CMJ Network, Inc. is a music events/publishing company which hosts an annual festival in New York City, the CMJ Music Marathon, as well as a weekly magazine of and for the music industry and college radio stations in the United States and Canada. It publishes top 30 lists sent by stations which subscribe at a cost of a few hundred dollars a year. It is also sent to record companies and their public relations and publicity representatives as well as record stores. CMJ also formerly published CMJ New Music Monthly, which was a magazine with interviews, reviews, and special features. Each magazine came with an indie buzz band's cassette or a mix CD of 15–24 songs by well-established bands, unsigned bands and everything in between. The staff puts together CMJ Music Marathon, a convention and music festival, each autumn, in New York. A second festival: the CMJ Rock Hall Music Fest, took place in Cleveland in 2005 and 2006.

The company was started by Robert Haber in 1978 as the College Media Journal, a bi-weekly trade magazine aimed at college radio programmers.

Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by the stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007. His Eurodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah", received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Tracks charts in 2008. Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. and released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mixtape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records. He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow", which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011.

Khalifa was born on September 8, 1987 to a mother and a father serving in the military. His parents divorced when Khalifa was about three years old. His parents' military service caused him to move regularly: Khalifa lived in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh where he attended Taylor Allderdice High School.

Jesca Ada Hoop is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from Northern California, who writes and performs in diverse musical styles.

Hoop was born in Northern California to Mormon parents. She grew up singing traditional folk tunes in four part harmony. She broke away from her background, becoming a homesteader in the wilderness areas of Northern California and Wyoming. She also worked in the remote mountains of Arizona with a rehabilitation program for children.

Tom Waits described Jesca thus: "Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night." The Los Angeles Times considered Hoop one of ten Southern California artists that are "new and notable in 2007."

Her contact with Tom Waits led to her initial exposure through Nic Harcourt at the Southern California radio station KCRW in 2003, with a six-minute demo recorded on a four track recorder. Since then, Hoop has shared the stage with many acts. In 2007 she toured with Polyphonic Spree and Matt Pond PA. In 2008 she toured with Elbow and Mark Knopfler, and then in 2009 toured with Greg Laswell, Elbow and Andrew Bird. Jesca headlined a tour of the UK and Ireland in February 2010, and France in March 2010. She also headlined her own tour of the UK in summer 2010, starting in Leeds on May 1.