Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress and author. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy, she received praise for her performances as a prostitute in Hustle & Flow, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination. In 2010 she appeared in the action comedy Date Night, co-starred in the remake of The Karate Kid. Henson has had an extensive and successful career in television, including series such as The Division, Boston Legal and Eli Stone. In 2011, she starred in the Lifetime Television film Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story, which brought her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. From 2011 to 2013, she co-starred as Detective Jocelyn Carter in the CBS drama Person of Interest, for which she won an NAACP Image Award, she starred in the ensemble films Think Like its 2014 sequel.

In 2015 she began starring as Cookie Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire, for which she became the first African-American woman to win a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. She won a Golden Globe Award. In 2016, Time named Henson one of the 100 most influential people in the world; that year, she released a New York Times best selling autobiography titled Around the Way Girl. That year, she was praised for her starring role as Katherine Johnson in the critically acclaimed drama film Hidden Figures, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Henson was born September 11, 1970 in Southeast Washington, D. C. the daughter of Bernice, a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, Boris Lawrence Henson, a janitor and metal fabricator. She has two younger siblings and April, she has spoken of the influence of her maternal grandmother, Patsy Ballard, who accompanied her at the Academy Awards the year she was nominated.

Her first and middle names are of Swahili origin: Penda. According to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, her matrilineal lineage can be traced to the Masa people of Cameroon, she has said that North Pole explorer Matthew Henson was "the brother of my great-great-grandfather."Henson graduated from Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in 1988. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where she intended to study electrical engineering, before transferring to Howard University to study drama. To pay for college, she worked mornings as a secretary at The Pentagon and evenings as a singing-dancing waitress on a dinner-cruise ship, the Spirit of Washington. Henson received her SAG membership card in the early 1990s for doing 3 roles as a background performer, her first prominent role was in the 2001 comedy-drama film Baby Boy, where she portrayed Yvette, alongside singer Tyrese Gibson. In 2005, Henson was in the independent film Hustle & Flow as Shug, the love interest of Terrence Howard, who portrayed the male lead DJay.

As detailed below, she made her singing debut in the film, nominated for two Academy awards and won one. In 2008 she appeared with Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where she played Queenie, Benjamin's mother, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In an interview with Lauren Viera of the Chicago Tribune, she noted that "Queenie is the embodiment of unconditional love." Henson acted in two Tyler Perry films, The Family That Preys in 2008 and I Can Do Bad All By Myself in 2009. In 2010 she appeared in the remake of The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith. Though it did not receive a majority of positive reviews, the film was a commercial success. In 2011 Henson starred as Tiffany Rubin in the Lifetime Movie Network film Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story, it was based on true events in the life of a New York woman whose son, was abducted by his biological father to South Korea. Her portrayal of Rubin received positive reviews and earned her several award nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

In 2012, Henson was in the large ensemble cast film Think Like A Man, based on Steve Harvey's 2009 book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. She reprised the role in the film's sequel, Think Like a Man Too, released in June 2014. In 2016, Henson starred in the film Hidden Figures, a major box-office success nominated for numerous awards, including three Oscars and two Golden Globes, it won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In January 2018, she starred in Sony Screen Gems's thriller-drama film Proud Mary, as a hit woman whose life is turned around when she meets a young boy who awakens the maternal instinct she never knew she had. In March she starred in the film Tyler Perry's Acrimony as a faithful wife who, after tiring of standing by her husband, is enraged when she believes herself betrayed. In November, she voiced the character Yesss in Disney's Ralph Breaks the Internet, a sequel to the studio's Wreck-It Ralph. In February 2019, Henson starred in What Men Want as a female sports agent, looked down upon by m

"Dead Presidents" is a 1996 song by rapper Jay-Z. It was released as the first promotional single for Jay-Z's debut album Reasonable Doubt, although it did not directly appear on the album: a different version, with the same backing track and chorus but different lyrics, called "Dead Presidents II", appeared on Reasonable Doubt instead. Both versions of the song are regarded as some of the greatest hip-hop songs recorded, "Dead Presidents II" was voted #16 in About.com's Top 100 Rap Songs."Dead Presidents II" appears in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, as part of the Doomsday Heist update, in the blonded Los Santos 97.8 FM radio station. The title is slang for money because portraits of dead United States presidents appear on most Federal Reserve Notes; the song was produced by Ski. The song samples Lonnie Liston Smith's "A Garden of Peace" for the track's melody and A Tribe Called Quest's "Oh My God" for its percussion. Nas was invited to re-rap the chorus for Jay-Z and appear in the track's music video, but he declined.

Some view these two actions as the foundation of Jay-Z vs. Nas feud; when Nas and Jay-Z feuded directly, both rappers discussed the merit of the sampling in the song in individual "diss" records. In Nas' track "Stillmatic Freestyle," he says: You show off, I count dough off when you sample my voice. Jay-Z responds to Nas' claims in his song "Takeover" with the lines: So yeah, I sampled your voice, and you ain't get a coin nigga. The line was used in Cassidy's 2005 hit "I'm a Hustla": Yeah I used dude's voice props to the boy Shawn, He made it a hot line, I made it a hot song. In 2005 at Jay-Z's I Declare War concert, he performed "Dead Presidents II" with Nas ending their feud. In a YouTube video named Ski Beatz - the making of Jay-Z's Dead Presidents Ski explains how he filtered out the high frequency content of the melody sample to achieve a more prominent bass line without replaying one in. Ski's Beats, Rhymes & Samples mixtape contains the Q-Tip remix in the context of a "Dead Presidents" sample, because the original "The World is Yours" had altered lyrics in connection to the sampled vocals.

At the end of the sample from the chorus, you can hear the "Whose" from "Whose world is this?" from the beginning of the chorus of "The World is Yours". Jay-Z recorded a track called "Dead Presidents 3" around the time of The Black Album but it was never completed; the unfinished song was leaked onto the internet in the fall of 2007, around the release of American Gangster. In it, Jay-Z referenced some of his lyrics from the original "Dead Presidents" and he used the sample but the sample was played in reverse and had a darker more atmospheric feel to it. In July 2013 during a rare Twitter Q&A, a fan asked Jay-Z if "Dead Presidents 3" would be released which resulted in Jay giving Young Guru and Just Blaze the permission to release the track on Young Guru's SoundCloud account. Many artists have released remixed versions of Dead Presidents with original lyrics performed over the original sample and chorus. Notable artists to release versions of Dead Presidents include Charles Hamilton, Lil B, Lil' Wayne, Slug of Atmosphere, Chamillionaire, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, Lupe Fiasco, Logic, Slaughterhouse, AZ, Curren$y featuring and DJ Premier who recorded a version with reworked instrumentals with Jay-Z's original lyrics and vocals from Nas' The World is Yours.

List of songs recorded by Jay-Z Recording Industry Association of America Gold & Platinum Searchable Database

Anna-Lena Forster is a German para-alpine skier who competed at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Paralympics, winning five medals. Forster was born in Konstanz Germany, she was born with bones missing in her left leg. She started skiing at the age of six at the VDK Munchen ski club. Forster competes in the LW12 para-alpine skiing classification using outriggers. At the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships held in La Molina, she won a silver medal in the women's slalom in a time of 2 minutes 31.31 seconds. She was placed fourth in the super-combined and fifth in the super-G but she failed to finish the giant slalom. Forster was selected as part of the German team for the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Russia. Competing in the slalom she finished in a time of 2 minutes 14.35 seconds and was identified as the gold medal winner and press releases announcing her victory were posted. She was given gold because her compatriot Anna Schaffelhuber, who finished in a faster time, was disqualified for not having her outriggers in a stationary position at the start of her first run.

Following an appeal Schaffelhuber was reinstated and Forster was awarded the silver medal. Forster won her second silver medal of the Games, again finishing behind Schaffelhuber, in the combined; the two German skiers were the only athletes to complete the race. Her third Paralympic medal, a bronze, came in the giant slalom where she finished behind Schaffelhuber and Austrian skier Claudia Lösch in a time of 2 minutes 59.33 seconds. In the downhill Forster therefore missed out on a medal, she failed to finish the super-G event. Forster was nominated for the Baden Sports Personality of the Year award in 2012 and in 2013 she was awarded a gold medal by her home town of Radolfzell to mark her achievements. Anna-Lena Forster at the International Paralympic Committee