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A 1938 Japanese map of "Shina".

A Japanese map of 1914 depicting "支那 CHINA" as a pig.

A 1900 Japan Post 5-sen stamp with "Shina".

Asahi Shimbun reporting on the Shanghai incident of August 14, 1937, referring to the Republic of China as "Shina tyranny".

Shina or Sina (支那 (シナ)^?, pronounced [ɕiꜜna]) are Romanized Japanese transliterations for the Chinese character compound "支那" which is viewed by most Chinese people as an offensive term for China. Originally a word used neutrally in both Chinese and Japanese, the word gained a derogatory tone due to its widespread usage in the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Origins[link]

The Sanskrit word Cina (चीन IPA: /c͡çiːnə/), for China, was transcribed into various forms including 支那 (Zhīnà), 芝那 (Zhīnà), 脂那 (Zhīnà) and 至那 (Zhìnà). Thus, the term Shina was initially created in Chinese as a translation of "Cina." This term was in turn brought to Japan with the spread of Chinese Buddhism.

Below is a Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907) poem titled Ti Fan Shu (literally "preface to a Sanskrit book") using the Chinese term Zhina (支那) to refer to China:

唐玄宗《題梵書》
毫立蛇形勢未休，
五天文字鬼神愁。
支那弟子無言語，
穿耳胡僧笑點頭。

When Arai Hakuseki, a Japanese scholar, interrogated the Italian missionary Giovanni Battista Sidotti in 1708, he noticed that "Cina", the word Sidotti used to refer to China, was identical to Shina, the Japanese pronunciation of 支那. Then he began to use this word for China regardless of dynasty. Since the Meiji Era, Shina had been widely used as the translation of the Western term "China". For instance, "Sinology" was translated into "Shinagaku" (支那学).

At first, it was widely accepted that the term "Shina" or "Zhina" had no political connotations. In fact, even before the Republican era, the term "Shina" was one of the proposed names that was to be equivalent to the Western usage "China." Chinese revolutionaries, such as Sun Yat-sen, Sung Chiao-jen, and Liang Qichao, used the term extensively, and it was also used in literature as well as by ordinary Chinese. The First Sino-Japanese War caused the view that it had a negative nuance to gradually spread among the Chinese.

Nevertheless the term continued to be more-or-less neutral. A Buddhist school called Zhīnà Nèixuéyuàn (支那內學院) was established as late as in 1922 in Nanjing. In the meantime, "Shina" was used as commonly in Japanese as "China" in English. Derogatory nuances were expressed by adding extra adjectives (e.g. 暴虐なる支那兵 (cruel Chinese soldier[s])) or using derogatory terms like "chankoro" (チャンコロ, originating from a corruption of the Taiwanese Hokkien pronunciation of 清國奴 Chheng-kok-lô͘, used to refer to any "chinaman", with a meaning of "Qing dynasty's slave". In this context, this refers to the Manchu governance of the Han Chinese).

Despite interchangeability of Chinese characters, Japan officially used the term Shina Kyōwakoku (支那共和国) from 1913 to 1930 in Japanese documents, while Zhonghua Minguo (中華民國) was used in Chinese ones. "Shina Kyōwakoku" was the literal translation of the English "Republic of China" while Chūka Minkoku was the Japanese pronunciation of the official Chinese characters of "Zhonghua Minguo". The Republic of China unofficially pressed Japan to adopt the latter but was rejected.

This rejection of the term "Chūka Minkoku" by Japan was thought to be an attempt to place itself on equal footing with Western powers, who used the term China. The name "Chūka Minkoku" was officially adopted by Japan in 1930 but "Shina" was still commonly used by the Japanese throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

Today[link]

A ramen store in Japan selling "Shina soba".

The Second Sino-Japanese War fixed the impression of the term "Shina" as offensive among Chinese people. Its effect when a Japanese person uses it to refer to a Chinese person is very similar to the American connotation of the word "negro", a word that has harmless etymologies but has gained derogative connotations due to historical context, where the phrase 支那人 (shinajin; Shina person) was used during the war to refer to Chinese. In 1946, the Republic of China demanded that Japan cease using "Shina". Meanwhile, Japanese war crimes committed against China in World War II, such as the Nanking Massacre and Unit 731, created a strong anti-Japanese sentiment in China, which continues to this day.

In China, the term Shina has become linked with the Japanese invasion and Japanese war crimes, and has been considered a derogatory and deeply offensive ethnic slur ever since. Although many assume that the term was created (or chosen) by the Japanese for exclusive use as a racist term, since the character 支 (J: shi/C: zhī) means "branch" which could be interpreted to suggest that the Chinese are subservient to the Japanese, the characters were originally chosen simply for their sound values, not their meanings.

In modern Japan, the term 中華民国 refers to the Republic of China, 中華人民共和国 refers to the People's Republic of China and 中国 refers to China, the terms being used similarly in the Western world and unofficially in both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. Use of the term "Shina" in Japanese political contexts is limited to those who pointedly ignore Chinese demands, and often has an anti-Chinese bent, so as to gain support in Japanese nationalism.

It is considered socially unacceptable and subject to kotobagari, especially the kanji form (if Shina is used, it is now generally written in katakana). However, even then it is still sometimes seen in written forms such as shina soba (支那そば^?), an alternative name for ramen, which originates from China. Many Japanese are not fully aware of Chinese feelings towards the term, and generally find Shina merely old-fashioned and associated with the early and mid-20th century, rather than derogatory and racist. This difference in conception can lead to misunderstandings.

A few compound words containing Shina have been altered; for example, the term for Sinology was changed from 支那学 (shinagaku; Shina-studies) to 中国学 (chūgokugaku; Chinese studies) or 漢学 (kangaku; Han-studies), and the name for the Second Sino-Japanese War has changed from terms such as 支那事變 (Shina Jihen; The China Incident) and 日支事變 (Nisshi Jihen; The Japan-Shina Incident) to 日中戦争 (Nitchū Sensō; Japan-China War).

On the other hand, the term "Shina/Zhina" has survived in a few non-political compound words in both Chinese and Japanese. For example, the South and East China Seas are called Minami Shina Kai (南シナ海) and Higashi Shina Kai (東シナ海) respectively in Japanese (prior to World War II, the names were written as 南支那海 and 東支那海), and one of the Chinese names for Indochina is Yindu Zhina (印度支那; Japanese: Indoshina). Shinachiku (支那竹 or simply シナチク), a ramen topping made from dried bamboo, also derives from the term "Shina", but in recent years the word Menma (メンマ) has replaced this as a more "politically correct" name. Some terms that translate to words containing the "Sino-" prefix in English retain Shina within them, albeit written in Katakana, for example シナ・チベット語族 (Sino-Tibetan languages) and シナントロプス・ペキネンシス (Sinanthropus pekinensis, also known as Peking Man).

See also[link]

• Names of China
• Chinaman
• Tàu
• Wa
• Wokou
• Ethnic issues in Japan

Further reading[link]

• Joshua A. Fogel, "The Sino-Japanese Controversy over Shina as a Toponym for China," in The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Joshua A. Fogel (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 66-76.

In language, a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed).

A complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, un-expect-ed), or more than one root in a compound (black-board, rat-race). Words can be put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a rock too but he missed).

The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the English alphabet.

Definitions[link]

The ease or difficulty of deciphering a word depends on the language. Dictionaries categorize a language's lexicon (i.e., its vocabulary) into lemmas. These can be taken as an indication of what constitutes a "word" in the opinion of the writers of that language.

Semantic definition[link]

Leonard Bloomfield introduced the concept of "Minimal Free Forms" in 1926. Words are thought of as the smallest meaningful unit of speech that can stand by themselves.^[1] This correlates phonemes (units of sound) to lexemes (units of meaning). However, some written words are not minimal free forms, as they make no sense by themselves (for example, the and of).^[2]

Some semanticists have proposed a theory of so-called semantic primitives or semantic primes, indefinable words representing fundamental concepts that are intuitively meaningful. According to this theory, semantic primes serve as the basis for describing the meaning, without circularity, of other words and their associated conceptual denotations.^[3]

Features[link]

In the Minimalist school of theoretical syntax, words (also called lexical items in the literature) are construed as "bundles" of linguistic features that are united into a structure with form and meaning.^[4] For example, the word "bears" has semantic features (it denotes real-world objects, bears), category features (it is a noun), number features (it is plural and must agree with verbs, pronouns, and demonstratives in its domain), phonological features (it is pronounced a certain way), etc.

Word boundaries[link]

The task of defining what constitutes a "word" involves determining where one word ends and another word begins—in other words, identifying word boundaries. There are several ways to determine where the word boundaries of spoken language should be placed:

• Potential pause: A speaker is told to repeat a given sentence slowly, allowing for pauses. The speaker will tend to insert pauses at the word boundaries. However, this method is not foolproof: the speaker could easily break up polysyllabic words, or fail to separate two or more closely related words.
• Indivisibility: A speaker is told to say a sentence out loud, and then is told to say the sentence again with extra words added to it. Thus, I have lived in this village for ten years might become My family and I have lived in this little village for about ten or so years. These extra words will tend to be added in the word boundaries of the original sentence. However, some languages have infixes, which are put inside a word. Similarly, some have separable affixes; in the German sentence "Ich komme gut zu Hause an", the verb ankommen is separated.
• Phonetic boundaries: Some languages have particular rules of pronunciation that make it easy to spot where a word boundary should be. For example, in a language that regularly stresses the last syllable of a word, a word boundary is likely to fall after each stressed syllable. Another example can be seen in a language that has vowel harmony (like Turkish):^[5] the vowels within a given word share the same quality, so a word boundary is likely to occur whenever the vowel quality changes. Nevertheless, not all languages have such convenient phonetic rules, and even those that do present the occasional exceptions.
• Orthographic boundaries: See below.

Orthography[link]

In languages with a literary tradition, there is interrelation between orthography and the question of what is considered a single word. Word separators (typically spaces) are common in modern orthography of languages using alphabetic scripts, but these are (excepting isolated precedents) a relatively modern development (see also history of writing).

In English orthography, compound expressions may contain spaces. Examples are ice cream, air raid shelter, get up, and these must thus be considered as more than one word. (Ice, cream, air etc. indisputably exist as free forms, the case of get is less clear.) In contrast, brownstone is spelt as a single word and would thus be considered as such for most purposes even though brown and stone are free forms.

Vietnamese orthography, although using the Latin alphabet, delimits monosyllabic morphemes, not words. East Asian orthography (languages using CJK characters) also tend to delimit syllables (in the case of Chinese characters) or morae (in the case of kana) rather than full words. Hangul the Korean alphabet, delimits both syllables and words, by grouping graphemes into syllabic blocks but also adds spaces between words. Conversely, synthetic languages often combine many lexical morphemes into single words, making it difficult to boil them down to the traditional sense of words found more easily in analytic languages; this is especially difficult for polysynthetic languages, such as Inuktitut and Ubykh, where entire sentences may consist of a single word.

Morphology[link]

In synthetic languages, a single word stem (for example, love) may have a number of different forms (for example, loves, loving, and loved). However for some purposes these are not usually considered to be different words, but rather different forms of the same word. In these languages, words may be considered to be constructed from a number of morphemes. In Indo-European languages in particular, the morphemes distinguished are

• the root
• optional suffixes
• a desinence, or inflectional suffix.

Thus, the Proto-Indo-European *wr̥dhom would be analyzed as consisting of

1. *wr̥-, the zero grade of the root *wer-
2. a root-extension *-dh- (diachronically a suffix), resulting in a complex root *wr̥dh-
3. The thematic suffix *-o-
4. the neuter gender nominative or accusative singular desinence *-m.

Philosophy[link]

Philosophers have found words objects of fascination since at least the 5th century BC, with the foundation of the philosophy of language. Plato analyzed words in terms of their origins and the sounds making them up, concluding that there was some connection between sound and meaning, though words change a great deal over time. John Locke wrote that the use of words "is to be sensible marks of ideas", though they are chosen "not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea".^[6] Wittgenstein's thought transitioned from a word as representation of meaning to "the meaning of a word is its use in the language."^[7]

Classes[link]

Grammar classifies a language's lexicon into several groups of words. The basic bipartite division possible for virtually every natural language is that of nouns vs. verbs.

The classification into such classes is in the tradition of Dionysius Thrax, who distinguished eight categories: noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, preposition, adverb, conjunction and interjection.

In Indian grammatical tradition, Pāṇini introduced a similar fundamental classification into a nominal (nāma, suP) and a verbal (ākhyāta, tiN) class, based on the set of desinences taken by the word.

See also[link]

• Longest words
• Utterance

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Adger, David (2003). Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-924370-0. 
• Barton, David (1994). Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. Blackwell Publishing. p. 96. 
• Bauer, Laurie (1983). English Word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28492-9. 
• Brown, Keith R. (Ed.) (2005) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). Elsevier. 14 vols.
• Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (1 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-40179-8. 
• Fleming, Michael et al. (2001). Meeting the Standards in Secondary English: A Guide to the ITT NC. Routledge. p. 77. ISBN 0-415-23377-1. 
• Goddard, Cliff (2002). "The search for the shared semantic core of all languages". In Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka. Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and Empirical Findings. Volume I. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 5–40. http://www.une.edu.au/lcl/nsm/pdf/Goddard_Ch1_2002.pdf 
• Katamba, Francis (2005). English Words: Structure, History, Usage. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-29893-8. 
• Plag, Ingo (2003). Word-formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52563-2. 
• Simpson, J.A. and E.S.C. Weiner, ed. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2. 
• Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-870002-4. 

External links[link]

Look up word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• What Is a Word? – a working paper by Larry Trask (see [1] for attribution), Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Sussex.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2008)

Sir Shina Peters (born 30 May 1958) is a Nigerian Jùjú musician. Born Oluwashina Akanbi Peters in Ogun State, he began his career while playing the guitar with General Prince Adekunle, later forming his own group with Juju Maestro Segun Adewale.^[1] Shina Peters, after releasing many albums with Segun Adewale thru the 1980s, went on to form his own band "Sir Shina Peters & His International Stars". Their first album release Ace (Afro-Juju Series 1) in 1989 went double platinum and was the career breakthrough which catapulted Sir Shina Peters back into the limelight. "Ace" was a musical fusion between Juju and Afro beat; a rhythmic collaboration which pierced Ethnic, Cultural and language barriers in Nigeria. The second album release Shinamania (Afro-Juju Series 2) went on to further prove that Sir Shina Peters & His International Stars were on the verge to change and revolutionize the Juju Music scene in Africa.^{[citation needed]} Sir Shina Peters is still regarded as the creator of a well-respected music genre (Afro Juju) that exists in its own class till this day. He currently has 16 album releases to his credit.

Sir Shina Peters also called "SSP" has received numerous awards and recognition for his unparalleled prowess in the art of Writing, Composition, Choreography and Musical Ability.^{[citation needed]} Sir Shina Peters & His International Stars have become a household name in the World Music genre.^{[citation needed]} Sir Shina Peters has sold millions of albums worldwide & has taken his music to the shores of South Africa, Europe, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and United States. Sir Shina Peters is currently signed to Orbit Entertainment, his USA agency based in New York.

Popular Culture[link]

Owning to his nationally witnessed debacle at the apex of his popularity on wishing fellow Music Entertainer King Sunny Ade(KSA) a quick and smooth recovery, Sir Shina Peters due to his lack of familiarity with the English language goes on to say "...Wish him quick Recover" while this did not affect his status as a great artist it definitely has been a sour patch which made him a cult icon of grammatical error.

Discography[link]

1. Way to Freedom (1980)
2. Freedom (Senwele)(1981)
3. Money Power (1982)
4. Ko Temi fun mi (1984)
5. Ace "Afro Juju Series 1 (1989)
6. Shinamania (1990)
7. Dancing Time (1991)
8. Experience (1992)
9. Mr. President (1993)
10. My Child (1994)
11. Kilode (1995)
12. Love (1996)
13. Reunion (1997)
14. Playmate (2000)
15. Happy Hour (2004)
16. Pay Back Time (2005)
17. Splendour (2006)

References[link]

This article on an African musician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This Nigerian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011)

China Anne McClain
China Anne McClain, 2011
Background information
Born	(1998-08-25) August 25, 1998 (age 13)[1] Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.[1]
Genres	Pop, dance
Occupations	Actress, singer, songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboard, violin, flute,
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Hollywood/Walt Disney
Associated acts	McClain Sisters
Website	chinaanne.net

China Anne McClain (born August 25, 1998) is an American teen actress, singer, and songwriter. Her father and mother are singer producers. She has two sisters, Sierra and Lauryn, forming the group McClain Sisters. As of August 2011, China has amassed more than $600,000 throughout her career.^[2] China's career began in 2005 when she was seven years old acting in the movie The Gospel. However, she became nationally known after 2007, when she joined the cast of the series Tyler Perry's House of Payne as Jazmine Payne, and internationally as Chyna Parks, the star of the Disney Channel Original A.N.T. Farm.

Disney released the soundtrack of the television series ANT Farm on October 11, 2011. McClain sings six songs and two solos with her sisters on the soundtrack, which debuted in the Billboard 200 at number 29 with 14,000 copies sold in its first week. The release containing the hit song Calling All the Monsters that reached the eighty-sixth spot on the Billboard Hot 100. There are plans to release an album with her siblings in 2012 published by Hollywood Records under the moniker The McClain Sisters.

Career[link]

[edit] 2005–10: Early work and Tyler Perry's House of Payne

McClain was discovered in 2005 by a music executive who heard her sing and encouraged director Rob Hardy to audition her for his 2005 feature film The Gospel alongside Boris Kodjoe and Idris Elba.^[1] Her role caught the attention of Tyler Perry, who cast her as Jazmine Payne in the television series Tyler Perry's House of Payne.

She appears in the movie Daddy's Little Girls with her real-life sisters, Sierra and Lauryn who are also actresses, play her older sisters in the film. Her father, Michael McClain, is a music producer. Her mother, Shontell, is a songwriter. McClain appeared in and guest starred in various other shows and movies such as Hannah Montana with Sierra McCormick, NCIS and the 2009 film Hurricane Season. She also appeared in the movie Grown Ups as Charlotte McKenzie. In the same year when she landed a recurring role as Kiara on Jonas L.A. and was featured on the Jonas L.A. soundtrack.

[edit] 2011–present: A.N.T. Farm, McClain Sisters and music career

McClain appeared on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place in 2011 as Tina in one episode entitled "Wizards vs. Angels". In 2011, McClain was cast as the lead role in the Disney Channel series A.N.T. Farm with Sierra McCormick from Hannah Montana and Jake Short, along with Carlon Jeffery, and Stefanie Scott. For the show, McClain recorded a cover of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite". She also sings the series theme song, "Exceptional". China Anne's first music video, for "Dynamite", premiered on July 23, 2011 on Disney Channel. After less than a week, more than 1 million views on YouTube were reported. She has appeared in an episode of PrankStars. She also appeared in the Chiddy Bang Opposite Of Adults music video. For the Disney Channel Halloween special in 2011, she performed the song, "Calling All The Monsters".

As of June 14, 2011 the McClain Sisters was signed with Hollywood Records.^[3] The A.N.T. Farm soundtrack was released on October 11, 2011, featuring China Anne's version of "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. On September 28, 2011, China Anne released "Calling All The Monsters" to iTunes. "Calling All The Monsters" charted number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On November 24, 2011, China preformed her song "Unstoppable" in the 85th Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

McClain Sisters performed a new song called "Rise" at the Mall of America on March 11, 2012. It will be the lead single off their upcoming album, as well as the Disneynature film Chimpanzee. The song premiered on the iTunes Store on March 23, 2012, with the music video premiering on March 26. The video premiered during an episode of Austin & Ally and was uploaded onto Youtube the next day. It will also be featured as a Disney Friends For Change anthem.^[4]

Personal life[link]

McClain was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She enjoys singing with her sisters Lauryn and Sierra McClain. She also has a little brother who appeared on the A.N.T. Farm episode where Paisley and Lexi fight over who is going to be the entertainment for a child's party. Her little brother plays Greg on the show.

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Soundtrack albums[link]

Singles[link]

Other appearances[link]

Music videos[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• China Anne McClain at the Internet Movie Database
• China Anne McClain on Twitter

Rita Ora
Background information
Birth name	Rita Sahatçiu Ora
Born	(1990-11-26) November 26, 1990 (age 21) Pristina, SFR Yugoslavia (present day Kosovo[a])
Origin	West London, England, UK.[1]
Genres	R&B, pop, soul , smooth jazz
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, actress
Instruments	Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano
Years active	2004–present
Labels	Roc Nation
Website	ritaora.com rocnation.com/ritaora

Rita Sahatçiu Ora (born 26 November 1990), better known as Rita Ora, is a British singer-songwriter and actress.^[2][3] In 2009, she appeared on the BBC's Eurovision: Your Country Needs You where she auditioned to be the British contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.^[1] Later in 2009, she signed to Roc Nation. Ora is of Kosovar Albanian ethnicity.

In 2012, Ora provided the vocals for DJ Fresh’s "Hot Right Now", which has been the fastest selling single in the UK of 2012.^[4] Ora's debut single, "R.I.P", topped the UK Singles Chart in May 2012.^[5] Ora will spend the summer 2012 opening concerts for Coldplay.^[6]

Biography[link]

Early life and career beginnings[link]

Rita Ora was born in Pristina, SFR Yugoslavia (now Kosovo^[a]) and moved to the United Kingdom the same year of her birth. She grew up in West London and attended St Cuthbert with St Matthias CE Primary School in Earls Court, following which she graduated from Sylvia Young Theatre School and then St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College. She began singing from a young age.^[7][8] In 2004, she appeared in the British film Spivs.^[9] She auditioned for Eurovision: Your Country Needs You on BBC One to be the British contestant for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest^[1][10] but later withdrew from the competition after a few episodes as she did not feel ready.^[1]

In 2007, Ora had her first music release when she appeared on Craig David's track entitled "Awkward"^[11] and then again in 2008 on "Where's Your Love" featuring Tinchy Stryder, for which she also appears in the music video.^[12] Ora began singing in bars in and around London, and in 2009 a A&R told Roc Nation about Ora, a few days after Ora flew out to New York and met Jay Z.^[13] In 2009, Ora made a cameo on Jay-Z's video for "Young Forever" and "Over" by Drake. Ora caught the attention of Jay-Z and he signed her to Roc Nation, for which she was featured in a commercial for Roc Nation + Skullcandy Aviator Headphones.^[14][15]

2011–present: debut album[link]

Throughout 2011, Ora released viral videos of herself working on her debut album.^[16] On 14 December 2011, DJ Fresh and Ora released the music video for "Hot Right Now" on YouTube.^[17] The single was released on 12 February 2012 and reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart.^[4]

On 24 February 2012, Ora visited New York's Z100 radio station alongside her Roc Nation label boss Jay-Z, to premiere "How We Do (Party)", her debut single and the lead single from her upcoming studio album. "How We Do (Party)" borrows its familiar refrain from The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Party and Bullshit".^[18]

She has been recording her first studio album for two years. will.i.am, Ester Dean, Drake, The-Dream, Kanye West and Stargate are all working with Ora on her debut album.^[19][20]

When speaking about the sound of the album and its concept, Ora said it "definitely has pop in it, but (...) you can hear influences of jazz in there, you can hear influences of Monica and Aaliyah, and then you can hear Gwen Stefani.”^[21] She has also stated the album will be influenced by her father's record colllection which, in addition to reggae, also includes such artists as Eric Clapton and B.B. King.^[22] She confirmed the tracks "Roc the Life", "Love at War", "Facemelt" and "Shine Ya Light" to be featured on her debut album.^{[23] [24]}

Her first solo record, "R.I.P." featuring Tinie Tempah, was released as her first UK single on 6 May 2012.^[25] The video directed by Emil Nava was recorded in Hackney, East London, and released on 4 April 2012.^[26] Produced by Chase & Status, the song debuted at the top of the UK Singles Chart, becoming her first solo UK number 1, and second overall.^[5] In May, Ora became a guest judge on the ninth series of the X Factor in the UK, with the auditions filmed at the O2 Arena, London.^[27] In summer 2012, Ora will be opening stadiums for Coldplay.^[6]

Artistry[link]

Influences[link]

Ora credits Gwen Stefani as her idol and biggest influence, saying in an interview “Do you know how much I love that woman? I love everything about her."^[13] Ora has also named Beyoncé as a major influence and a mentor, in addition to talking about her admiration at being able to have one of her idols, Beyoncé, give her feedback on her debut album.^[20] Her other musical influences include Aaliyah, India Arie, Christina Aguilera, Brandy, Monica, Madonna, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Vybz Kartel and Sade.^[13][28] Ora has mentioned her admiration for Rita Hayworth as an early inspiration for wanting to pursue an acting career.^[29]

For fashion inspirations, Ora also cites Gwen Stefani^[30] as her most influential style icon. In addition to Stefani, Ora has drawn great inspiration stylistically from Marilyn Monroe and Daphne Guinness through fashionable trends in both vintage clothing and retro wear.^[31][32]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

As featured artist[link]

Guest appearances[link]

She has appeared in 2 songs of James Morrison's album Songs for You, Truths for Me as backing vocal

Music videos[link]

Cameo appearances[link]

Filmography[link]

Notes and references[link]

Notes:

References: