Dallas ( /ˈdæləs/) is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Divided between Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties, the city had a population of 1,197,816 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau.

The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (the DFW MSA) that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of 6,371,773. The metroplex economy is the sixth largest in the United States, with a 2010 gross metropolitan product of $374 billion.

Dallas was founded in 1841 and was formally incorporated as a city in February 1856. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, transportation and logistics. The city is home to the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. Located in North Texas and a major city in the American South, Dallas is the main core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.

Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (born February 24, 1994), better known by his stage name Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper and member of the Los Angeles based hip hop collective Odd Future.

Kgositsile was born to Cheryl Harris, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Keorapetse Kgositsile, a South African poet and political activist. He grew up in the Los Angeles area and is in his senior year at New Roads High School in Santa Monica.

Earl and his group have been featured in mainstream magazines such as Spin, Billboard and The Fader as well as on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. His debut studio album, Earl, was self-released March 31, 2010 as a free digital download on the Odd Future website. Most of the album was produced by Tyler, The Creator. Earl was named the 24th best album of 2010 by Complex. Sweatshirt's rapping style is notable for its dark lyrical content, multi-syllabic rhyme schemes, heavy wordplay and double entendres.

Despite overwhelmingly positive reviews, various sources indicated that Sweatshirt had stopped making music with Odd Future. Posts from Tyler, The Creator's Twitter and Formspring accounts seemed to indicate that Sweatshirt's mother would not grant permission to release any of Sweatshirt's music, although Earl later expressed in an interview that his mother sent him to Samoa not because of his music or lyrical content but because of himself getting into trouble. Earl attended Coral Reef Academy, a therapeutic retreat school for at-risk boys, located outside of the Samoan capital of Apia.

Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr. (born December 9, 1951), is the Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. James lives in Kansas City's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was inaugurated as Mayor on May 2, 2011.

James grew up on the East side of Kansas City, at 44th Street and Montgall Avenue. He graduated from Bishop Hogan High School in 1969. There, he was the lead singer of the Amelia Earhart Memorial Flying Band (later re-named Manchester Trafficway) from 1965 to 1970. The band was the opening act for Jefferson Airplane when it performed in Kansas City.

In 1971, James joined the Marines and served as a military policeman in California, Japan and the Philippines; he was honorably discharged in 1975.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Rockhurst College in 1980, graduating cum laude. In college, he joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Thereafter, he attended law school at the Syracuse University College of Law from 1980 to 1981, but then transferred to the University of Minnesota Law School, where he received a juris doctor degree in 1983, again graduating cum laude.