Mike Muir
Michael Allen "Mike" Muir is the lead vocalist of the Venice, California crossover thrash bands Suicidal Tendencies, Los Cycos and the funk metal band Infectious Grooves. He has released several solo albums under his nickname Cyco Miko. Muir's trademark is wearing bandanas, jerseys with the number 13, hats with block style letters that read "suicidal." Born in Venice and raised in Santa Monica, Mike Muir is the younger brother of Jim Muir of the Dogtown skateboarding team. Jim exposed Mike to metal music as well as skateboarding. Muir attended Santa Monica College after being kicked out of school in the 10th grade. In 2003 Muir had his first of two back surgeries for a herniated disc; the other, in 2005, caused him to cancel Brazilian festival dates and Suicidal shows. Muir is married with three children, early in 2011, returned to the United States after a short period living in Queensland, Australia, his house was made over into a "horror house" on the Discovery Channel show Monster House. On March 7, 1996, Muir fought Simon Woodstock in a celebrity boxing match on the Action Sports channel.
Muir lost to Woodstock. Muir has cited bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Black Sabbath, UFO, AC/DC, Van Halen, Lake & Palmer, Led Zeppelin and Kiss as his early musical influences, has said that he was introduced to funk music by former bandmate Robert Trujillo. Muir incorporated funk influences into a few songs by Suicidal Tendencies and into his funk metal side project, Infectious Grooves. Muir formed Suicidal Tendencies in 1980, it consisted of Muir on vocals, Mike Ball on guitar, Carlos "Egie" Egert on drums, Mike Dunnigan on bass. There were several lineup changes before Muir hired Grant Estes, Louiche Mayorga and Amery Smith on guitar and drums respectively. In 1983, they released their self-titled album, with success sparked by the anthem song "Institutionalized", which would become one of the first hardcore punk videos to receive substantial airplay on MTV, they have since played festivals worldwide. When No Mercy guitarist Mike Clark was hired as the band's second guitarist in 1987, Suicidal Tendencies began making a change from punk to metal, thus creating what would become crossover thrash, began adding funk influences to their music.
Robert Trujillo, the bassist for Suicidal Tendencies from 1989 to 1995, was responsible for turning Muir on to funk music, the pair would form Infectious Grooves to play more funk oriented music. Cited as one of the most important crossover thrash groups, Suicidal Tendencies was active until 1995, but reunited a year later. Suicidal Tendencies has been touring or playing selected shows every year, until the 2013 release of their ninth studio album 13, they had not released an album containing new music in over a decade. Between the releases of Free Your Soul and Save My Mind and 13, the band had debuted new material on stage and through compilation releases on a regular basis. Muir formed Los Cycos in 1984 during Suicidal's first year of their four-year recording hiatus. Current guitarist Jon Nelson left the group and Suicidal Tendencies were banned from playing L. A. shows due to an incident at Perkins Palace where their audience tore out the first 10 rows, making it impossible for promoters to obtain insurance if Suicidal was on the bill.
Muir started the label Suicidal Records with bassist Louiche Mayorga. Los Cycos consisted of Mike Muir, Bob Heathcote, Anthony"Bob"Gallo and Amery Smith. After a few rehearsals, Amery Smith left the line up, along with band mate Jon Nelson to start their own band. Los Cycos included: Grant Estes on lead guitar, Gallo went to, original choices Bob Heathcote and Amery Smith were replaced by Louiche Mayorga and No Mercy's Sal Troy. Rehearsals continued in preparation for their debut recording for "Welcome to Venice" on Suicidal Records. With the final line-up established and two songs "It's Not Easy" and "A Little Each Day", Los Cycos was born. "Welcome to Venice" was the first record to be released on Suicidal Records, the album included local Venice bands Suicidal Tendencies, Beowülf, No Mercy and Excel. The original masters were lost in a fire and no effort has been made to release the material digitally. Mike Muir’s vocals can be heard on the Suicidal Tendencies cut "Look Up... and the Los Cycos track "It's Not Easy".
Grant Estes played all guitars on the recordings. Muir has released solo albums under his nickname Cyco Miko and has sung for No Mercy, replacing original singer Kevin Guercio, who sang for the band on the Welcome to Venice compilation. Cyco Miko released three albums on the record label Suicidal Records; the album Schizophrenic Born Again Problem Child was released in 2001, following up 1996's Lost My Brain!. In October 2011 a third Cyco Miko album was released worldwide, featuring unreleased and newly written music from Cyco Miko, Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves; the album entitled "The Mad Mad Muir Musical Tour - Part 1" featured current Suicidal Tendencies band members as well as performances by Fletcher Dragge, Robert Trujillo, Brooks Wackerman, bassist Thundercat and saxophonist Kamasi Washington. No Mercy released only one album with Widespread Bloodshed/Love Runs Red on Suicidal Records. In 1989, not long after Robert Trujillo joined Suicidal Tendencies and Trujillo formed Infectious Grooves, a funk metal band that brought out a goofier type of humor: their albums contain comedy skits by a reptilian lover named Aladdin Sarsippius Sulemenagic Jackson III.
To date, the Infectious Grooves have released f
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with an estimated 2,648,771 residents in 2017. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it borders the borough of Queens at the western end of Long Island. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects Staten Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has been coterminous with Kings County, the most populous county in the U. S. state of New York and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County. With a land area of 71 square miles and water area of 26 square miles, Kings County is New York state's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the second-largest among the city's five boroughs. Today, if each borough were ranked as a city, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous in the U. S. after Los Angeles and Chicago. Brooklyn was an independent incorporated city until January 1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public relations battle during the 1890s, according to the new Municipal Charter of "Greater New York", Brooklyn was consolidated with the other cities and counties to form the modern City of New York, surrounding the Upper New York Bay with five constituent boroughs.
The borough continues, however. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch as "Unity makes strength". In the first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as an avant garde destination for hipsters, with concomitant gentrification, dramatic house price increases, a decrease in housing affordability. Since the 2010s, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms, of postmodern art and design; the name Brooklyn is derived from the original Dutch colonial name Breuckelen, meaning marshland. Established in 1646, the name first appeared in print in 1663; the Dutch colonists named it after the scenic town of Netherlands. Over the past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola, Brocckede, Brocklandia, Broikelen and Breukelen; the New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn, Brucklyn, Brookland, Brockland and Brookline/Brook-line.
There have been so many variations of the name. The final name of Brooklyn, however, is the most accurate to its meaning; the history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island, grew to be a sizeable city in the 19th century, was consolidated in 1898 with New York City, the remaining rural areas of Kings County, the rural areas of Queens and Staten Island, to form the modern City of New York; the etymology of Breuckelen may be directly from the dialect word Breuckelen meaning buckle or from the Plattdeutsch Brücken meaning bridge. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, largely inhabited by the Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe who are referred to in colonial documents by a variation of the place name "Canarsie". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes.
The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands. The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes: Gravesend: in 1645, settled under Dutch patent by English followers of Anabaptist Lady Deborah Moody, named for's-Gravenzande, Netherlands, or Gravesend, England Brooklyn Heights: as Breuckelen in 1646, after the town now spelled Breukelen, Netherlands. Breuckelen was located along Fulton Street between Smith Street. Brooklyn Heights, or Clover Hill, is where the village Brooklyn was founded in 1816. Flatlands: as Nieuw Amersfoort in 1647 Flatbush: as Midwout in 1652 Nieuw Utrecht: in 1657, after the city of Utrecht, Netherlands Bushwick: as Boswijck in 1661 The colony's capital of New Amsterdam, across the East River, obtained its charter in 1653 than the village of Brooklyn; the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill. It was built by the Dutch, the foundation can be seen today, but the area was not formally settled as a town.
Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman's 1824 compilation. What is Brooklyn today left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. New Netherland was taken in a naval action, the conquerors renamed their prize in honor of the overall English naval commander, Duke of York, brother of the monarch King Charles II of England and future king himself as King James II of England and James VII of Scotland; the English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1, 1683, one of the "original twelve counties" established in New York Pro
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble that consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trombones, a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular; the term "big band" is used to describe a genre of music. One problem with this usage is. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast with the emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements, they gave a greater role to bandleaders and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Big bands have four sections: trumpets, saxophones, a rhythm section of guitar, double bass, drums; the division in early big bands was to be two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three saxophones, a rhythm section. In 1930, big bands consisted of three trumpets, three trombones, three saxophones, a rhythm section of four instruments. Guitar replaced the banjo, double bass replaced the tuba. In the 1940s, Stan Kenton's band and Woody Herman's band used up to five trumpets, four trombones, five saxophones, a rhythm section.
An exception is Duke Ellington. Boyd Raeburn drew from symphony orchestras by adding to his band flute, French horn and timpani. Typical big band arrangements are written in strophic form with the same phrase and chord structure repeated several times; each iteration, or chorus follows twelve bar blues form or thirty-two-bar song form. The first chorus of an arrangement is followed by choruses of development; this development may take the form of improvised solos, written soli sections, "shout choruses". An arrangement's first chorus is sometimes preceded by an introduction, which may be as short as a few measures or may extend to chorus of its own. Many arrangements contain an interlude similar in content to the introduction, inserted between some or all choruses. Other methods of embellishing the form include cadential extensions; some big ensembles, like King Oliver's, played music, half-arranged, half-improvised relying on head arrangements. A head arrangement is a piece of music, formed by band members during rehearsal.
They experiment memorize the way they are going to perform the piece, without writing it on sheet music. During the 1930s, Count Basie's band used head arrangements, as Basie said, "we just sort of start it off and the others fall in." Before 1914, social dance in America was dominated by steps such as polka. As jazz migrated from its New Orleans origin to Chicago and New York City, suggestive dances traveled with it. During the next decades, ballrooms filled with people doing Lindy Hop; the dance duo Vernon and Irene Castle popularized the foxtrot while accompanied by the Europe Society Orchestra led by James Reese Europe. One of the first bands to accompany the new rhythms was led by a drummer, Art Hickman, in San Francisco in 1916. Hickman's arranger, Ferde Grofé, wrote arrangements in which he divided the jazz orchestra into sections that combined in various ways; this intermingling of sections became a defining characteristic of big bands. In 1919, Paul Whiteman hired Grofé to use similar techniques for his band.
Whiteman was educated in classical music, he called his new band's music symphonic jazz. The methods of dance bands marked a step away from New Orleans jazz. With the exception of Jelly Roll Morton, who continued playing in the New Orleans style, bandleaders paid attention to the demand for dance music and created their own big bands, they incorporated elements of Broadway, Tin Pan Alley and vaudeville. Duke Ellington led his band at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Fletcher Henderson's career started when he was persuaded to audition for a job at Club Alabam in New York City, which turned into a job as bandleader at the Roseland Ballroom. At these venues, which themselves gained notoriety and arrangers played a greater role than they had before. Hickman relied on Whiteman on Bill Challis. Henderson and arranger Don Redman followed the template of King Oliver, but as the 1920s progressed they moved away from the New Orleans format and transformed jazz, they were assisted by a band full of talent: Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone, Louis Armstrong on cornet, multi-instrumentalist Benny Carter, whose career lasted into the 1990s.
Swing music began appearing in the early 1930s and was distinguished by a more supple feel than the more literal 44 of early jazz. Walter Page is credited with developing the walking bass, though earlier examples exist, such as Wellman Braud on Ellington's Washington Wabble from 1927; this type of music flourished through the early 1930s, although there was little mass audience for it until around 1936. Up until that time, it looked upon as a curiosity. After 1935, big bands rose to prominence playing swing music and held a major role in defining swing as a distinctive style. Western swing musicians formed popular big bands during the same period. There was a considerable range of styles among the hundreds of popular bands. Many of the better known bands reflected the individuality of the bandleader, the lead arranger, the personnel. Count Basie played a relaxed, propulsive swing, Bob Crosby more of a dixieland style, Benny Goodman a hard driving swing, Duke Ellington's compositions were varied and sophisticated.
Many bands featured strong instrumentalists whose sounds dominated, such as the clar
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to wide prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he went on to join Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, from there he co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report, he has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader. Many of Shorter's compositions have become jazz standards, his output has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations. Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards, he has received acclaim for his mastery of the soprano saxophone, beginning an extended reign in 1970 as Down Beat's annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers' for 18. The New York Times described Shorter in 2008 as "probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser." In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize. Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, attended Newark Arts High School, from which he graduated in 1952.
He loved music. While in high school Wayne performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark, NJ. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U. S. Army, during which time he played with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname "Mr. Gone", which became an album title for Weather Report, his early influences include John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins. In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers where he stayed for four years, became the band's musical director. Together they toured the US, Japan and Europe, recorded several recognized albums and he composed pieces for the band. During this time Shorter "established himself as one of the most gifted of the young saxophonists" and received international acknowledgment. Hancock said of Shorter's tenure in Davis's Second Great Quintet: "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter, he still is a master.
Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." Davis said, "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, write the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound.... Wayne brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work he broke them, but with musical sense. "Blakey's hard-driving, straight-ahead rhythms had brought out the muscularity in Shorter's tenor playing, but the greater freedom of the Davis rhythm-section allowed him to explore new emotional and technical dimensions."Shorter remained in Davis's band after the breakup of the quintet in 1968, playing on early jazz fusion recordings including In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. His last live dates and studio recordings with Davis were in 1970; until 1968, he played tenor saxophone exclusively. The final album on which he played tenor in the regular sequence of Davis albums was Filles de Kilimanjaro. In 1969, he played the soprano saxophone on the Davis album In a Silent Way and on his own Super Nova.
When performing live with Davis, on recordings from summer 1969 to early spring 1970, he played both soprano and tenor saxophones. Simultaneous with his time in the Davis quintet, Shorter recorded several albums for Blue Note Records, featuring exclusively his own compositions, with a variety of line-ups and larger groups, including Blue Note favourites such as Freddie Hubbard, his first Blue Note album was Night Dreamer, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in 1964 with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones. The album The All Seeing Eye was a workout with a larger group, while Adam's Apple of 1966 was back to constructed melodies by Shorter leading a quartet. A sextet again in the following year for Schizophrenia with Hancock and Carter plus trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and strong rhythms by drummer Joe Chambers. Shorter recorded as a sideman with Donald Byrd, Grachan Moncur III, Hubbard and bandmates Hancock and Williams. Following the release of Odyssey of Iska in 1970, Shorter formed the fusion group Weather Report with Davis veteran keyboardist Joe Zawinul and bassist Miroslav Vitous.
The other original members were percussionist Airto Moreira, drummer Alphonse Mouzon. After Vitous' departure in 1973, Shorter and Zawinul co-led the group until the band's break-up in late 1985. A variety of musicians would make up Weather Report over the years helping the band produce many high quality recordings in diverse styles, with funk, Latin jazz, ethnic music, futurism being the most prevalent denominators. Shorter recorded critically acclaimed albums as a bandleader, notably 1974's Native Dancer, which featured Hancock and Brazilian composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, he toured in the V. S. O. P. Quintet; this group was a revival of the 1960s Davis quintet, except tha
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
In My Time (Gerald Wilson album)
In My Time is an album by the Gerald Wilson Orchestra recorded in 2005 and released on the Mack Avenue label. AllMusic rated the album with 4½ stars. Recommended". In JazzTimes Harvey Siders wrote: "while his concerted writing may be dense, it swings fluidly....this is remarkably youthful vim and vigor for an 87-year-old". On All About Jazz Marcia Hillman noted: "The octogenerian leader pays no attention to the numbers in his age; the music he writes and conducts is fresh and vital. This is big band music at its best, full of energy and excitement". All compositions by Gerald Wilson except. "Sax Chase" - 10:22 "The Diminished Triangle: Dorian" - 7:27 "The Diminished Triangle: Ray's Vision at the U" - 4:25 "The Diminished Triangle: Blues for Manhattan" - 8:47 "Lomelin" - 7:45 "A. E. N." - 10:26 "Musette" - 5:48 "So What" - 11:09 "Love for Sale" - 5:05 "Jeri" - 3:54 Gerald Wilson - arranger, conductor Jon Faddis, Eddie Henderson, Sean Jones, Jimmy Owens, Jeremy Pelt, Mike Rodriguez - trumpet Luis Bonilla, Benny Powell, Dennis Wilson - trombone Douglas Purviance - bass trombone Jerry Dodgion - alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute Steve Wilson - alto saxophone, flute Dustin Cicero - alto saxophone Ron Blake - tenor saxophone, flute Kamasi Washington - tenor saxophone Gary Smulyan - baritone saxophone Renee Rosnes - piano Russell Malone - guitar Peter Washington - bass Lewis Nash - drums
Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is an American rapper and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most successful hip hop artists of his generation. Raised in Compton, Lamar embarked on his musical career as a teenager under the stage name K-Dot, releasing a mixtape that garnered local attention and led to his signing with indie record label Top Dawg Entertainment, he began to gain recognition in 2010, after Overly Dedicated. The following year, he independently released his first studio album, Section.80, which included his debut single, "HiiiPoWeR". By that time, he had amassed a large online following and collaborated with several prominent hip hop artists, including The Game, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg. Lamar's major label debut album, Good Kid, M. A. A. D City, was released in 2012 by TDE, Interscope Records to critical acclaim, it debuted at #2 on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. The record contained the top 40 singles "Swimming Pools", "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe", "Poetic Justice".
His critically acclaimed third album To Pimp a Butterfly incorporated elements of funk, soul and spoken word. It debuted atop the charts in the US and the UK, won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album at the 58th ceremony. In 2016, Lamar released Untitled Unmastered, a collection of unreleased demos that originated during the recording sessions for Butterfly, he released his fourth album Damn in 2017 to further acclaim. Aside from his solo career, Lamar is known as a member of the West Coast hip hop supergroup Black Hippy, alongside his TDE label-mates and fellow South Los Angeles–based rappers Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q. Lamar has received many accolades including thirteen Grammy Awards. In early 2013, MTV named him the "Hottest MC in the Game", on their annual list. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016. In 2018, Damn became the first non-classical and non-jazz album to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in Compton, California on June 17, 1987, the son of a couple from Chicago, Illinois.
His father, Kenny Duckworth, was a member of street gang Gangster Disciples. His first name was given to him by his mother in honor of American singer-songwriter Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations. In 1995, at the age of eight in his hometown of Compton, Lamar witnessed his idols, Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre, film the music video for their hit single "California Love", which proved to be a significant moment in his life, he grew up in section 8 housing. As a child, Lamar attended McNair Elementary and Vanguard Learning Center in the Compton Unified School District; as a teenager, Lamar went on to attend Centennial High School in Compton, where he was a straight-A student. In 2004, at the age of 16, Lamar released his first full-length project, a mixtape titled Youngest Head Nigga in Charge, under the pseudonym K-Dot; the mixtape garnered local recognition for Lamar. The mixtape led to Lamar securing a recording contract with Top Dawg Entertainment, a newly founded indie record label, based in Carson, California.
He began recording material with the label and subsequently released a 26-track mixtape two years titled Training Day. Throughout 2006 and 2007, Lamar would appear alongside other up-and-coming West Coast rappers, such as Jay Rock and Ya Boy, as opening acts for veteran West Coast rapper The Game. Under the moniker K-Dot, Lamar was featured on The Game's songs "The Cypha" and "Cali Niggaz". In 2008, Lamar was prominently featured throughout the music video for Jay Rock's commercial debut single, "All My Life", which features American hip hop superstar Lil Wayne and was backed by Warner Bros. Records. Lamar garnered further recognition after a video of a live performance of a Charles Hamilton show surfaced, in which Hamilton battled fellow rappers who were in the audience. Lamar did not hesitate and began rapping a verse over the instrumental to Miilkbone's "Keep It Real", which would appear on a track titled "West Coast Wu-Tang". After receiving a co-sign from Lil Wayne, Lamar released his third mixtape in 2009, titled C4, themed around Wayne's Tha Carter III LP.
Soon after, Lamar decided to go by his birth name. He subsequently released The Kendrick Lamar EP in late 2009; that same year, Lamar along with his TDE label-mates: Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q formed Black Hippy, a hip hop supergroup. Throughout 2010, Lamar toured with Jay Rock on The Independent Grind tour. On September 14, 2010, he released the visuals for "P&P 1.5", a song taken from Overly Dedicated, featuring his Black Hippy cohort Ab-Soul. On the same date, Lamar released Overly Dedicated to digital retailers under Top Dawg Entertainment, on September 23, released it for free online; the project fared well enough to enter the United States Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, where it peaked at number 72. The mixtape includes a song titled "Ignorance Is Bliss", in which Lamar highlights gangsta rap and street crime, but ends each verse with "ignorance is bliss", giving the message "we know not what we do; this led to Lamar working with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on Dre's often-delayed Detox album, as well as speculation of Lamar signing to Dr. Dre's record label, Aftermath Entertainment.
In December 2010, Complex magazine spotlighted Lamar in an edition o
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