Lupe Fiasco's The Cool

Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, commonly referred to as simply The Cool, is the second studio album by Chicago hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco, released on December 18, 2007 in the United States. The Cool is a loose concept album, based on a song and its titular character from his debut album Food & Liquor. The album features production from Patrick Stump, Soundtrakk, Unkle, and Chris & Drop, among others. Guest appearances include Gemini, Snoop Dogg, and Matthew Santos. The album debuted at #15, moved a spot up to #14 on the Billboard 200 in its second week. It debuted as the #1 rap record and remained there for 9 weeks. It has been certified Gold by the RIAA. The album was nominated for four awards at the 2009 Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album.

Background

Concept

During the recording of the album, Lupe Fiasco's father died of type II diabetes, his good friend Stack Bundles died, and his business partner and mentor—Charles "Chilly" Patton—was sentenced to 44 years in prison. When asked about the album's dark side, Lupe Fiasco replied:

Solo (Dutch band)

Solo is the musical outfit of Dutch musicians Michiel Flamman and Simon Gitsels. The duo released two albums, of which the latest Solopeople was the biggest success. The album released on label Excelsior Recordings spawned a Dutch top 20 hit with Come Back To Me.

Biography

Songs ’n Sounds (2003-2005)

In 2003 Flamman and Gitsels team up under the name Solo. By then both have already paid their dues in the music industry. Flamman performed under the name J. Perkin and wrote songs for other artists. Gitsels worked as sessions musician for Mathilde Santing and Birgit.

A year later the duo signs with Excelsior Recordings. On this label Solo releases its debut album Songs ‘n Sounds on August 16. The record is produced by Martijn Groeneveld and contains contributions from Minco Eggersman (at the close of every day), Rowin Tettero (Mindmeners) and Marg van Eenbergen (Seedling). The latter two also support Flamman and Gitsels during live shows. In November Solo receives an Essent award.

Solo (Norwegian soft drink)

Solo is an orange-flavoured soft drink, owned by the Norwegian companies Ringnes, Oskar Sylte, Aass, and Mack. The recipe was originally Spanish, and brought to the Tønsberg Bryggeri by Torleif Gulliksrud in 1934. Solo quickly became Norway's most popular soft drink, and until the 1960s was bigger than Coca-Cola in Norway. In 1999, Pepsi passed Solo in market share, leaving Solo as third most popular.

As of 2005, Solo has a seven percent share of the Norwegian soft drink market. Variants of the original Solo include Solo Super (less sugar), Solo Sunset and Solrik (juice).

References

External links

Solo (magazine)

Solo is a Swedish language monthly women's magazine published in Stockholm, Sweden.

History and profile

Solo was founded in 1997. The magazine targets young women between 18 and 35 years old. It is part of Aller media. Karin Nordin is the editor-in-chief of the magazine which is published on a monthly basis. Its headquarters is in Stockholm.

References

Usher (album)

Usher is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Usher. It was released on August 30, 1994, by LaFace Records. The album debuted at number 167 on the US Billboard 200, while it has reached at number 25 on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts.

Reception

Billy Johnson Jr. of Yahoo! Music called the debut album "an enjoyable ride." Anderson Jones of Entertainment Weekly in a less than enthusiastic review of the album called the songs "sophomoric" and "remarkably dull."

Track listing

Chart history

Album

Singles

"—" denotes releases that did not chart.

Personnel

Information taken from Allmusic.

Usher (singer)

Usher Terry Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978) known mononymously as Usher, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. Born in Dallas, but raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee was where he lived until moving to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 12 where his mother put him in local singing competiitons all over the city. At one of these competitions is where he would catch the eye of a music A&R from LaFace Records. In August 1994 he released his self-titled debut album, Usher with the lead singles "Can U Get Wit It" and "Think of You". He rose to fame in the late 1990s with the release of his second album My Way (1997), which spawned his first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit, "Nice & Slow". The album has been certified 6-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). My Way also earned Usher his first Grammy Award nomination for his debut single "You Make Me Wanna" that reached number-one on the Rhythmic Top 40, Hot Dance Singles Sales, and US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts. His follow-up album, 8701, produced the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "U Remind Me" and "U Got It Bad". Also from this album "U Don't Have to Call" won Usher his second consecutive Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2003.

African aesthetic

While the African continent is vast and its peoples diverse, certain standards of beauty and correctness in artistic expression and physical appearance are held in common among various African societies.

Taken collectively, these values and standards have been characterised as comprising a generally accepted African aesthetic.

Cool

In African Art in Motion, African art scholar and Yale professor Robert Farris Thompson turns his attention to cool in both the African and African-American contexts:

See also

References