H-Town

H-Town most commonly refers to the city of Houston, Texas. (see also: Nicknames of Houston#H-Town)

H-Town may also refer to:

Nicknames

Other uses

Roger Troutman

Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999) was an American composer, songwriter, producer and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced west coast hip hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the vocoder or the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument (frequently a keyboard) to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix "Golden Throat," as well as a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s.

Biography

Early career: Parliament-Funkadelic and Zapp

Dizzee Rascal

Dylan Kwabena Mills (born 18 September 1984), better known by his stage name Dizzee Rascal, is an English rapper, songwriter, singer, and record producer. His music spans grime, UK garage, bassline, British hip hop, and R&B. Best known for his number-one hits "Dance wiv Me", "Bonkers", "Holiday", "Dirtee Disco", and "Shout", his debut album Boy in da Corner is considered a grime classic and earned him the 2003 Mercury Prize. Follow-up albums Showtime, Maths + English, and Tongue n' Cheek have been critically acclaimed and certified gold, with Tongue n' Cheek going platinum for sales exceeding 300,000 units in the United Kingdom.

Early life

Rascal was born in London. His Nigerian father died when Rascal was young, and he was raised in Bow, London, in a single-parent family, by his Ghanaian mother Priscilla, about whom he says, "I had issues as a kid. I was violent and disruptive. The way my mum helped was by finding me a different school every time I got kicked out, always fighting to keep me in the school system."

Bun B

Bernard Freeman (born March 19, 1973), professionally known by his stage name Bun B, is an American rapper and was one half of the southern rap duo UGK (UnderGround Kingz). He is also a guest lecturer at Rice University, located in Houston, Texas. He released his third official solo album, Trill OG, on August 3, 2010, which received a 5 Mic "Classic" rating in The Source magazine - the first album in over five years to receive the honor.

Life and career

UGK

In the late 1980s, Pimp C started the rap duo UGK. He first released a demo tape titled "Underground King" which didn't feature Bun B on the track. Instead, it featured Pimp C's friend Mitchell Queen. Bun B and friend Jalon Jackson had their own group called P.A. Militia. Both groups joined forces and formed the group 4 Black Ministers. Queen and Jackson later left the group leaving Pimp C and Bun B so they decided to revert to UGK. The demo Pimp C recorded with Mitchell Queen, Underground King, caught the attention of an independent label in Houston called Bigtyme Records. They then released an extended play titled The Southern Way. The release of this record caught the attention of Jive Records. While recording their debut album, Too Hard to Swallow, many of the songs had content too explicit for the album, so Bigtyme Records released an extended play titled Banned before the album was released, including all the songs that were too explicit for Too Hard to Swallow. The song "Pocket Full of Stones" became the first UGK song to get major airplay throughout the United States. Their second album, Super Tight..., followed in 1994. Their third album, Ridin' Dirty, peaked at number 2 on the R&B Charts in 1996, and at number 15 on the Billboard 200. After releasing their fourth studio album, Dirty Money, Pimp C got sentenced to jail.