kweli

Albums	Things Fall Apart (1999) Voodoo (2000) Like Water for Chocolate (2000) Mama's Gun (2000) 1st Born Second (2001) Phrenology (2002) Electric Circus (2002)

See also	Native Tongues Posse The Philadelphia Experiment The Ummah

v t e GOOD Music

Founder	Kanye West

Current artists	John Legend Big Sean Kid Cudi Mr Hudson Cyhi the Prynce Mos Def Pusha T D'banj Q-Tip Teyana Taylor

Former artists	GLC Really Doe Sa-Ra Tony Williams Consequence Common

Releases	Cruel Summer

Singles	"Mercy" "Cold"

Related articles	GOOD Fridays Cruel Summer (film)

Persondata
Name	Lynn, Lonnie Rashid, Jr.
Alternative names	Common, Common Sense
Short description	African-American rapper from Chicago, Illinois
Date of birth	March 13, 1972
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois
Date of death
Place of death

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_(entertainer)

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

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Contents

Early life [link]

Music career [link]

Feud with Westside Connection [link]

[edit] One Day It'll All Make Sense

Soulquarians era [link]

GOOD Music era [link]

2007 - present [link]

Other work [link]

Acting [link]

Modeling and clothing [link]

Writing [link]

White House controversy [link]

2011 book [link]

Activism [link]

Personal [link]

Discography [link]

Filmography [link]

Awards and nominations [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

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