New Jack

Jerome Young (born January 5, 1963) is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, better known by his stage name New Jack in ECW. Young is known for his willingness to take dangerous bumps and his stiff hardcore wrestling style, often taking high risks and "shooting" on opponents. He is also known for having his theme song ("Natural Born Killaz" by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre) play throughout his matches in ECW. The inspiration for his ring name came from the movie New Jack City.

Professional wrestling career

Young trained under Ray Candy and debuted in 1992 in the Memphis, Tennessee-based United States Wrestling Association (USWA), where he adopted the name New Jack. He went on to form a tag team, The Gangstas, with Mustafa Saed and D-Lo Brown in Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW). The Gangstas took part in several controversial angles, on one occasion using affirmative action to enable them to win matches with a two count pinfall as opposed to the conventional three count. They engaged in a long feud with the Rock 'N Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson). During their stint, the NAACP would picket outside the performance venues because of the "Gangsta" gimmick, claiming that no racial violence had occurred in the Tennessee area for years, and they did not want the reputation of gangsters to be put into the Tennessee area.

New jack swing

New jack swing or swingbeat is a fusion genre spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle that became popular from the late 1980s into the early 1990s. Its influence, along with hip hop, seeped into pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive black New York club scene. It fuses the rhythms, samples, and production techniques of hip hop and dance-pop with the urban contemporary sound of R&B. The new jack swing style developed as many previous music styles did, by combining elements of older styles with newer sensibilities. It used R&B style vocals sung over hip hop and dance-pop style influenced instrumentation. The sound of new jack swing comes from the hip hop "swing" beats created by drum machine, and hardware samplers, which was popular during the Golden Age of Hip Hop, with contemporary R&B style singing.

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines new jack swing as "pop music usually performed by black musicians that combines elements of traditional jazz, electronica, smooth jazz, funk, rap, and rhythm and blues."Encyclopædia Britannica calls it the "most pop-oriented rhythm-and-blues music since 1960s Motown", since its "performers were unabashed entertainers, free of artistic pretensions; its songwriters and producers were commercial professionals." New jack swing did not take up the trend of using sampled beats, and instead created beats using the then-new SP-1200 sampler and Roland TR-808 drum machine to lay an "insistent beat under light melody lines and clearly enunciated vocals."Encyclopædia Britannica states that the "key producers" were Babyface, Bernard Belle, and Teddy Riley.

Bobby Brown

Robert "Bobby" Brown (born February 5, 1969) is an American R&B singer, songwriter, dancer and actor. Brown started his career as one of the frontmen of the R&B and pop group New Edition, from its inception as The Bricks in 1982 until his forced exit from the group in 1986 following a period of misbehavior and rebellious behavior on his part. Starting a solo career, he became a hit success with his second album in 1988, Don't Be Cruel, which spawned a number of hit singles including the self-penned "My Prerogative", which became his signature hit. Brown had a string of top ten hits on various Billboard charts between 1986 and 1993. Brown is noted as a pioneer of new jack swing, a fusion of R&B.

From 1992 to 2007 Brown was married to the pop singer Whitney Houston, with whom he had a child, Bobbi Kristina Brown (1993–2015). The couple starred in the reality show Being Bobby Brown. Houston died in 2012.

Early life

Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as one of six children to Carole Elizabeth (née Williams) and Herbert James Brown. Herbert was a construction worker and Carole was a substitute teacher. Brown grew up in Roxbury's Orchard Park Projects. Brown's first taste of being onstage occurred at age three when one of his childhood idols, James Brown, performed in Boston. This performance had sparked a dream of becoming a singer. Brown joined the church choir, where he recognized and developed his singing abilities.

DJ Nasty & LVM

DJ Nasty & LVM are an American record production duo, composed of brothers DJ Nasty (Johnny Mollings) and LVM (Lenny Mollings). They are best known for working with urban-music artists, including Blood Raw, Ace Hood, DJ Khaled, Plies, Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, Brisco, Flo Rida, Rick Ross, Birdman, 8Ball & MJG, Juelz Santana, Cam'Ron, Fat Joe, Pitbull and Chingy. Their major influences in producing come from The Neptunes, Pete Rock, The Runners, Drumma Boy, DJ Toomp and Dr. Dre.

Since 1999, the duo has produced hits including Lil Wayne's "I'm Me", Plies's "#1 Fan", featuring J. Holiday and Keyshia Cole, Ludacris's "Grew Up A Screw Up", featuring Young Jeezy, and 8Ball & MJG's "Relax and Take Notes".

History

Early life and career beginnings

DJ Nasty and LVM were both born in Cuba, and came to the United States in 1978 due to their father being in the Navy and "wanted a change in scenery", states Nasty. DJ Nasty early on met DJ Khaled and another associate named Ceaser and started Hitmen Productions. They were doing local house parties and renting out halls, and soon started to make a big name for themselves in Orlando, Florida. The group eventually broke up due to DJ Khaled moving to New Orleans, Louisiana, with his parents because they owned a clothing store there. Today, Khaled and Ceaser are still good friends with Nasty. DJ Nasty & DJ Khaled have a management company "We The Best Management" which houses the super producers The Runners.

Jack

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