1.
New York City
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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
2.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
3.
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
4.
Boy band
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Being vocal groups, most boy band members do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on stage, making the term something of a misnomer. Many boy bands dance as well as sing, usually giving highly choreographed performances, some such bands form on their own. They can evolve out of church choral or gospel music groups, due to this and their general commercial orientation towards a female audience of preteens, teenyboppers, or teens, the term may be used with negative connotations in music journalism. Boy bands are similar in concept to their counterparts, girl groups, the earliest forerunner of boy band music began in the late 19th century as a cappella barbershop quartets. They were usually a group of males and sang in four part harmonies, the popularity of barbershop quartets had been prominent into the earlier part of the 20th century. A revival of the vocal group took place in the late 1940s and 1950s with the use of doo-wop music. Doo-wop bands sang about topics such as love and other used in pop music. The earliest traces of boy bands were in the mid-1950s although the boy band was not used. African American vocal group The Ink Spots was one of the first of what would now be called boy bands, the term boy band was not established until the late 1980s as before that they were called male vocal groups or hep harmony singing groups. For instance, their music featured close harmonies from soul music and catchy pop hooks influenced as much as they were by Motown and acts like the Supremes. All members of the band sang, which is a convention of a boy band, as opposed to having a front man. Even so, the members conveniently fitted into the convention of having stereotypical personality types, the Beatles were a direct influence on the conception of the Monkees, as they used rock band instrumentation and played more rock oriented music. With music produced by Don Kirshner, The Monkees became eventually dissatisfied with Kirshners control over them and they became independent two years later, working on their own up to 1970, when the group first dissolved. Other antecedents exist throughout the history of pop music, the genre has been copied into languages and cultures other than the Anglo-American. The Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, appealing to young Latina audiences, was founded in 1977, Menudo had a convention unique among boy bands, when a member turned 16, became too tall, or their voice changed, they were replaced. The members of Menudo were generally aged 12–17, the Bay City Rollers were a Scottish pop band who were most popular in the mid-1970s. For a relatively brief but fervent period, they were worldwide teen idols, the group were one of the first bands like The Monkees before them to take the formula shown by The Beatles and apply it to a teen market. The group achieved the same amount of success but for a period of time
5.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
6.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
7.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
8.
Contemporary R&B
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Contemporary R&B, also known as simply R&B, is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance. The genre features a record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel. Electronic influences are becoming a trend and the use of hip hop or dance-inspired beats are typical, although the roughness. Contemporary R&B vocalists are often known for their use of melisma, popularized by such as Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Craig David, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston. That same year, Teddy Riley began producing R&B recordings that included hip hop influences and this combination of R&B style and hip hop rhythms was termed new jack swing and was applied to artists such as Bobby Brown, Keith Sweat, Al B. Guy, Jodeci and Bell Biv DeVoe, the style became less popular by the end of the 1990s, but later experienced a resurgence. In 1990 Mariah Carey released Vision of Love as her debut single and it was immensely popular peaking at number 1 in many worldwide charts including the Billboard Hot 100, and it propelled Mariahs carrier. The song is said to have popularized the use of melisma. During the mid-1990s, Whitney Houstons The Bodyguard, Original Soundtrack Album sold over 40 million copies becoming the best-selling soundtrack of all time. Janet Jacksons self-titled fifth studio album janet. which came after her historic multimillion-dollar contract with Virgin Records, sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey recorded several Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hits, including One Sweet Day, Carey also released a remix of her 1995 single Fantasy, with Ol Dirty Bastard as a feature, a collaboration format that was unheard of at this point. Carey, Boyz II Men and TLC released albums in 1994 and 1995—Daydream, II and CrazySexyCool. In the late 1990s, neo soul, which added 1970s soul influences to the hip hop soul blend, arose, led by such as DAngelo, Erykah Badu. Hill and Missy Elliott further blurred the line between R&B and hip hop by recording both styles, beginning in 1995, the Grammy Awards enacted the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, with II by Boyz II Men becoming the first recipient. The award was received by TLC for CrazySexyCool in 1996, Tony Rich for Words in 1997, Erykah Badu for Baduizm in 1998. At the end of 1999, Billboard magazine ranked Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson as the first, simultaneously, in the second half of the 1990s, The Neptunes and Timbaland set influential precedence on contemporary R&B and hip hop music. R&B acts such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Usher, in 2001, Alicia Keys released Fallin as her debut single. It peaking at one on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Top 40
9.
R. Kelly
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Robert Sylvester Kelly, known professionally as R. Kelly, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and former professional basketball player. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s, in 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play. In 1998, Kelly won three Grammy Awards for I Believe I Can Fly and his distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous hip hop and contemporary R&B artists. Kelly became the first musician to play basketball, when he was signed in 1997. Kelly has written, produced, and remixed songs and albums for artists, including Aaliyahs 1994 debut album Age Aint Nothing. In 1996, Kelly was nominated for a Grammy for writing Michael Jacksons song You Are Not Alone. In 2002 and 2004, Kelly released collaboration albums with rapper Jay-Z and has been a guest vocalist for other hip hop artists like Nas, Sean Combs, in March 2011, R. Kelly was named the most successful R&B artist of the last 25 years by Billboard. Kelly has released 12 solo studio albums, and sold over 100 million records worldwide making him the most successful R&B male artist of the 1990s and he has been credited for helping redefine R&B and hip hop, earning the nicknames King of R&B and King of Pop-Soul. He is listed by Billboard as the most successful R&B/Hip Hop artist of the past 25 years and also the most successful R&B artist in history. Throughout his career, Kelly has won awards, including a Guinness World Records as well as countless of other awards like Grammy, BET, Soul Train, Billboard, NAACP. Robert Sylvester Kelly was born on January 8,1967 at Chicago Lying-in Hospital in Hyde Park, Kelly is the third of four children. Kellys single mother, Joanne, was a singer, Kellys father was absent throughout his sons life. Kellys family lived in the Ida B, wells Homes public housing project in Chicagos Bronzeville neighborhood. Lena McLin described Kellys childhood home, It was bare, there was no father there, I knew that, and they had very little. Kelly began singing in the choir at age eight. Kelly grew up in a full of women, whom he said would act differently when his mother. At a young age Kelly was often abused by a woman who was at least ten years older than himself. I was too afraid and too ashamed, Kelly wrote in his autobiography about why he never told anyone, at age 11, he was shot in the shoulder while riding his bike home, the bullet is reportedly still lodged in his shoulder
10.
Britney Spears
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Britney Jean Spears is an American singer, dancer, and actress. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, she performed acting roles in stage productions, Spearss first and second studio albums. Baby One More Time and Oops. I Did It Again, became international successes, with the former becoming the album by a teenage solo artist. Title tracks. Baby One More Time and Oops, I Did It Again broke international sales records. In 2001, Spears released her third studio album, Britney. She assumed creative control of her studio album, In the Zone. In 2007, Spearss much-publicized personal issues sent her career into hiatus and her fifth studio album, Blackout, was released later that year, and spawned singles such as Gimme More and Piece of Me. Her erratic behavior and hospitalizations continued through the year, at which point she was placed under a still ongoing conservatorship. Spearss sixth studio album, Circus, included the international chart-topping single Womanizer and her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale, became her first to yield three top-ten singles in the United States. She released her studio album Britney Jean in 2013. Later that year, Spears began the four-year residency show, Britney, Piece of Me, in 2016, Spears released her ninth studio album, Glory. Spears is regarded as a pop icon and credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and she became the best-selling teenage artist of all time and garnered honorific titles including the Princess of Pop. In 2009, Billboard ranked her as the 8th overall Artist of the Decade, the Recording Industry Association of America lists Spears as the eighth top-selling female artist in the United States, with 34 million certified albums. She has sold 100 million albums and over 100 million singles worldwide making her one of the music artists of all time. According to Billboard Spears has sold about 22.38 million singles in digital downloads in US and is the fourth best-selling female artist since Nielsen SoundScan began. Forbes reported that Spears was the highest paid musician of 2012, with earnings of $58 million. Spears was born in McComb, Mississippi, the child of Lynne Irene Bridges and James Parnell Spears. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English, and one of Spearss maternal great-great-grandfathers was Maltese and her siblings are Bryan James and Jamie Lynn
11.
Jay-Z
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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
12.
Block Starz Music
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Block Starz Music is an American independent record label owned and operated by award-nominated writer, record executive, and film producer Bayer Mack. Its catalog includes independent releases by Machine Gun Kelly, Lega-C, Wiz Khalifa, Lisa Left Eye Lopes, Big Sean, Rhymefest, the label also includes its subsidiaries such as the independent film and television production company Block Starz Music Television. Block Starz Musics first official mixtape, Suburban Empire by ex-VH1 reality show star John Brown, was released in early 2009, an alumnus of Ego Trips The White Rapper Show, XXL Magazine put Brown in the same category as Weird Al Yankovic and lampooned the project. While well received by reviewers, the effort was a commercial disappointment, in the summer of 2009, Block Starz partnered with Atlanta-based D-Lo Entertainment to release Certified, the debut mixtape from future Love & Hip Hop, Atlanta cast member Rasheeda. The company would go on to have success with the mixtape release Whats High. By a nineteen-year-old Jewish rapper from Youngstown, OH named Throwback, Block Starz Music quickly signed Throwback, who had recorded two songs with Khalifa, as its first official artist and began work on East Coast Block Starz in the fall of 2009. Block Starz Music signed Topeka, Kansas rapper Mike Schpitz after his appearance on Midwest Block Starz and released his 11-track EP debut, Stanley Ipkiss, in April 2011, it was widely reported that Jay-Z had outbid executives at Universal Records and Jive Records to acquire Block Starz Music. On December 5,2011, in a statement released through her label, Lega-C confirmed the existence of a home video. On November 29,2011, Block Starz Music released Macho Man by Delwin Tha Krazyman, ceddybu also collaborated with Lega-C for track Dont F Around featured on the CD version of the female rappers major indie debut Off My Medication. Recorded a few months before her death, Left Eyes verse on the song Fantasies is the only 16-bar feature she ever recorded with another rapper, lega-Cs debut album on Block Starz Music, titled Off My Medication, was released October 31,2012. The albums sound has been praised as, real rap, kinda West-Coastish from the late 90s, hard beats and a sleek, clean lyrical flow. One day after the release of Off My Medication, it was announced that a CD version of the album would be distributed nationally by Select-O-Hits. In 2014, the label introduced Afro-Belgian rapper Darrell Cole and released the rappers North American debut, Swahili, on the song, Cole, who was born in London, England and raised in Sierra Leone, raps about the dual stigmatization Africans face in Europe and their homeland. In 2016, it was announced Darrell Cole had signed with Sony Music, in response, Block Starz Music changed the songs title to After the Club. In a statement to Billboard Magazine, a Waffle House spokesperson denied claims of racial or cultural discrimination saying, all you have to do is come eat with us and you see that. Kai Denninger will no longer be with the company, Mack said in a statement posted to his personal LinkedIn profile on Christmas Eve. Kai was instrumental in helping us build the Block Starz Music brand and he will be greatly missed and we wish him nothing but the best in all his future endeavors. Block Starz Music Television LLC is an American independent film and television based in Sarasota
