Scott Gavin Erickson (born February 2, 1968) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher.

Erickson was born in Long Beach, California, and began his professional career, after being drafted by the NY Mets in 1986, Houston Astros in 1987, and Toronto Blue Jays in 1988, in 1989 when he was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 4th round of the amateur draft. After 27 minor league starts, Erickson rose to the major leagues in his second season of professional baseball in 1990 direct from Class AA Orlando Sun Rays, a season in which he finished with a record of 8-4. After posting a record of 12-2 with a 1.39 ERA in the first half of the 1991 season, including being awarded the American League Pitcher of the Month award for May, Erickson won 20 games in his first full season and finished second to Roger Clemens in the American League Cy Young Award. During the Minnesota Twins 1991, World Series winning season, Erickson led the majors in wins with a record of 20-8. After giving up the most hits in the Major Leagues in 1993, he became the third Twins pitcher to throw a no-hitter on April 27, 1994, against the Milwaukee Brewers. It was the first no-hitter in the Metrodome.

Dean Friedman (born May 23, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter who plays piano, keyboard, guitar and other instruments, including the harmonica.

Born and raised in Paramus, New Jersey, Friedman received his first guitar when he was 9, in 1964, and started writing songs. When he was a teenager, he played weddings and bar mitzvahs as part of Marsha and the Self-Portraits, sent out demos and majored in music at City College of New York where one of his teachers was guitarist David Bromberg. By the time he was 20, in 1975, he had a manager and a recording contract with Cashman and West's Lifesong label.

In the United States he is described as a one-hit wonder, following his 1977 hit song "Ariel", which reached # 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed in the chart for five months. "Ariel" has been described as a "quirkily irresistible and uncategorizable pop song about a free spirited, music loving, vegetarian Jewish girl", from Paramus, New Jersey, where he grew up. It is the only Billboard Top 40 song to contain the word Paramus. It describes the girl Ariel, "standing by the [since dismantled] waterfall at Paramus Park", one of the many shopping malls in Paramus. The quarters she was collecting for "friends of BAI" refers to the New York radio station WBAI-FM, and their listener association, while the song also makes reference to "channel 2," which refers to local CBS affiliate WCBS-TV.

Black Rob (born Robert Ross; June 8, 1968) is a rapper who was formerly signed to Bad Boy Records.

Black Rob began associating with the label as early as 1996, appearing on the Bad Boy remix to 112's "Come See Me". He was then featured on several other Bad Boy releases including remixes to Total's "What About Us" (1997) and Faith Evans's "Love Like This" (1998), the single "24 Hours to Live" (1997) from Mase and albums by Puff Daddy & the Bad Boy Family (1997) and The Notorious B.I.G. (1999). He also made two appearances on Cru 1997 album Da Dirty 30, as well as albums by Ol Dirty Bastard, Channel Live, The Madd Rapper, Benzino, Tony Touch, and others.

These guest appearances earned him a media buzz and he kept attention with the hit single "Whoa!". Following this, the album Life Story was released in 2000 and rose above Platinum sales. Despite subsequently appearing on releases by P. Diddy and G. Dep, he was unable to follow up with another hit single and seemingly fell into obscurity. His second album, The Black Rob Report failed to perform as strongly as his debut and quickly disappeared from the Billboard 100 charts. In his earlier years Black Rob headed the street rap team which he named "Alumni". In 2005 Jemal Mosley from Off The Block Entertainment started managing Black Rob's career. In 2010 he parted from Bad Boy, and signed to independent label Duck Down Records, and is working on a new album titled Game Tested, Streets Approved due to be released July 26, 2011. Black Rob also started his own independent label, Box and One with Jemal Mosley. His first artist off the label will be Ray Diamondz.

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, recording engineer, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; he later switched to electric guitar.

He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. His lyrics—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.