Chocolate Rain

"Chocolate Rain" is a song by American musician Tay Zonday. It quickly went viral after the music video for the song was uploaded to YouTube on April 22, 2007, and has since been viewed more than 100 million times. "Chocolate Rain" was ranked as the hottest viral video of summer 2007 by CTV and was awarded the 2007 YouTube Award in the category "Music".

Music video

The official music video for "Chocolate Rain", lasting four minutes and fifty-two seconds, was uploaded on April 22, 2007 to Tay Zonday's official YouTube channel. The video portrays a bespectacled Zonday in a recording studio wearing a white T-shirt and singing into a condenser microphone. Occasional cutbacks to Zonday playing a digital piano are also shown. A caption appears early in the video - "**I move away from the mic to breathe in" - which has been parodied many times. The music video was ranked as the hottest viral video of summer 2007 by CTV. The video has also gained has over 100 million views.

Critical response

Tay Zonday

Adam Nyerere Bahner, (born July 6, 1982) better known by the pseudonym Tay Zonday, is an American singer, musician, announcer, voice artist, actor, comedian and YouTube personality.

He is known for his bass singing voice. He garnered mainstream exposure when his song "Chocolate Rain" became a viral video in July 2007. As of September 2015 "Chocolate Rain" has over 105.3 million views.

Early life

Zonday was born Adam Nyerere Bahner in Minneapolis, Minnesota on July 6, 1982 and graduated from The Evergreen State College in 2004. He attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, however, dropped out before graduating. Early in his career, Zonday regularly performed at Balls Cabaret at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis.

Career

In July 2007, Zonday was a graduate student in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was soon making appearances on national television. He appeared on the Opie & Anthony Show,G4TV's Attack of the Show!, VH1's Best Week Ever,Lily Allen and Friends, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Tosh.0 and Maury where he performed "Chocolate Rain" on national television a little over three months after he posted his composition on YouTube. He made the front page of Sunday's Los Angeles Times on August 12, 2007 with additional features in The Toronto Star, The Chicago Tribune's RedEye, The Star Tribune and People and has appeared on CNN for a televised interview. On February 12, 2008, he appeared on the television show Lily Allen and Friends on BBC Three, and performed a cover of Lily Allen's debut "Smile". In March 2008, the video won a YouTube-award in the category "Music".

Chocolate

Chocolate ⁱ/ˈtʃɒkᵊlət/ is a typically sweet, usually brown, food preparation of Theobroma cacao seeds, roasted and ground, often flavored, as with vanilla. It is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, or used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods. Cacao has been cultivated by many cultures for at least three millennia in Mesoamerica. The earliest evidence of use traces to the Mokaya (Mexico and Guatemala), with evidence of chocolate beverages dating back to 1900 BC. In fact, the majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Maya and Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl [ʃoˈkolaːt͡ɬ], a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted. The shell is removed to produce cacao nibs, which are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form. Because the cocoa mass is usually liquefied before being molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids.

Rain

Rain is liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems, as well as water for hydroelectric power plants and crop irrigation.

The major cause of rain production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convective clouds (those with strong upward vertical motion) such as cumulonimbus (thunder clouds) which can organize into narrow rainbands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation which forces moist air to condense and fall out as rainfall along the sides of mountains. On the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by downslope flow which causes heating and drying of the air mass. The movement of the monsoon trough, or intertropical convergence zone, brings rainy seasons to savannah climes.

Justin Bieber

Justin Drew Bieber (/ˈbiːbər/; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. Bieber released his debut EP, My World, in late 2009. It was certified platinum in the U.S. He became the first artist to have seven songs from a debut record chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Bieber released his first full-length studio album, My World 2.0, in 2010. It debuted at or near number one in several countries and was certified triple platinum in the U.S. It was preceded by his most successful single to date, "Baby".

Following his debut album, he had his first headlining tour, the My World Tour, released the remix albums My Worlds Acoustic and Never Say Never – The Remixes -- and the 3D biopic-concert film Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. He released his second studio album, Under the Mistletoe, in November 2011, when it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. Bieber released his third studio album, Believe, in 2012. His fourth studio album Purpose was released in November 2015. His U.S. album and singles sales total 44.7 million.