1.
Kanye West
–
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, fashion designer, and entrepreneur. Intent on pursuing a career as a rapper, West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004 to widespread critical and commercial success. He went on to pursue a variety of different styles on subsequent albums Late Registration, Graduation, and 808s & Heartbreak. In 2010, he released his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to rave reviews from critics, West released his abrasive sixth album, Yeezus, to further critical praise in 2013. His seventh album, The Life of Pablo, was released in 2016, Wests outspoken views and life outside of music have received significant mainstream attention. He has been a frequent source of controversy for his conduct at award shows, on social media and he is the founder and head of the creative content company DONDA. His 2014 marriage to television personality Kim Kardashian has also been subject to media coverage. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all time, three of his albums have been included and ranked on Rolling Stones 2012 update of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. He has also included in a number of Forbes annual lists. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015, West was born on June 8,1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents divorced when he was three years old, after the divorce, he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. His father, Ray West, is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ray West was later a Christian counselor, and in 2006, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland with startup capital from his son. West, was a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University, West was raised in a middle-class background, attending Polaris High School in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois after living in Chicago. At the age of 10, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China, according to his mother, West was the only foreigner in his class, but settled in well and quickly picked up the language, although he has since forgotten most of it. When asked about his grades in school, West replied, I got As. West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age and his mother recalled that she first took notice of Wests passion for drawing and music when he was in the third grade. Growing up in Chicago, West became deeply involved in its hip hop scene and he started rapping in the third grade and began making musical compositions in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists
Kanye West
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West performing at
Lollapalooza in 2011
Kanye West
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West performing in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 2007
Kanye West
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West performing in
Austin, Texas, March 2009
Kanye West
–
West performing with
Jay-Z on their
Watch the Throne Tour in 2011
2.
Graduation (album)
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Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop recording artist and record producer Kanye West. It was released on September 11,2007, by Roc-A-Fella Records, Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios, Sony Music Studios in New York City, at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant in Los Angeles. It was primarily produced by West himself, with contributions from DJ Toomp, as well as Mike Dean, Nottz, Brian All Day Miller, Eric Hudson, Warryn Campbell, Gee Roberson, Plain Pat and Jon Brion. It features guest contributions from artists, including Mos Def, Dwele, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, DJ Premier, the albums cover artwork was designed by Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami. Toward this end, West incorporated synthesizer sounds into his production and dabbled with electronic music, lyrically, the album is more introspective in comparison to its predecessors, as West dedicated much of Graduation towards analyzing himself and conveying his ambivalent outlook on his newfound fame. It continues the theme of Wests previous two studio albums, The College Dropout and Late Registration. The album debuted at one on the US Billboard 200. It produced five singles, including the international hits Cant Tell Me Nothing, Stronger, the outcome of the competition marks a turning point in hip-hop culture, when the dominance of gangsta rap in mainstream hip-hop was brought to an end. Graduation received positive reviews from most critics and earned West several accolades, the album has sold 2,700,000 copies in the US and has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album demonstrates yet another distinctive progression in Wests musical style, Kanye West was particularly influenced by house music, a subgenre of electronic dance music that first originated in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. West has stated growing up, he would listen to hip-hop music at home or in his car. While he rarely listened to house at home, he felt it was an important part of his culture. Along with house music, Graduation contains samples and music elements of euro-disco, hard rock, electronica, lounge, progressive rock, synth-pop, electro, krautrock, dub, reggae, and dancehall. Also, for much of the studio album, Kanye West modified his style of rapping and adopted a dilatory. West altered his vocabulary, he utilized less of the percussive, rhythmic consonants in favor of the more smoother, in addition to U2, West drew inspiration from other arena rock bands such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin for the melodies and chord progressions of his songs. He also chose to back on the guest appearances, limiting himself to just one single guest rap verse on the entire studio album. Largely due to all this and the inclusion of the layered electronic synthesizers, but he also acknowledged the fact that the differences did not right away and without a doubt make Graduation a good album. However, he felt it was a representation of the music he was listening to at that time, Kanye West began working on Graduation immediately after releasing his second studio album Late Registration
Graduation (album)
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Graduation
Graduation (album)
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West's experiences on arena rock tours such as U2's Vertigo Tour (pictured) inspired his direction for the album.
Graduation (album)
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Connie Mitchell contributed vocals to several songs on the album.
Graduation (album)
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The track "Everything I Am" features turntable
scratches by famed record producer
DJ Premier
3.
Sony Music Studios
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Sony Music Studios was a well-known former music recording and mastering facility in New York City. The five story red brick building was a music and broadcasting complex that was located at 460 W. 54th Street, at 10th Avenue and it opened in 1993, and closed in August 2007. In addition to being the facility for new popular, classical and other albums, it was also used as space for soundtrack recording and mixing, post-production. Sony Music Studios also had facilities for live and taped television broadcasts, prior to its acquisition by Sony in 1993, the industrial red-brick barn, was owned by Camera Mart for 20 years, and leased the space to movie and television producers. William Fox, President of the Fox Film Corporation, had worked with inventor Theodore W. Case to develop a method for capturing sound on film eventually becoming the Movietone sound system. On April 30,1927, the first talking Fox Movietone subject debuted in New York, by the end of 1928, Movietone was churning out four talking newsreels a week, and a string of film shorts soon thereafter. The March of Time documentary film series began in rented space on the floor from 1934-1936. Fox Movietone newsreels ceased production in 1963, but by then the studio had become popular for film and commercial production. Among the features made there, Miracle on 34th Street, On The Waterfront, Middle of the Night, Fail Safe, The Pawnbroker, The Group, The Owl and The Pussycat, Wheres Poppa. Fox leased out the complex to various independent film and television such as. Productions with such TV series as Inner Sanctum, The Reporter, the famous I Love New York ad was filmed there in 1978. Printed records are murky on precisely when Twentieth Century Fox divested itself of the property, in 1968, Manhattan Sound Studios ran a short-lived “Manhattan ‘54” operation there. After this it appears to have been bought by Camera Mart, for one brief year,1979, Stage One became a major dance and ballet performance space. Camera Mart owned the property until selling to Sony in 1993, other programs recorded or aired live from the Sony Music Studios included MTV Unplugged, Sessions at West 54th, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and VH1’s Hard Rock Live. Sony Music was also home to the current version of the word game Chain Reaction, millionaire and Chain Reaction, both packaged by Michael Davies, are the only two daily national quiz shows currently produced in New York. Sony Music Studios also hosted America, A Tribute to Heroes, a telethon held 10 days after the September 11,2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The special also featured segments from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, neither location was disclosed before air time because of security concerns. On June 7,2007, after an attempt by Sony Music Executive Vice President/Studio Head Andy Kadison stalled
Sony Music Studios
–
Former site of Sony Music Studios in October 2008.
4.
New York, New York
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
New York, New York
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Clockwise, from top:
Midtown Manhattan,
Times Square, the
Unisphere in
Queens, the
Brooklyn Bridge,
Lower Manhattan with
One World Trade Center,
Central Park, the
headquarters of the United Nations, and the
Statue of Liberty
New York, New York
–
New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual
Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year
England took control and renamed it "New York".
New York, New York
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The
Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the
American Revolution, took place in
Brooklyn in 1776.
New York, New York
–
Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.
5.
The Record Plant
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The Record Plant was a series of three famous recording studios which were founded by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, beginning in New York City in 1968. The next year, Kellgren and Stone opened a studio in Los Angeles. In 1972, the company expanded again with a location in Sausalito. Kellgren died in 1977, and in the 1980s, the New York and Sausalito studios ended up under different ownership, the New York studio closed in 1987 and the Sausalito studio closed in 2008. The Los Angeles studio continues in business as the Record Plant, the Record Plant in New York was the first studio to give the recording artist a comfortable, casual environment rather than the clinical setting that was the norm through the 1960s. Kellgren and Stone brought this same vision to their Los Angeles, Stone later said of Kellgren, He single-handedly was responsible for changing studios from what they were—fluorescent lights, white walls and hardwood floors—to the living rooms that they are today. In late 1967, Chris Stone was introduced to Kellgren because Kellgrens wife Marta was seven months pregnant, scared of the upcoming birth, mutual friends thought that the two couples could talk about being parents and ease Martas worry. Though they were opposed in nature, with Stone all business and Kellgren very creative. Seeing him at work, Stone determined that Kellgren was not making use of his genius for making recordings. Stone noticed that the studio was charging its clients $5,000 per week. Stone suggested Kellgren ask for a raise, and soon he was making $1,000 per week, Stone held an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and was at that time employed as the national sales representative of Revlon cosmetics. Stone convinced Kellgren that the two of them, with $100,000 borrowed from Johanna C. C, ancky Revson Johnson, could start a new recording studio, one with a better atmosphere for creativity. Johnson was a model who became the second wife of Revlon founder Charles Revson, then divorced and married Ben Johnson. In early 1968 Kellgren and Stone began building a 12-track studio at 321 West 44th Street and it opened on March 13,1968. When The Jimi Hendrix Experience arrived at the studio, Kellgren engineered the first few dates until Eddie Kramer, in 1969, Kellgren and Stone sold the New York operation to TeleVision Communications, a cable television company that was broadening its portfolio. The purpose of the sale was to gain cash for expansion into Los Angeles with a second studio, the next big mixing assignment that the studio accepted was to mix the tracks recorded at the Woodstock Festival. These took more than a month to sort out in the studio, as recording conditions had been primitive, in 1970, Studio A became the first recording studio designed for mixing quadraphonic sound. On August 1,1971, the studio made its first remote recordings at The Concert for Bangladesh, in January 1972, Warner Communications bought the facility from TVC
The Record Plant
–
Opening celebration in Los Angeles, December 4, 1969. Pictured L to R: Attorney Tom Butler, producer
Tom Wilson, investors Ben Johnson and Ancky Johnson (cutting cake), founders
Chris Stone and
Gary Kellgren.
The Record Plant
–
Letting off steam in 1974.
Gary Kellgren, second from right, mugs for the camera.
The Record Plant
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Studio C was destroyed by fire in January 1978
The Record Plant
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Main entrance
6.
Hollywood, California
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
Hollywood, California
–
The Four Ladies installation at the
Hollywood Boulevard –
La Brea Avenue Gateway
Hollywood, California
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Glen-Holly Hotel, first hotel in Hollywood, at the corner of what is now Yucca Street. It was built in the 1890s.
Hollywood, California
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Hollywood Hotel, 1905
Hollywood, California
–
The intersection of
Hollywood and Highland, 1907
7.
Hip hop music
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It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements, MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, while often used to refer solely to rapping, hip hop more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. Hip hops early evolution occurred as sampling technology and drum machines became available and affordable. Turntablist techniques such as scratching and beatmatching developed along with the breaks and Jamaican toasting, rapping developed as a vocal style in which the artist speaks or chants along rhythmically with an instrumental or synthesized beat. The Sugarhill Gangs 1979 song Rappers Delight is widely regarded to be the first hip hop record to gain popularity in the mainstream. The 1980s marked the diversification of hip hop as the genre developed more complex styles, prior to the 1980s, hip hop music was largely confined within the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began to spread to scenes in dozens of countries. New school hip hop was the wave of hip hop music, originating in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D. M. C. The Golden age hip hop period was a period between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. Notable artists from this era include the Juice Crew, Public Enemy, & Rakim, Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, EPMD, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that often focuses on the violent lifestyles, in the West Coast hip hop style, G-funk dominated mainstream hip hop for several years during the 1990s. I. G. In the 1990s, hip hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging, such as Southern rap, at the same time, hip hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music, examples being Neo soul and nu metal. Hip hop became a pop music genre in the mid-1990s. The popularity of hip hop music continued through the 2000s, with hip hop influences also increasingly finding their way into mainstream pop, the United States also saw the success of regional styles such as crunk, a Southern genre that emphasized the beats and music more than the lyrics. Starting in 2005, sales of hip hop music in the United States began to severely wane, during the mid-2000s, alternative hip hop secured a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as OutKast and Kanye West. Creation of the hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash. However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was known as disco rap. Cowboy later worked the hip hop cadence into a part of his stage performance, the first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop
Hip hop music
–
1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the Bronx, a venue used by Kool Herc that is often considered the birthplace of hip hop in 1973
Hip hop music
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DJ Kool Herc, recognized as one of the earliest hip hop artists
Hip hop music
–
Grandmaster Flash
Hip hop music
–
Afrika Bambaataa (left)
8.
Roc-A-Fella Records
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Roc-A-Fella Records was an American record label founded by American recording artist Jay-Z, Damon Dash and Kareem Biggs Burke. It operated as a division of The Island Def Jam Music Group, the foundation of the label occurred in 1996, beginning as an independent outlet for rapper Jay-Zs first album. M. O. P. and DJ Clue, as well as producer Irv Gotti, hard Knock Life, saw him largely depart from his previous entourage and venture forth with producers Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, The 45 King and Jermaine Dupri. Though Da Ranjahz put in appearances on Memphis Bleeks first album, Coming of Age, in 1999, they soon parted ways with Roc-A-Fella Records. Jay-Zs 1999 album Vol.3. Life and Times of S. Carter continued Jays new affiliations with then-popular producers, in 2000, Jay-Z put out The Dynasty, Roc La Familia as a solo album. Rather than return to Timbaland or Swizz Beatz for production, Jay selected beats from a new crop of producers, Jonathan Chandler, Kanye West, Bink, The Neptunes, each beatsmith would go on to become consistently involved in future Roc-A-Fella Records projects. The new millennium saw Roc-A-Fella Records begin to expand one figurehead artist, Beanie Sigels The Truth had reached #5 on the Billboard charts in 2000, and DJ Clue released The Professional 2 in 2000. During this time, Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel were embroiled in a feud with Ruff Ryders Entertainment artists Jadakiss, Camron put out his Roc-A-Fella Records debut Come Home with Me in 2002 to platinum sales, and shortly signed his group The Diplomats to Roc-A-Fella Records, as well. From 2002 to 2003, Dame Dash signed several artists in response to Jay-Zs talk of retirement after his 2002 album The Blueprint2, The Gift & The Curse. He signed M. O. P. and Ol Dirty Bastard, gave Grafh a joint-venture deal, Dash, poised to take greater control in the company, began heavily promoting artists Camron, The Diplomats, State Property, Kanye West and Twista. In 2004, Kanye Wests album, The College Dropout, became a commercial and critical success, selling multi-platinum. The infamous split occurred when it was revealed that Carter, Dash and Burke had sold their 50% interest in Roc-A-Fella Records to The Island Def Jam Music Group, as President, Carter retained control of the Roc and his masters, ousting his two former partners. M. O. P. and Grafh also left Roc-A-Fella Records for Dame Dash Music Group, though both acts parted ways with Dash soon thereafter. Due to the 2004 death of Ol Dirty Bastard, Dash also brought with him masters of the project and promises to release the album, A Son Unique. It was stated by Memphis Bleek that Cory Gunz had signed, by the end of the year, Dash had split his label from Def Jam Recordings and Jay-Zs role overseeing his project, after asking for more money and a bigger role in the company. Dame Dash Music Group left Def Jam Recordings and was subsequently dissolved, in 2006, releases were largely limited to those of Roc-La-Familia, a Latino-geared label under Roc-A-Fella Records that followed the trend of Reggaeton. Both put out albums, and the label was home to New York rapper Tru Life, Jay-Z made his return that year with Kingdom Come, to mixed reviews. Freeways project received critical acclaim but not major sales, and contained comments aimed at Kanye West and Just Blaze for not supplying production and he later amended his comments, stating he desired to work with Just Blaze but the producer hasnt reached out
Roc-A-Fella Records
–
Roc-A-Fella Records
9.
Def Jam Recordings
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Def Jam Recordings is an American record label, focused predominantly on hip hop and urban music, owned by Universal Music Group. In the UK, the takes on the name Def Jam UK and is operated through Virgin EMI, while in Japan. The label distributes various record labels, including Kanye Wests GOOD Music, Ludacris Disturbing Tha Peace, Def Jam was founded by Rick Rubin in his dormitory in Weinstein Hall at New York University and its first release was a single by his punk-rock group Hose. Russell Simmons joined Rubin shortly after they were introduced to other, according to one story. Another cites DJ Jazzy Jay as their connector, Rubin has said he met Simmons on the TV show, Graffiti Rock and recognized him then as the face of hip hop, He was five years older than me, and he was already established in the music business. And I had no experience whatsoever, the first single released with the Def Jam Recordings logo was T La Rock & Jazzy Jays Its Yours. The first releases with Def Jam Recordings catalog numbers were LL Cool Js I Need a Beat, the singles sold well, eventually leading to a distribution deal with CBS Records through Columbia Records the following year. A few years later, Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen started a label called Rush Associated Labels to handle Def Jam. RAL became the home to Nice & Smooth and EPMD after both acts were acquired due to the folding of their former label Sleeping Bag Records, other acts under the RAL umbrella included Redman, Onyx, Flatlinerz, Domino, Warren G and Jayo Felony. As the decade drew to a close, the label signed Public Enemy, Lyor Cohen became president of Def Jam/RAL in 1988, after winning a power struggle with Rubin, who would shortly thereafter leave the company to form Def American Recordings. Rubin would take Slayer with him to Def American in its initial stages, by 1992, despite recent multi-platinum selling releases from Public Enemy, and EPMD, Def Jam ran into severe financial troubles and was faced with folding. However, in 1994, PolyGram purchased Sonys 50% stake in Def Jam Recordings — subsequently bringing the label into its fold, following PolyGrams purchase, Def Jam distributed the Violator Records-signed artist Warren Gs Regulate. G Funk Era album, which went triple platinum and brought much-needed revenue to Def Jam through its distribution deal with Violator, PolyGram acquired an additional 10% in Def Jam Recordings in 1996, further strengthening its ownership of Def Jam. Shortly thereafter, Rush Associated Labels was renamed Def Jam Music Group, the label remained profitable as its veteran star LL Cool J released his successful album Mr. Smith in 1995. The label later signed Foxy Brown, whose debut album Ill Na Na became a seller in 1997. In 1998, PolyGram was purchased by Seagram and merged with the MCA family of labels and it then purchased the remaining interest of Def Jam Recordings from Russell Simmons for a reported $100 million. UMG merged 14+ record labels including, Def Jam, Island Records, despite the formation of IDJMG, the Def Jam, Mercury, and Island labels continued to operate as separate imprints underneath the bigger umbrella. Lyor Cohen was appointed co-president of IDJMG, and Kevin Liles succeeded him as president of Def Jam, Def Soul also issued recordings by Musiq, Montell Jordan, Case,112, Patti LaBelle, and Christina Milian
Def Jam Recordings
–
Def Jam Recordings
10.
Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song
Songwriter
–
Songwriter and singer
Chris de Burgh.
11.
Bernie Taupin
–
In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement placed in the UK music paper New Musical Express by Liberty Records, a company that was seeking new songwriters. Around the same time, Elton John responded to the advertisement. In 1971, journalist Penny Valentine wrote that Bernie Taupins lyrics were to become as important as Elton himself, not just in their atmospheric qualities and descriptive powers, but in the way he handled words to form them into straightforward poems that were easy to relate to. Taupin was born at Flatters Farmhouse, which is located between the village of Anwick and the town of Sleaford in the part of Lincolnshire. Of French ancestry, Taupins father was educated in Dijon, and was employed as a stockman by a farm estate near the town of Market Rasen. Taupins mother worked as a nanny, having lived in Switzerland. The family later moved to Rowston Manor, a significant step up from Flatters Farmhouse, Taupins father decided to try his hand at independent farming, and the family moved to the run-down Maltkiln Farm in the north-Lincolnshire village of Owmby-by-Spital. Taupins 11-year younger brother, Kit, was born there, unlike his older brother Tony who attended a grammar school, Taupin was not a diligent student, although he showed an early flair for writing. At age 15, he left school and started work as a trainee in the print room of the newspaper, The Lincolnshire Standard. Taupin had worked at several part-time, dead-end jobs when, at age 17, Taupins mother had studied French Literature and his maternal grandfather Poppy was a classics teacher and graduate of the University of Cambridge. They taught him an appreciation for nature and for literature and narrative poetry, in 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement for talent placed in the New Musical Express by Liberty records A&R man Ray Williams. Elton John answered the advert and although neither Bernie nor Elton passed the audition for Liberty Records, Ray Williams recognized their talents. The pair have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date, John and Taupin resumed writing together on an occasional basis in 1980, with Taupin contributing lyrics to only three or four songs each on albums such as The Fox,21 at 33 and Jump Up. However, by 1983s Too Low for Zero, the two renewed their partnership on a basis and from that point forward Taupin was again Johns primary lyricist. Hits in the 1980s include Im Still Standing, I Guess Thats Why They Call It The Blues, Sad Songs, and Nikita. In the 1990s, Taupin and John had more hits, including The One, Simple Life, The Last Song, Club at the End of the Street and Believe. In September 1997, Taupin rewrote the lyrics of Candle in the Wind for Candle in the Wind 1997, Taupin and John had their first Broadway musical open in March 2006 with Lestat, The Musical. Taupin wrote lyrics for 10 songs for Johns 2006 album The Captain & The Kid, on 25 March 2007, Taupin made a surprise appearance at Johns 60th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden, briefly discussing their 40-year songwriting partnership
Bernie Taupin
–
Taupin attending the premiere of The Union at the 2011
Tribeca Film Festival
Bernie Taupin
–
Taupin with Elton John, 1971 before a concert in Sihanoukville,
Cambodia.
Bernie Taupin
–
Taupin and wife Heather Lynn Hodgins Kidd, attending the premiere of The Union at the
Tribeca Film Festival, April 2011
12.
Record producer
–
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
Record producer
–
Alan Parsons in an
ESO 50th anniversary video.
Record producer
–
A
Danish recording session
Record producer
–
Mixing Console
13.
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
–
Someone Saved My Life Tonight is an Elton John song from his album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. It concludes side one in the narrative, which chronicles the early history of John and lyricist Bernie Taupin. When released as the only single in 1975, it was the first album to ever enter at #1 in the history of music on the Billboard Hot 100. In the U. S. it was certified Gold on 10 September 1975 by the RIAA, in Canada, the single narrowly missed being his ninth number one there, hitting #2 on the RPM100 national Top Singles chart on August 30. Taupins lyric refers to a time in 1969, before John was a popular musician, John and Woodrow were sharing a flat with Taupin in Furlong Road in London, hence the opening line When I think of those East End lights. While having serious doubts about the marriage, John contemplated suicide. He took refuge in his friends, especially Long John Baldry, comparisons can also be drawn to the earlier John/Taupin composition Skyline Pigeon - as both songs contain the metaphor of a creature flying free towards the sky to signify escape from marriage. As a sign of his respect and gratitude for Baldry, Taupin wrote him into the song as the someone in the title, some radio stations altered the song or refused to play it due to the use of the phrase Damn it in the second verse. In the liner notes to the Deluxe Edition of Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy, during the recording of the songs lead vocal, Dudgeon said he was pushing Elton for more in terms of his delivery of the vocal, not paying attention to the lyric. According to Gambaccini, Johns guitarist, Davey Johnstone, leaned over and told Dudgeon, Dudgeon was apparently mortified by the revelation and relented. The song, which at 6,45 was one of Eltons longest singles, was supposed to be edited to a version for radio consumption. However, John refused to let MCA Records pare it down, saying that it was to be released as a whole, John has played the song live many times, one of the best known recorded performances coming during the Central Park concert in September 1980. Kanye West sampled the song for Good Morning, a song on his 2007 album Graduation and this song is referenced frequently by Father Callahan in Stephen Kings book Wolves of the Calla. This song is featured in the trailer for the 2002 film Moonlight Mile directed by Brad Silberling, starring Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman, partially based on Silberlings dealing with the aftermath of the murder of his girlfriend actress Rebecca Schaeffer. Axl Rose covered parts of the song on his piano as an intro to November Rain during the 2009/2010 Chinese Democracy World Tour, the comedy film Hamlet 2 features the song, sung by a gay mens chorus, within the titular play. The song was covered by The Ralph Sall Experience for the 2008 film, as far as anyone knows, it could well be the albums only recorded outtake. House of Cards, meanwhile, was a track on CD, finally surfacing on Rare Masters. It was, however, included on the Deluxe Edition re-release as one of the bonus tracks, the Furlong Road Flat Linda Woodrow Engaged to Elton John Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
–
"Someone Saved My Life Tonight"
14.
Connie Mitchell
–
Connie Thembi Mitchell also known as Miss Connie is a South African-born Australian singer-songwriter. In 1995 she was a member of Primary. Briefly, in 2004, she was vocalist for Machine Gun Fellatio under the pseudonym Feyonce. Since mid-2005 Mitchell is the lead vocalist with Sneaky Sound System, appearing on their singles, I Love It, Pictures, UFO, Goodbye, Kansas City, When We Were Young,16, Connie Thembi Mitchell was born in about 1978 in South Africa. Her mother was a singer in a troupe, Ipi Tombi. After leaving South Africa, Mitchell lived in New Zealand and attended a primary school, id heard some opera singers, someone like Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and I could put on that voice. She arrived in Australia at age of 11 or 12, while still at secondary school Mitchell met the Fonti brothers, Jamie and Sean, who were members of the techno-grunge band, Caligula. With Mitchell on lead vocals, Jamie on keyboard programming, guitar and samples, Sean on bass guitar, Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described their sound as Dominated by. Mitchell’s hyperactive and full-frontal vocals, with electronic rock underpinning the music. Primarys debut release was an extended play, Vicious Precious. Mitchell described their writing process When we write, I sing over something the boys have done. I dont know where they come from, I think its a mood thing – they convey what kind of mood we were in when we were doing it. The group followed with their album, This Is the Sound. Their second album, Watching the World, was praised by journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, connies lyrics are a strong counterpoint to the depth of the bands music. Mitchell joined Machine Gun Fellatio as a vocalist for a stint in 2004. Connie Mitchells next band, Sneaky Sound System, developed from Sneaky Sundays night club, launched in 2001 by Black Angus and Daimon Downey. In 2004 Angus and Downey met Mitchell in a park as she was playing guitar with a friend and you know, two guys coming up to you, excited, jumping around a bit, saying Come to our studio. The pair did own a studio, when Mitchell sang on I Love It Sneaky Sound System had their new vocalist – it became their single in July 2006
Connie Mitchell
–
Mitchell backstage at
The Voice, March 2013
15.
The World Famous Tony Williams
–
Antony Williams, better known by his stage name The World Famous Tony Williams or simply Tony Williams, is an American R&B and soul recording artist from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. A singer, songwriter and record producer, Williams is perhaps best known for his vocals on his first cousin Kanye Wests debut album, Tony Williams grew up an only child in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Both his mother and father had musical backgrounds, and Williams was given his first instrument and he grew up singing in youth choirs at church and played in the marching band through his tenth grade year of high school. Williams’ name appears on Kanye West’s albums as Tony “Penafire” Williams which is the pseudonym he uses when crediting himself as a writer. He was a co-writer of two songs on The College Dropout, the Grammy Award winning 2004 album, following which Williams was invited to write for all of West’s subsequent albums. On the 2005 MTV documentary, Composing History The Making of Late Registration, he was featured producing vocals for Brandy on the song Bring Me Down, which he co-wrote. During that documentary, West described Williams as being “a great writer with a cutting edge voice. ”Tony Williams first became noticed as a singer when he debuted on Kanye West’s Grammy winning album The College Dropout, singing a version of the gospel hymn Ill Fly Away. On that same album Tony wrote the hook for the song, Roses and this album not only promoted Tony Williams name, but for the first time fans were able to match his voice and name with a face. He was featured on the song and the video for Drive Slow, later, he was seen singing with Kanye when West was featured on the MTV television series, Life and Rhymes of Kanye West. By the time Kanye went on the Touch the Sky Tour, Williams was known as the singer that always accompanied West. His voice is recognized on some popular Hip Hop songs, having performed with, for example, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nas, Game, and Rick Ross. In March 2010, Williams released his first mainstream project in the form of a mixtape, The World Famous Tony Williams and this project was a collection of original music, covers, and remixes, including the Dreaming of your love remix with the French rapper Matt Moerdock. In October,2010, Williams released his first single Everything About You from his studio album, King or the Fool. This legitimized him as a featured artist, Williams has had songs played on Brazilian airwaves, where he sang some of the vocals in Portuguese, and some musical chart success in France. Williams now resides in Fort Worth, Texas, official website Tony Williams at AllMusic Tony Williams discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs Tony Williams discography at MusicBrainz
The World Famous Tony Williams
16.
Jay Z
–
Shawn Corey Carter, known professionally as Jay Z, is an American rapper, businessman, and investor. He is one of the musicians of all time, having sold more than 100 million records. MTV ranked him the Greatest MC of all time in 2006, Rolling Stone ranked three of his albums—Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and The Black Album —among the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2014, Forbes estimated his net worth at nearly $520 million, Jay Z co-owns the New York 40/40 Club sports bar, and is the co-creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the president of Def Jam Recordings, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records. He also founded the sports agency Roc Nation Sports and is a certified NBA, as an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200 with 13. He has also had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, in 2009, he was ranked the tenth-most successful artist of the 2000s by Billboard as well as the fifth top solo male artist and fourth top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent. He was also ranked the 88th-greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone, Jay Z married Singer-Songwriter Beyoncé in 2008. Shawn Carter was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Marcy Houses and he and his three siblings were raised by their mother, Gloria Carter after their father, Adness Reeves abandoned the family. Reeves would later meet and reconcile with Jay Z before dying from liver failure in 2003, Jay Z claims in his lyrics that in 1982, at the age of 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. Along with future rapper AZ, Carter attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn until it was closed down, according to his interviews and lyrics, during this period he sold crack cocaine and was shot at three times. According to his mother, Carter used to wake up his siblings at night banging out drum patterns on the kitchen table and she bought him a boom box for his birthday, sparking his interest in music. He began freestyling and writing lyrics, known as Jazzy around the neighborhood, Carter later adopted the showbiz/stage name Jay-Z in homage to his mentor Jaz-O. He would drop the hyphen in 2013, Jay Z can be briefly heard on several of Jaz-Os early recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including The Originators and Hawaiian Sophie. Jay Z became embroiled in several battles with rapper LL Cool J in the early 1990s and he first became known to a wide audience on the posse cut Show and Prove on the 1994 Big Daddy Kane album Daddys Home. When I would leave the stage to go change outfits, I would bring out Jay Z and Positive K and let them freestyle until I came back to the stage. The young Jay Z appeared on a song by Big L, Da Graveyard, and on Mic Geronimos Time to Build. His first official rap single was called In My Lifetime, for which he released a music video, an unreleased music video was also produced for the B-side I Cant Get with That
Jay Z
–
Jay Z at the Shawn Carter Foundation Carnival, 2011
Jay Z
–
Jay Z (top) with a friend (bottom) in
Trenton, New Jersey, circa 1988
Jay Z
–
Jay Z in 2003
Jay Z
–
Jay Z at a concert in 2006.
17.
Takashi Murakami
–
Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media as well as media and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. Murakami is the founder and President of Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd. through which he manages several younger artists, Murakami was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. From early on, he was a fan of animation and manga, and hoped to one day work in the animation industry. Murakami was dissatisfied with the state of art in Japan, believing it to be “a deep appropriation of Western trends. ”Thus, much of his early work was done in the spirit of social criticism. Efforts from this period include performance art, parodies of the art popular in Japan in the early 90’s. He also began developing his own pop icon, “Mr. DOB, ” which would develop into a form of self-portraiture. Though he garnered attention, many of his pieces were not initially well received in Japan. In 1994, Murakami received a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council, during his stay, he was exposed to and highly inspired by Western contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and especially the simulationism of artists such as Jeff Koons. He established a studio, which, together with the Hiropon Factory in Japan. After returning to Japan, he would develop the concepts behind his artistic practice and begin exhibiting regularly at major galleries and institutions across Europe. Murakami has expressed since early on a frustration with the lack of a reliable and sustainable art market in post-war Japan and his artistic style and motifs derived from this strategy. This is demonstrated in his whimsical Cosmos Ball from 2000, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. In 2000, Murakami published his theory in the catalogue for a group exhibition of the same name that he curated for the Museum of Contemporary Art. The theory posits that there is a legacy of flat, 2-dimensional imagery from Japanese art history in manga and this style differentiates itself from the western approach in its emphasis on surface and use of flat planes of color. The theory provided the context for his work and he elaborated on it with the exhibitions “Coloriage” and “Little Boy and these helped introduce Japan’s lesser-known creative culture overseas and such curatorial projects would become an integral part of Murakami’s multifaceted artistic practice. In accordance with the Superflat concept, Murakami’s practice involves repackaging elements usually considered “low” or subcultural and he then further flattens the playing field by repackaging his “high-art” works as merchandise, such as plush toys and T-shirts, making them available at more affordable prices. In 1996, Murakami launched the Hiropon Factory, his workshop, in order to work on a larger scale
Takashi Murakami
–
Takashi Murakami at the Palace of Versailles 2010
18.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
19.
Pop art
–
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising. In pop art, material is sometimes removed from its known context, isolated. Pop art employs aspects of culture, such as advertising, comic books. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture and it is also associated with the artists use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. Pop art is interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism. Due to its utilization of found objects and images, it is similar to Dada, Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of postmodern art themselves. Pop art often takes imagery that is currently in use in advertising, product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, seen in the labels of Campbells Soup Cans, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the outside of a box containing food items for retail has been used as subject matter in pop art. The origins of pop art in North America developed differently from Great Britain, in the United States, pop art was a response by artists, it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art. They used impersonal, mundane reality, irony, and parody to defuse the personal symbolism, in the U. S. some artwork by Larry Rivers, Alex Katz and Man Ray anticipated pop art. By contrast, the origins of pop art in post-War Britain, while employing irony, early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture when viewed from afar. Similarly, pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism, among those artists in Europe seen as producing work leading up to pop art are, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Kurt Schwitters. During the 1920s, American artists Gerald Murphy, Charles Demuth and Stuart Davis created paintings that contained pop culture imagery, the Independent Group, founded in London in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the pop art movement. They were a gathering of young painters, sculptors, architects, writers and their group discussions centered on pop culture implications from elements such as mass advertising, movies, product design, comic strips, science fiction and technology. This material of found objects such as advertising, comic characters, magazine covers. One of the collages in that presentation was Paolozzis I was a Rich Mans Plaything, following Paolozzis seminal presentation in 1952, the IG focused primarily on the imagery of American popular culture, particularly mass advertising. Nevertheless, Alloway was one of the critics to defend the inclusion of the imagery of mass culture in the fine arts
Pop art
–
Richard Hamilton 's collage
Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956) is one of the earliest works to be considered "pop art".
Pop art
–
Andy Warhol, Campbell's Tomato Juice Box, 1964. Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on wood, 10 inches × 19 inches × 9½ inches (25.4 × 48.3 × 24.1 cm),
Museum of Modern Art,
New York City
Pop art
–
Charles Demuth,
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold 1928, collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York City
20.
Cel-shaded animation
–
Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon and/or give it a characteristic paper-like texture. There are similar techniques that can make an image look like a sketch and it is somewhat recent, appearing from around the beginning of the twenty-first century. The name comes from cels, the sheets of acetate. The cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model, where cel-shading differs from conventional rendering is in its non-photorealistic illumination model. Black ink outlines and contour lines can be created using a variety of methods, one popular method is to first render a black outline, slightly larger than the object itself. Backface culling is inverted and the triangles are drawn in black. To dilate the silhouette, these faces may be drawn in wireframe multiple times with slight changes in translation. Alternatively, back-faces may be rendered solid-filled, with their vertices translated along their vertex normals in a vertex shader, after drawing the outline, back-face culling is set back to normal to draw the shading and optional textures of the object. Finally, the image is composited via Z-buffering, as the back-faces always lie deeper in the scene than the front-faces, the result is that the object is drawn with a black outline and interior contour lines. The Utah teapot rendered using cel-shading, The back faces are drawn with thick lines The object is drawn with a basic texture Shading Steps 2 and 3 can be combined using multi-texturing, another outlining technique is to use 2D image-processing. Other notable examples include The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker, Viewtiful Joe, Ni No Kuni, Escape Dead Island, The Wolf Among Us, Ōkami, and Ultimate Spider-Man. Cutscenes in Mirrors Edge use a mixture of characters and 3D toon shaded models, with the latter used mostly in vehicles. Blue season 14, a game based TV series. Based on the video game Halo, Transformers, Robots in Disguise, a 2015 animated series and sequel to Transformers, Prime. List of cel-shaded video games 2. 5D IGN, Jet Set Radio review
Cel-shaded animation
–
A representation of a space suit from
The Adventures of Tintin comic
Explorers on the Moon with a basic cel-shader (also known as a toon shader) and border detection.
21.
Anthropomorphic
–
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities and is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions and natural forces like seasons. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters, people have also routinely attributed human emotions and behavioural traits to wild as well as domestic animals. Anthropomorphism derives from its verb form anthropomorphize, itself derived from the Greek ánthrōpos and it is first attested in 1753, originally in reference to the heresy of applying a human form to the Christian God. One of the oldest known is a sculpture, the Löwenmensch figurine, Germany. It is not possible to say what these prehistoric artworks represent, in either case there is an element of anthropomorphism. This anthropomorphic art has been linked by archaeologist Steven Mithen with the emergence of more systematic hunting practices in the Upper Palaeolithic. In religion and mythology, anthropomorphism refers to the perception of a divine being or beings in human form, ancient mythologies frequently represented the divine as deities with human forms and qualities. They resemble human beings not only in appearance and personality, they exhibited many human behaviors that were used to explain phenomena, creation. The deities fell in love, married, had children, fought battles, wielded weapons and they feasted on special foods, and sometimes required sacrifices of food, beverage, and sacred objects to be made by human beings. Some anthropomorphic deities represented specific concepts, such as love, war, fertility, beauty. Anthropomorphic deities exhibited human qualities such as beauty, wisdom, and power, and sometimes human weaknesses such as greed, hatred, jealousy, Greek deities such as Zeus and Apollo often were depicted in human form exhibiting both commendable and despicable human traits. Anthropomorphism in this case is referred to as anthropotheism, from the perspective of adherents to religions in which humans were created in the form of the divine, the phenomenon may be considered theomorphism, or the giving of divine qualities to humans. Anthropomorphism has cropped up as a Christian heresy, particularly prominently with the Audians in third century Syria, but also in fourth century Egypt and tenth century Italy. This often was based on an interpretation of Genesis 1,27, So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. Some religions, scholars, and philosophers objected to anthropomorphic deities. Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed and blackThracians that they are pale and he said that the greatest god resembles man neither in form nor in mind. Both Judaism and Islam reject an anthropomorphic deity, believing that God is beyond human comprehension, judaisms rejection of an anthropomorphic deity grew during the Hasmonean period, when Jewish belief incorporated some Greek philosophy. Judaisms rejection grew further after the Islamic Golden Age in the tenth century, hindus do not reject the concept of a deity in the abstract unmanifested, but note practical problems
Anthropomorphic
–
In this illustration by
Milo Winter of
Aesop 's fable, "
The North Wind and the Sun ", an anthropomorphic North Wind tries to strip the cloak off of a traveler
Anthropomorphic
–
The 40,000-year-old
Löwenmensch figurine
Anthropomorphic
–
From the
Panchatantra: Rabbit fools Elephant by showing the reflection of the moon
Anthropomorphic
–
Anthropomorphic
pareidolia by
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
22.
Brooklyn Museum
–
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum is New York Citys third largest in physical size, the museum initially struggled to maintain its building and collection, only to be revitalized in the late 20th century, thanks to major renovations. Significant areas of the collection include antiquities, specifically their collection of Egyptian antiquities spanning over 3,000 years, African, Oceanic, and Japanese art make for notable antiquities collections as well. American art is represented, starting at the Colonial period. Artists represented in the collection include Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Edgar Degas, Georgia OKeeffe, the museum also has a Memorial Sculpture Garden which features salvaged architectural elements from throughout New York City. The roots of the Brooklyn Museum extend back to the 1823 founding by Augustus Graham of the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library in Brooklyn Heights, in 1890, under its director Franklin Hooper, Institute leaders reorganized as the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and began planning the Brooklyn Museum. The initial design for the Brooklyn Museum was four times as large as the actualized version, Daniel Chester French, the noted sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial, was the principal designer of the pediment sculptures and the monolithic 12. 5-foot figures along the cornice. The figures were created by 11 sculptors and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers, by 1920, the New York City Subway reached the museum with a subway station, this greatly improved access to the once-isolated museum from Manhattan and other outer boroughs. The Brooklyn Institutes director Franklin Hooper was the museums first director and he was followed by Philip Newell Youtz, Laurance Page Roberts, Isabel Spaulding Roberts, Charles Nagel, Jr. and Edgar Craig Schenck. Thomas S. Buechner became the director in 1960, making him one of the youngest directors in the country. Buechner oversaw a major transformation in the way the museum displayed art and brought some one thousand works that had languished in the museums archives and put them on display. Buechner played a role in rescuing the Daniel Chester French sculptures from destruction due to an expansion project at the Manhattan Bridge in the 1960s. The Brooklyn Museum changed its name to Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1997, on March 12,2004, the museum announced that it would revert to its previous name. In April 2004, the museum opened the James Polshek-designed entrance pavilion on the Eastern Parkway façade, in September 2014, Lehman announced that he was planning to retire around June 2015. In May 2015, Creative Time president and artistic director Anne Pasternak was named the Museums next director, member institutions occupy land or buildings owned by the City of New York and derive part of their yearly funding from the City. The Brooklyn Museum also supplements its earned income with funding from Federal and State governments, as well as donations by individuals. Major benefactors include Frank Lusk Babbott, the museum is the site of the annual Brooklyn Artists Ball which has included celebrity hosts such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Liv Tyler. The Brooklyn Museum exhibits collections that seek to embody the rich heritage of world cultures
Brooklyn Museum
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Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
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Replica of the
Statue of Liberty in back lot.
Brooklyn Museum
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Book of the Dead of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose, 31.1777e
Brooklyn Museum
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Brooklyn Papyrus 664-332 BCE
23.
ITunes Store
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ITunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28,2003, and has been the largest music vendor in the United States since April 2008, and the largest music vendor in the world since February 2010. It offers over 35 -40 million songs,2.2 million apps,25,000 TV shows, iTunes Stores revenues in the first quarter of 2011 totaled nearly US$1.4 billion, by May 28,2014, the store had sold 35 billion songs worldwide. On January 6,2009, Apple announced that DRM had been removed from 80% of its catalog in the US. As of June 2013, iTunes Store possesses 575 million active user accounts, before iTunes Store, most of the online music was download through websites like Napster. Steve Jobs expressed concern that people were illegally obtaining music because it was the option they had. In 2002, Steve Jobs made an agreement with the five major record labels to offer their content through iTunes, iTunes Store was introduced by Steve Jobs at a Worldwide Developers Conference to give music listeners a legal alternative to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. When it opened, it was the only legal digital catalog of music to songs from all five major record labels. At first, it was available on Mac OS X. Following the introduction of iTunes Store, individual songs were all sold for the same price, Music in the store is in the Advanced Audio Coding format, which is the MPEG-4-specified successor to MP3. Originally, songs were available with DRM and were encoded at 128 kbit/s. At the January 2009 Macworld Expo, Apple announced that all music would be made available without DRM. Previously, this model, known as iTunes Plus, had available only for music from EMI. Users can sample songs by listening to previews, ninety seconds in length, some Apps cost money and some are free. Developers can decide which prices they want to charge for apps, from a pre-set list of pricing tiers, when someone downloads an App,70 percent of the purchase goes to the developer, and 30 percent goes to Apple. At the Macworld 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs, who was Apples CEO at the time, movies are available for rent in iTunes Store on the same day they are released on DVD, though iTunes Store also offers for rental some movies that are still in theaters. Movie rentals are only viewable for 24 hours or 48 hours after users begin viewing them, iTunes Store also offers one low-priced movie rental a week, in the United States, this rental costs 99 cents. Movie rentals are not yet available in all countries but it is available in the United States, Mexico, there is a weekly promotion in which one to three songs are available to download for free to logged-in users
ITunes Store
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Sales of iTunes songs, 2003—2010.
ITunes Store
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The iTunes Store, as seen in iTunes 12.2
ITunes Store
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iTunes Store availability. Green: full functionality (music, apps, videos, etc.) Red: available, but with limitations (only apps, iTunes U, etc.)
ITunes Store
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A fifth-generation
iPod with
earphones. The only portable devices licensed to play protected music from the iTunes Store are
iPods, the
iPhone, the
iPod Touch, the
iPad and selected
Motorola mobile phones, such as the
ROKR.
24.
YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. As of February 2017, there are more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, as of April 2017, the website is ranked as the second most popular site in the world by Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day
YouTube
–
From left to right:
Chad Hurley,
Steve Chen, and
Jawed Karim
YouTube
–
Screenshot of YouTube's homepage
YouTube
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YouTube's headquarters as of 2010 in
San Bruno, California.
25.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
The New York Times
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Cover of The New York Times (November 15, 2012), with the headline story reporting on
Operation Pillar of Defense.
The New York Times
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First published issue of New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851.
The New York Times
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The Times Square Building, The New York Times ' publishing headquarters, 1913–2007
The New York Times
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The New York Times newsroom, 1942
26.
Apple Inc
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Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apples consumer software includes the macOS and iOS operating systems, the media player, the Safari web browser. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. in January 1977, Apple joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in March 2015. In November 2014, Apple became the first U. S. company to be valued at over US$700 billion in addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. The company employs 115,000 full-time employees as of July 2015 and it operates the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the worlds largest music retailer. Consumers use more than one billion Apple products worldwide as of March 2016, Apples worldwide annual revenue totaled $233 billion for the fiscal year ending in September 2015. This revenue accounts for approximately 1. 25% of the total United States GDP.1 billion, the corporation receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors and its environmental and business practices, including the origins of source materials. Apple was founded on April 1,1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, the Apple I kits were computers single-handedly designed and hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard, which was less than what is now considered a personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66, Apple was incorporated January 3,1977, without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple, during the first five years of operations revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980 yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118m, the Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16,1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics. While early Apple II models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II. The Apple II was chosen to be the platform for the first killer app of the business world, VisiCalc. VisiCalc created a market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore, by the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line
Apple Inc
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Apple Campus (1
Infinite Loop,
Cupertino, California)
Apple Inc
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Apple Inc.
Apple Inc
–
Home of Paul and Clara Jobs, on Crist Drive in
Los Altos, California.
Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer in its garage with
Steve Wozniak and
Ronald Wayne in 1976.
Apple Inc
–
The
Apple I, Apple's first product, was sold as an assembled circuit board and lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case.
27.
Kanye West discography
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American rapper and music producer Kanye West has released seven studio albums, two live albums, three video albums, four mixtapes, one hundred and ten singles and ninety-three music videos. West has sold over 21 million albums and 66 million digital downloads worldwide, as of May 2012, six of his songs have each exceeded three million digital downloads. Six of his seven studio albums have been certified at least platinum in the United States, in 2003, West collaborated with rapper Twista and singer Jamie Foxx on the song Slow Jamz, which became Wests first single to top the US Billboard Hot 100. In 2005, West released his studio album Late Registration. Late Registration produced five singles, including Touch the Sky, Heard Em Say and Gold Digger, the critically acclaimed album has sold over three million copies and has attained five multi-platinum certifications, including a triple-platinum certification from the RIAA. In 2007, Wests third studio album Graduation debuted at one on the Billboard 200 and shipped over 957,000 units in its first week. Graduation held the one spot on the Billboard 200 for over a month. It supported by five singles, including the Billboard Hot 100 number one single Stronger, in 2008, Wests fourth album 808s & Heartbreak was released and became his third consecutive number one release on the Billboard 200. It featured two top three singles, Love Lockdown and Heartless, from 2008 to 2009, West collaborated with artists on multiple Hot 100 top ten singles, including American Boy by singer Estelle, Swagga Like Us by rappers Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and T. I. Knock You Down by singer Keri Hilson, Run This Town by Jay-Z and Rihanna, in 2010, West released his fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, continuing a streak of number one albums for West. Four singles were released from the album, all of which reached the top 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, Power, Monster, Runaway and All of the Lights. In 2011, West collaborated with American singer Katy Perry on a remix of her song E. T. which hit one on the Billboard Hot 100. Watch the Throne, a collaboration with Jay-Z, was released as Wests sixth studio album in August 2011, peaking at number one on the Billboard 200, Watch the Throne produced seven singles, including the Billboard Hot 100 top 25 singles H•A•M, Otis and Niggas in Paris. Wests sixth studio album Yeezus was released in June 2013 and debuted at one in the United States. It included three singles including Fade, the album was met with positive reviews. Official website Kanye West at AllMusic Kanye West discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs Kanye West discography at MusicBrainz
Kanye West discography
–
West performing in December 2008
28.
The College Dropout
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The College Dropout is the debut studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released February 10,2004, by Roc-A-Fella Records. It was recorded over a period of four years, beginning in 1999, nonetheless intent on pursuing a solo career, it was several years before West finally received a record deal from Roc-A-Fella Records. It features vocal contributions from Jay-Z, Mos Def, Jamie Foxx, Syleena Johnson, diverging from the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop, Wests lyrics concern themes of family, self-consciousness, materialism, religion, racism, and higher education. The album was promoted by singles including Through the Wire and Jesus Walks, All Falls Down and Slow Jamz both charted within the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, with the latter charting at number one. Upon its release, The College Dropout debuted at two on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 441,000 copies during its first week. It is Wests best-selling album in the United States, with sales of 3.4 million copies. It has been named by Time and Rolling Stone, among other publications, although he had attained success as a producer, Kanye West aspired to be a rapper, but had struggled to attain a record deal. Record companies ignored him because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in hip hop at the time. After a series of meetings with Capitol Records, West was ultimately denied an artist deal, according to Capitol Records A&R, Joe Weinberger, he was approached by West and almost signed a deal with him, but another person in the company convinced Capitols president not to. Desperate to keep West from defecting to another label, then-label head Damon Dash reluctantly signed West to Roc-A-Fella Records, the crash left him with a shattered jaw, which had to be wired shut in reconstructive surgery. The accident inspired West, two weeks after being admitted to a hospital, he recorded a song at the Record Plant Studios with his jaw wired shut. West added that the album was my medicine, as working on the record distracted him from the pain, through The Wire was first available on Wests Get Well Soon. At the same time, West announced that he was working on an album called The College Dropout, Dont let society tell you, This is what you have to do. The College Dropout was recorded at The Record Plant in Los Angeles, California, according to John Monopoly, Wests friend, manager and business partner, the album. Hes been gathering beats for years and he was always producing with the intention of being a rapper. Theres beats on the album hes been saving for himself for years. At one point, West hovered between making a portion of the production in the studio and the majority within his own apartment in Newark, New Jersey. Because it was an apartment, West was able to set up a home studio in one of the rooms
The College Dropout
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The College Dropout
The College Dropout
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West (center) refined the album's production and incorporated elements such as gospel choirs and string arrangements.
The College Dropout
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The album's second single, "Slow Jamz", features vocalist
Jamie Foxx (left).
29.
All Falls Down
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All Falls Down is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released as the single from his debut album. The song was produced by West and features singer Syleena Johnson and it was released in February 2004 and entered the UK Singles Chart at number ten and peaked at number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100 on May 11,2004, his first Top 10 in the USA. The song was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 47th Grammy Awards, the song features an interpolation of Lauryn Hills Mystery of Iniquity. Kanye originally attempted to acquire legal clearance to sample the recording but due to various complications, West then called upon Syleena Johnson to re-sing the relevant vocal portions of Mystery of Iniquity which ended up in the final track. The version of the song with the sample can be heard on Wests Freshman Adjustment mixtape. Lyrically, All Falls Down examines the self-consciousness and insecurity within society, particularly the black community, the music video for All Falls Down was directed by Chris Milk and shot at Ontario International Airport in Ontario, California. It follows Kanye as he accompanies his girlfriend, played by Stacey Dash, the music video is shot in first-person perspective, displaying the journey from their car to the airport terminal through Wests eyes. The video also features cameos by Syleena Johnson, Common, and Kel Mitchell, who act as a counter, gate agent. In addition, rappers GLC and Consequence can also be seen as Kanye is running through the airport in slow motion
All Falls Down
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"All Falls Down"
30.
Jesus Walks
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Jesus Walks is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West. It was released on May 25,2004 as the single from his debut album. The song contains a sample of Walk with Me as performed by the ARC Choir, Jesus Walks was acclaimed by music critics, who praised its compelling sonic atmosphere and boldness in its open embrace of faith. It was met by widespread commercial recognition, peaking at No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100, the single was accompanied by three separate music videos, each of which visually interpreted a portion of its multifaceted context in different ways. Jesus Walks continues to be a favorite and stands as one of the most-performed songs by West. At the 47th Grammy Awards, Jesus Walks was awarded the Grammy for Best Rap Song, Rolling Stone named the song No.19 on their list of 100 Best Songs of the 2000s. The song was named the 6th best song of 2004 on Village Voices Pazz & Jop critics poll, in October 2011, NME placed it at No.69 on its list 150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years. The song was listed at No.123 on Pitchfork Medias 500 songs of the 2000s and it was placed at No.273 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song is essentially a spiritual exultation, wherein West discusses how Jesus walks with all manner of people, towards this end, the first conceptual verse of the song is told through the eyes of a drug dealer contemplating his relationship with God. It reportedly took over six months for West to draw inspiration for the second verse. West also uses the song to express his views on how the media seem to shy away from songs that address matters of faith, while embracing songs discussing violence, sex. This is directly taken from Wests experiences when he was struggling to get signed onto a record label and they reasoned that he did not conform to the stereotypes associated with mainstream hip-hop and therefore was not easily marketable. Many of his friends in the industry also warned him that while the song was outstanding. Jesus Walks is a mid-tempo hip-hop song and it is set in common time with a moderate tempo of 87 beats per minute and composed in the key of E-flat minor. The song expresses a pulsating rhythm reminiscent to that of a marching band, the rhythm is accompanied by background vocal samples from the ARC Choirs arrangement of the traditional gospel song Walk With Me that emit a chant in cadence to the beat. Because of these elements, the composition has been described as evoking a militaristic atmosphere. The song begins with a medium followed by its backing vocals. After Wests brief opening dialog, a drumroll sounds and the titular hook is belted by the ARC choir
Jesus Walks
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"Jesus Walks"
