Kool A.D.

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Victor Vazquez (born November 16, 1983), also known by his stage name Kool A.D., is an American musician, rapper, author, and artist. He is from the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Vazquez is best known for being a member of the New York-based rap group Das Racist, though he has also been a member of the bands Boy Crisis and Party Animal. Vazquez has also released his own solo material, including numerous mixtapes. Mother Jones magazine described his work as "a thoughtful effort to deconstruct and rearrange cultural objects in ways that challenge our deepest assumptions."

Background and personal life

Vazquez, who is of Afro-Cuban and Italian descent, originally hails from the San Francisco Bay area of California. He attended high school at the Arthur Andersen Community Learning Center in Alameda and college at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English. While at Wesleyan, Vazquez played drums for the band La Spanka and formed the group Boy Crisis. At Wesleyan, Vazquez met future Das Racist bandmate Himanshu Suri as well as Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT. In early 2014, Vazquez married Saba Moeel, a fashion designer and musician he had known since he was 15. They now have a child, whom Vazquez writes about in his column in Vice Magazine.

Boots Riley

Raymond Lawrence Riley (born 1971), better known by his stage name Boots Riley, is an American poet, rapper, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, humorist, political organizer, community activist, lecturer, and public speaker- best known as the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. Riley is known for his energetic, charismatic, "punk"-like presence on-stage, combined with dancing. As a vocalist, he is known to display a wide range of cadence, vocal tone, and texture- sometimes taking on a fictional character's accent.

Boots Riley's work is known for its heartfelt, humorous, witty, optimistic lyrics with stylistically literary leanings. Some of his songs are very detailed and visually descriptive, earning him accolades as a story teller.

Most of his works, although often about a personal experience (love, sex, broken-down cars, getting drunk, etc.), are tied to a radical class analysis of the current system and or situation. Some of his songs call for the overthrow of the ruling class by the working class.

The Pack (group)

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The Pack was a Rap group from Berkeley, California. The group consists of Lil B, Damonte "Lil Uno" Johnson, Keith "Stunnaman" Jenkins, Lloyd "Young L" Omadhebo. They all recorded together for over a year at Young L's home studio where they released their first two mixtapes Wolfpack Muzik Vol. 1 and Wolfpack Muzik Vol. 2. The Pack expanded their fanbase and eventually got signed to a major label, when Too Short signed The Pack to his Jive Records-distributed label Up All Nite Records. The Pack is usually known for their skateboard raps and the sexually explicit content of many of their songs. The group is best known for the track "Vans". The Pack has also collaborated with musicians such as Soulja Boy, Wiz Khalifa, and Taymoney20.

Music career

Skateboards 2 Scrapers EP & Based Boys (2006-2008)

Main Attrakionz

Main Attrakionz is an American hip-hop duo from Oakland, California, composed of rappers Mondre M.A.N. (Damondre Grice) and Squadda B (Charles Glover).

Career

Grice and Glover met in the seventh grade when they were both kicked out of math class, and began recording raps together. The two have continued to collaborate and have become known as significant players in the "cloud rap" movement, which features "a splinter sound that's ethereal and often hooked around cascading synth lines and amorphous beats".

Main Attrakionz released Cloudlife, a collaborative EP with Jel and Zachg, on March 2, 2012. The duo released their first album, Bossalinis & Fooliyones, on October 22, 2012, which was noted in Spin to have "nine-song run from 'On Tour' to 'Bury Me a Millionaire' is as impressive as anything on a rap record this year". On their review of the album, Pitchfork Media said of the duo, "here are two guys who clearly love to rap and work hard at it, taking a style they can call their own, and presenting it in a more user-friendly way. More often than not, they make it work".

Anno Domini

The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin, which means in the year of the Lord but is often translated as in the year of our Lord. It is occasionally set out more fully as anno Domini nostri Iesu (or Jesu) Christi ("in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ"). The terms anno Domini (AD or A.D.) and before Christ (BC or B.C.) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

This calendar era is based on the traditionally reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth, with AD counting years from the start of this epoch, and BC denoting years before the start of the era. There is no year zero in this scheme, so the year AD 1 immediately follows the year 1 BC. This dating system was devised in 525, but was not widely used until after 800.

The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today. For decades, it has been the unofficial global standard, adopted in the pragmatic interests of international communication, transportation, and commercial integration, and recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations.