A distilled beverage, spirit, or liquor is an alcoholic beverage containing ethanol that is produced by distilling (i.e., concentrating by distillation) ethanol produced by means of fermenting grain, fruit, or vegetables. This excludes undistilled fermented beverages such as beer, wine, and cider.

The term hard liquor is used in North America to distinguish distilled beverages from undistilled ones (implicitly weaker).

The term spirit refers to a distilled beverage that contains no added sugar and has at least 20% alcohol by volume (ABV). Popular spirits include brandy, fruit brandy (also known as eau-de-vie or schnapps), gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and whisky.

Distilled beverages that are bottled with added sugar and added flavorings, such as Grand Marnier, Frangelico, and American schnapps, are liqueurs. In common usage, the distinction between spirits and liqueurs is widely unknown or ignored; consequently all alcoholic beverages other than beer and wine are generally referred to as spirits.

Aaron Dontez Yates (born November 8, 1971), better known by his stage name Tech N9ne (pronounced "Tech Nine"), is an American rapper from Kansas City, Missouri. In 1999, Yates and Travis O'Guin founded the record label Strange Music. Throughout his career, Yates has sold over one million albums and has had his music featured in film, television, and video games. In 2009, he won the Left Field Woodie award at the mtvU Woodie Awards.

His stage name originated from the TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun, given to him by rapper Black Walt due to his fast rhyming style. Yates later applied a deeper meaning to the name, claiming that it stands for the complete technique of rhyme, with 'tech' meaning technique and 'nine' representing the number of completion.

Aaron Dontez Yates was born on November 8, 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri. He began rapping at a very early age, and would rap the letters of his name in order to remember how to spell it. He never met his father, and his mother suffered from epilepsy and lupus when he was a child, which emotionally affected him and inspired him to "search for God." He would wander around abandoned buildings with his best friend, Brian Dennis, hoping to catch a ghost on film. In 2003, Dennis was shot and killed by his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, which further inspired Yates' search for a higher power, as well as giving him the drive to vent his frustrations in his music.

Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician, producer and entrepreneur, most noted as the drummer for the American pop punk band Blink-182, as well as the alternative rock band +44, the rap rock band The Transplants, and the alternative rock band Box Car Racer. He was a frequent collaborator with the late DJ AM, and together they formed TRV$DJAM. He also went on tour with Quest in 2007, and made 3 albums with the group: KSLIP, Why not?, and their most recent, Genius.

After the split of his first band, Feeble, Barker began playing for The Aquabats in 1996 as The Baron Von Tito. He recorded one album with them, The Fury of The Aquabats!, in 1997. His career took off when he joined up with pop punk band Blink-182 in 1998. Barker has since established himself as a versatile drummer, producing and making guest appearances in music projects of numerous music genres including hip hop, alternative rock, pop and country. He has gained significant acceptance within the hip-hop community in particular and often collaborates with artists to compose rock-tinged remixes to their songs.

Stuart Daniel Baker, better known by his stage name, Unknown Hinson, is a comedic country musician, songwriter, and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as the voice of Early Cuyler on the Adult Swim cartoon series Squidbillies.

Unknown Hinson, dressed in his signature rodeo tailor coat and black ribbon necktie, is a dark parody of the country western stars from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. His recorded material has the sonic qualities of a regional country star with access to cheap recording studios and hack producers. With his glued-on sideburns, blacked-out front teeth, and dark hair slicked back to reveal a prominent widow's peak, he has been referred to as the "hillbilly vampire." The self-proclaimed "king of country-western troubadours" speaks and sings with an authentic southern drawl, commonly pronouncing words like woman "womern," and window "winder." Hinson's personality is that of a hell-raising and hard-drinking country western singer with a preference for "party likker," sexy womerns, and fine guitars. Baker has carefully cultivated his alter-ego. Much like Andy Kaufman's alter-ego, Tony Clifton, Unknown Hinson never breaks character in public and adamantly denies having any connection to Danny Baker.

Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), better known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American rapper, record producer, record executive, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records. He has produced albums for and overseen the careers of many rappers, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent and Game. As a producer he is credited as a key figure in the popularization of West Coast G-funk, a style of rap music characterized as synthesizer-based with slow, heavy beats. As of 2011, Dr. Dre is ranked as the third richest figure in the American hip hop scene by Forbes with a net worth of $250 million.

Dre began his career in music as a member of the World Class Wreckin' Cru and he later found fame with the influential gangsta rap group N.W.A with Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella which popularized the use of explicit lyrics in rap to detail the violence of street life. His 1992 solo debut, The Chronic, released under Death Row Records, led him to become one of the best-selling American performing artists of 1993 and to win a Grammy Award for the single "Let Me Ride". In 1996, he left Death Row to establish his own label, Aftermath Entertainment. Under that label, he produced a compilation album titled Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath in 1996, and released a solo album titled 2001 in 1999, for which he won the Grammy producer's award the next year.