Joseph Hill

Joseph Hill (22 January 1949 – 19 August 2006) was the lead singer and songwriter for the roots reggae group Culture, most famous for their 1977 hit "Two Sevens Clash", but also well known for their "International Herb" single. Hill recorded twenty-two albums.

Biography

Early life and career

Joseph Hill was born in 1949 in Linstead, a town in Saint Catherine Parish in the southeast of Jamaica. He was raised in a Christian family and began singing in church at the age of six. Within two years he was making his own musical instruments. After leaving home he came into contact with Rastafarians and adopted the faith.

He began his career in the late 1960s as a percussionist, recording with the Studio One house band the Soul Defenders. He also worked as a sound system deejay, and began performing as a backing vocalist, leading to his singles "Behold the Land" and "Take Me Girl" in the early 1970s. In the early 70s Hill performed with two groups that included future reggae star Glen Washington – C35 Incorporated and Stepping Stone. He performed regularly on the hotel circuit, but had his greatest success with the group Culture.

Culture

Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/) is, in the words of E.B. Tylor, "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is, "the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time."Terror Management Theory posits that culture is a series of activities and worldviews that provide humans with the illusion of being individuals of value in a world meaning—raising themselves above the merely physical aspects of existence, in order to deny the animal insignificance and death that Homo Sapiens became aware of when they acquired a larger brain.

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. For example, the common rock granite is a combination of the quartz, feldspar and biotite minerals. The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock.

Rocks have been used by mankind throughout history. From the Stone Age, rocks have been used for tools. The minerals and metals found in rocks have been essential to human civilization.

Three major groups of rocks are defined: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is an essential component of geology.

Classification

At a granular level, rocks are composed of grains of minerals, which, in turn, are homogeneous solids formed from a chemical compound that is arranged in an orderly manner. The aggregate minerals forming the rock are held together by chemical bonds. The types and abundance of minerals in a rock are determined by the manner in which the rock was formed. Many rocks contain silica (SiO₂); a compound of silicon and oxygen that forms 74.3% of the Earth's crust. This material forms crystals with other compounds in the rock. The proportion of silica in rocks and minerals is a major factor in determining their name and properties.

Hill

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit (e.g. Box Hill, Surrey).

Terminology

The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be less tall and less steep than a mountain. In the United Kingdom, geographers historically regarded mountains as hills greater than 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, which formed the basis of the plot of the 1995 film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. In contrast, hillwalkers have tended to regard mountains as peaks 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level: the Oxford English Dictionary also suggests a limit of 2,000 feet (610 m) and Whittow states "Some authorities regard eminences above 600 m (2,000 ft) as mountains, those below being referred to as hills." The Great Soviet Encyclopedia defines hill as an upland with a relative height up to 200 m (660 ft).

Mount Zion

Mount Zion (Hebrew: הַר צִיוֹן, Har Tsiyyon; Arabic: جبل صهيون‎, Jabel Sahyoun) is a hill in Jerusalem just outside the walls of the Old City. The term Mount Zion has been used in the Hebrew Bible first for the City of David (2 Samuel 5:7, 1 Chronicles 11:5; 1 Kings 8:1, 2 Chronicles 5:2) and later for the Temple Mount, but its meaning has shifted and it is now used as the name of ancient Jerusalem's so-called Western Hill. In a wider sense, the term is also used for the entire Land of Israel.

Etymology

The etymology of the word Zion is uncertain. Mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Samuel (2 Samuel 5:7) as the name of the Jebusite fortress conquered by King David, its origin likely predates the Israelites. If Semitic, it may be associated with the Hebrew root ''ṣiyyôn ("castle") or the Arabic root ṣiyya ("dry land") or the Arabic šanā ("protect" or "citadel"). It might also be related to the Arabic root ṣahî ("ascend to the top") or ṣuhhay ("tower" or "the top of the mountain"). A non-Semitic relationship to the Hurrian word šeya ("river" or "brook") has also been suggested.