Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands The Wailers (1964–1974) and Bob Marley ; The Wailers (1974–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience. Marley's best known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, being 10 times Platinum (Diamond) in the U.S., and selling 20 million copies worldwide. Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley. A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of English descent whose family came from Essex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60. Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected: I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white. Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders such as Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa. In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon". Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions. In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work. In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers". They later changed their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys", then to "The Wailing Wailers", at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to "The Wailers". By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh. In 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mother's residence in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley. Though raised in the Catholic tradition, Marley became captivated by Rastafarian beliefs in the 1960s, when away from his mother's influence. Formally converted to Rastafari after returning to Jamaica, Marley began to wear his trademark dreadlocks (see the religion section for more on Marley's religious views). After a conflict with Dodd, Marley and his band teamed up with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. Although the alliance lasted less than a year, they recorded what many consider The Wailers' finest work. Marley and Perry split after a dispute regarding the assignment of recording rights, but they would remain friends and work together again. Between 1968 and 1972, Bob and Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer re-cut some old tracks with JAD Records in Kingston and London in an attempt to commercialise The Wailers' sound. Bunny later asserted that these songs "should never be released on an album … they were just demos for record companies to listen to". Also in 1968, Bob and Rita visited the Bronx to see Johnny Nash's songwriter Jimmy Norman. A three-day jam session with Norman and others, including Norman's co-writer Al Pyfrom, resulted in a 24-minute tape of Marley performing several of his own and Norman-Pyfrom's compositions. This tape is, according to Reggae archivist Roger Steffens, rare in that it was influenced by pop rather than reggae, as part of an effort to break Marley into the American charts. According to an article in The New York Times, Marley experimented on the tape with different sounds, adopting a doo-wop style on "Stay With Me" and "the slow love song style of 1960's artists" on "Splish for My Splash". An artist yet to establish himself outside his native Jamaica, Marley lived in Ridgmount Gardens, Camden, London during 1972. The Wailers' first major label album, Catch a Fire, was released worldwide in 1973, and sold well. It was followed later that year by Burnin', which included the songs "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff". Eric Clapton recorded a hit cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" in 1974, raising Marley's international profile. The band was scheduled to open 17 shows for the number one black act in the States, Sly and the Family Stone. After 4 shows, the Wailers were fired because they were more popular than the bands they were opening for. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members pursuing solo careers. The reason for the breakup is shrouded in conjecture; some believe that there were disagreements amongst Bunny, Peter, and Bob concerning performances, while others claim that Bunny and Peter simply preferred solo work. Despite the break-up, Marley continued recording as "Bob Marley ; The Wailers". His new backing band included brothers Carlton and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on drums and bass respectively, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. The "I Threes", consisting of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Marley's wife, Rita, provided backing vocals. In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry", from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by his breakthrough album in the United States, Rastaman Vibration (1976), which spent four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. In December 1976, two days before "Smile Jamaica", a free concert organised by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in an attempt to ease tension between two warring political groups, Marley, his wife, and manager Don Taylor were wounded in an assault by unknown gunmen inside Marley's home. Taylor and Marley's wife sustained serious injuries, but later made full recoveries. Bob Marley received minor wounds in the chest and arm. The shooting was thought to have been politically motivated, as many felt the concert was really a support rally for Manley. Nonetheless, the concert proceeded, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt. When asked why, Marley responded, "The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?" The members of the group Zap Pow, which had no radical religious or political beliefs, played as Bob Marley's backup band before a festival crowd of 80,000 while members of The Wailers were still missing or in hiding. Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and after a month-long "recovery and writing" sojourn at the site of Chris Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, arrived in England, where he spent two years in self-imposed exile. Whilst there he recorded his Exodus and Kaya albums. Exodus stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks. It included four UK hit singles: "Exodus", "Waiting in Vain", "Jamming", and "One Love" (a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's hit, "People Get Ready"). During his time in London, he was arrested and received a conviction for possession of a small quantity of cannabis.[24] In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica and performed at another political concert, the One Love Peace Concert, again in an effort to calm warring parties. Near the end of the performance, by Marley's request, Michael Manley (leader of then-ruling People's National Party) and his political rival Edward Seaga (leader of the opposing Jamaica Labour Party), joined each other on stage and shook hands. Under the name Bob Marley and the Wailers eleven albums were released, four live albums and seven studio albums. The releases included Babylon by Bus, a double live album with 13 tracks, was released in 1978 to critical acclaim. This album, and specifically the final track "Jamming" with the audience in a frenzy, captured the intensity of Marley's live performances. Survival, a defiant and politically charged album, was released in 1979. Tracks such as "Zimbabwe", "Africa Unite", "Wake Up and Live", and "Survival" reflected Marley's support for the struggles of Africans. His appearance at the Amandla Festival in Boston in July 1979 showed his strong opposition to South African apartheid, which he already had shown in his song "War" in 1976. In early 1980, he was invited to perform at the 17 April celebration of Zimbabwe's Independence Day. Uprising (1980) was Bob Marley's final studio album, and is one of his most religious productions; it included "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah". Confrontation, released posthumously in 1983, contained unreleased material recorded during Marley's lifetime, including the hit "Buffalo Soldier" and new mixes of singles previously only available in Jamaica. Illness It was at the start of the European tour when Bob injured his toe playing football. In July 1977, Marley was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma. Despite his illness, he wished to continue touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in South America this was no longer mentioned. The album Uprising was released in May 1980 and the band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour. Shortly afterwards, his health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was canceled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, he boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica. Death and Legacy While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, accepting that he was going to die, Marley's vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, he was taken to hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life". Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster ). A month before his death, on April 20, 1981, he had also been awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. Several months after his death, Jamaica issued a series of postage stamps honouring Bob Marley. In 1994, Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1999 Time magazine chose Bob Marley ; The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century. In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, The Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words. A statue was inaugurated, next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him. In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard" Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae. Bob Marley became a leading proponent of the Rastafari, taking their music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene. As observant Rastafari practice Ital, a diet that shuns meat, Marley was a vegetarian. According to his biographers, he affiliated with the Twelve Tribes Mansion. He was in the denomination known as "Tribe of Joseph", because he was born in February (each of the twelve sects being composed of members born in a different month). He signified this in his album liner notes, quoting the portion from Genesis that includes Jacob's blessing to his son Joseph. Marley was baptised by the Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica, on 4 November 1980 Wife and children Bob Marley had a number of children: three with his wife Rita, two adopted from Rita's previous relationships, and several others with different women. The Bob Marley official website acknowledges eleven children. Those listed on the official site are: Sharon, born 23 November 1964, to Rita in previous relationship Cedella born 23 August 1967, to Rita David "Ziggy", born 17 October 1968, to Rita Stephen, born 20 April 1972, to Rita Robert "Robbie", born 16 May 1972, to Pat Williams Rohan, born 19 May 1972, to Janet Hunt Karen, born 1973 to Janet Bowen Stephanie, born 17 August 1974; according to Cedella Booker she was the daughter of Rita and a man called Ital with whom Rita had an affair; nonetheless she was acknowledged as Bob's daughter Julian, born 4 June 1975, to Lucy Pounder Ky-Mani, born 26 February 1976, to Anita Belnavis Damian, born 21 July 1978, to Cindy Breakspeare Makeda was born on 30 May 1981, to Yvette Crichton, after Marley's death. lists her as Marley's child, but she is not listed as such on the Bob Marley official website.

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Tags: Bob Marley No Woman no Cry
Date: 2008-11-22

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981), often known simply as Beyoncé (pronounced /biˈjɒn.seɪ/ bee-YON-say), is an American R;B recording artist, actress and model. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R;B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. During the hiatus of Destiny's Child in 2003 Knowles released her debut solo album Dangerously in Love, which spawned the number one hits "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy", and became one of the most successful albums of that year, earning her a then record-tying five Grammy Awards. Following the group's disbandment in 2005, Knowles released B'Day in 2006, which debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and included the hits "Déjà Vu" and "Irreplaceable". Her third solo album I Am... Sasha Fierce, released in November 2008, included the anthemic "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", and earned her six Grammy Awards, breaking the record for most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night. Knowles is one of the most-honored artists by the Grammys, with 16 awards— 13 as a solo artist, and three as a member of Destiny's Child.

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Tags: Beyonce Ft J.Cole - Party
Date: 2011-11-07

TARRUS RILEY Tarrus Riley’s foray into music was inevitable. The talented singer and songwriter was always surrounded by music from an early age. His father is veteran reggae singer Jimmy Riley. Riley has learnt a lot by merely being in the environment of the music business. He caught on very quickly and made his recording debut as a teenager. “I’ve always loved music; I used to deejay but everyone used to encourage me to sing. They used to call me “Singy Singy” because I was always singing,” Riley commented. In 2004, Tarrus released his debut album, Challenges. “I was fortunate to have recorded my debut album with an independent label out of Miami”. The secret to his success is quite simple – “when preparation meets opportunity”, stated a self-assured Riley. ‘I sing for the people - this is the contribution I can make and after I make a song; it isn’t even mine anymore; it belongs to the people.” Known for his ‘healing’ music, Tarrus released his sophomore album Parables in 2006 to widespread acclaim and spawned hit singles - “Stay With You”, “Beware”, “She’s Royal”, “Lion Paw”, among others. “I worked on Parables with Dean Fraser and I wasn’t surprised at the success it has had, but how fast it all happened”, Riley reflected. “I’ve known Dean a long time and to work with him on something as great and historic as Parables, is an honour”, he also said. “Parables was a confidence builder and has set the foundation for everything else that I will bring to my audience”. “I define myself so I make thought-provoking music about Black consciousness and experiences. I want to open people’s minds and let them think. My music isn’t prejudiced towards colour, class, creed or nationality,” he explained passionately. “I target women and children with my music because slavery tampered with the woman’s mind and that’s why I wrote She’s Royal. She’s the head of the household so she has the power to influence the young men and women of tomorrow,” Riley added. Tarrus works with a group of friends on a movement proudly titled BLAKSOIL – Bredren Living According King Selassie-I Overstanding ; Iritical Livity. Through this movement, Riley hopes to further target the consciousness of our women and children. Riley has consistently racked up awards for his work. Among his accolades are Best Singer, Male Vocalist, Cultural Artiste, Song of the Year, and Best Song. Some of the awards institutions which have rewarded Riley include the Youth View Awards, The Star People’s Choice Awards, EME Awards, and the Reggae Academy awards. Said Riley, ‘I have received awards both locally and internationally. But to be honest, the best award I receive consistently is from the people themselves – when I can look in their faces and see the impression my music has made – that is the best award I can ever get’. Nonetheless, Tarrus is the proud holder of CVM’s 15th Anniversary Award, held in February 2009, for the ‘Most Admired Song in the Past 15 Years’ for the hit, “She’s Royal”. “That award really means a lot to me because it was chosen by the people in the streets,” said Riley. In 2009 Riley released his third opus Contagious on Cannon Production distributed by VP Records. The album contained the hits Start Anew, Contagious, Good Girl Gone Bad featuring Konshens and Superman, a cover of a Robin Thicke original. 2010 saw the release of the chart topper Protect the People, which scaled several charts in Jamaica and across the Caribbean. Early 2011 saw the release of the Black History themed Shaka Zulu Pickney which was featured on the Nyabingi rhythm from Bombrush Music. The video for the song which was directed by Storm Saulter was well received upon its release. His interest in educating the youth about Black History resulted in the Tarrus Riley Freedom Writers Competition, which ran on Jamaica’s Irie FM radio station. Riley has performed on several stages around the world. His performances have drawn credible reviews from the media in the Caribbean, North America, the United States and Europe. Riley’s most recent high profile performances include the 2011 Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, Reggae Sumfest 2010, Betty Wright and Friends in concert, and the Palmyra Foundation’s Fundraising event. Riley is currently working on the release of his fourth studio album, which is expected in 2011.

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Tags: Tarrus Riley Konshens Good Girl Gone Bad
Date: 2009-10-27

Gappy Ranks is a dancehall musician of Jamaican and Dominican origin, also known as Jacob Lee Williams. He has worked with American rapper Twista, UK MC Lethal B, producers Kray Twinz and dancehall collective Suncycle./nHe has received radio airplay from the likes of Robbo Ranx on the BBC as well as appearing on the A List of the BBC 1Xtra playlist with the song “Heaven In Your Eyes”. Other releases include “Stinkin Rich” and “What We Do Is” and an album is expected to follow in 2010./nGappy Ranks dealt with obstacles such as homelessness and issues with the police after leaving school, which resulted in his music taking a back seat. However, after overcoming this, he enlisted the help of radio stations such as Unique FM and spent time in the studio to hone his musical talent./nRanks has performed at Earl’s Court in front of a crowd of 17,000 as well as at the televised Kiss Awards. on Boxing Day 2009, he performed at the celebrated annual Sting event in Jamaica. He signed with Greensleeves Records. His album "Put the Stereo On" was released on 23 August 2010./nGappy Ranks was nominated for the 2010 MOBO awards in the best reggae act category - although the award went to Gyptian.

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Tags: Gappy Ranks - Thanks & Praise
Date: 2011-01-18

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981), often known simply as Beyoncé (pronounced /biˈjɒn.seɪ/ bee-YON-say), is an American R;B recording artist, actress and model. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R;B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. During the hiatus of Destiny's Child in 2003 Knowles released her debut solo album Dangerously in Love, which spawned the number one hits "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy", and became one of the most successful albums of that year, earning her a then record-tying five Grammy Awards. Following the group's disbandment in 2005, Knowles released B'Day in 2006, which debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and included the hits "Déjà Vu" and "Irreplaceable". Her third solo album I Am... Sasha Fierce, released in November 2008, included the anthemic "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", and earned her six Grammy Awards, breaking the record for most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night. Knowles is one of the most-honored artists by the Grammys, with 16 awards— 13 as a solo artist, and three as a member of Destiny's Child.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Beyoncé - 1+1
Date: 2011-11-07

Born Garfield Delano Spence - Konshens never actually planned a career in music, apart from enjoying the vibe it gave him growing up. He was just like the average Jamaican youngster, “at that time it was just ball game, school and girls, I never saw music as a profession” he vividly recalls (laughs). A resident of Sherlock a garrison community located in the Duhaney Park area of Kingston, Konshens began showing a commitment in music pretty late, 2005 to be specific. Back then the now DJ was just another curious stranger who use to hang out with his older brother Delus (Sojah) at Sugar Minott’s Black Roots Recording Studio, but their vision for music changed when they linked up with the musical family Cash Flow. “That’s where I got my break I recorded my first song there on the Guilty Riddim and it did well, it went number 1 in Japan and how we found out was we just search for the song on the internet and read up some info and there it was number 1 in Japan so we did a one month tour over there. The following year 2006 we (Sojah ; I)released an album (Sons of Jah) and get another Japan tour, this time for 2 weeks”. Realizing he was on to something good Konshens began making steps in the right direction. Not a producer of beats himself he hooked up with the father and son team of Cash Flow to compose tracks as he penned lyrics to launch his own solo career, a move he says was all apart of the grand plan. “When we came back from tour we sat down and said that we wanted to attack it from a local stand point so me and Delus (Sojah) say we were gonna try solo careers and see what happened. I worked at the National Public Health Lab and was pulling down a 20 pack ($ 20,000) but then its like I made a business decision because I was cutting dub plates for the same 20 pack in two minutes doing something I just love doing so I thought why not do some more tracks and make money at the same time”. Surprising a lot of his friends and former school mates Konshens said his decision to pursue music shocked many persons. “a lot of people really couldn’t believe I was doing music at the time because I didn’t really show any signs earlier out, it wasn’t until later on that I became addicted and even started ghostwriting for people, I just wanted to create something new everyday”. As with most success stories there was always someone that believed from day one in the artist and Konshens found that loyalty and support from a long time friend who played the role of his A;R at the time, shopping his work to well known producers while keeping him focused on the bigger picture. “Me and Carlington Wilmot (Photographer / Website Manager) use to hit the road and one day him tell me sey him have a link a Natural Bridge Records. We went there and I spoke to Tamra Recas and she gave me a riddim and I voiced a song and they liked it. From there I was introduced to Mark Pinnock the C.E.O and we spoke back and forth for a while until we came to an agreement that was like the turning point for me”…

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Tags: Konshens and Darrio Hooked On You
Date: 2009-10-31

At the age of 15 Sam was sentenced to four years in prison. At the time he was also involved in drugs and had spent period of his life living on the streets. While he was at prison he found time to reflect on his life and attended therapy sessions. When he left prison, he wanted to turn his life around, but Sam had problems keeping a job once people found out about his past. He had always dreamt of becoming a solo artist and getting paid to do something he really loves. Sam decided to get in touch with The Prince's Trust to see if they could help him set up his own business and put some direction back into his life. The Prince's Trust believed in Sam and helped him to gain the skills and the finance he needed to start up his business. He is now a successful solo artist, performing at weddings, conferences and events. Sam Ho

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Tags: Sam Ho - Live This Life
Date: 2008-11-16

Mtume (pronounced em-tu-may) was a funk and soul group that had several R;B hits in the 1980s. nIts founder, percussionist James Mtume, previously played with Miles Davis in the 1970s. Other members of the group included Reggie Lucas and Tawatha Agee. History Mtume recorded three albums on the independent label Third Street Records: Kawaida (1973); Alkebu-Lan (1975); and Rebirth Cycle (1977). Not finding pop or R;B chart success, they signed to major label Epic Records in 1978, releasing the albums Kiss This World Goodbye (1978), and In Search of the Rainbow Seekers (1980), which found modest success on the R;B chart. Their 1982 album Juicy Fruit, however, provided Mtume with its biggest hit, when the title song reached number one for eight weeks on the U.S. R;B chart. "Juicy Fruit" would later be sampled for the Notorious B.I.G song "Juicy", from his 1994 album Ready to Die, as well as the 2004 "Be Your Girl" remix by Teedra Moses and Raphael Saadiq. In 2007 it was sampled for Keyshia Cole's single "Let It Go", which also topped the U.S. R;B chart. Mtume's 1984 album You, Me, and He had a #2 R;B hit with the album's title song. Their final R;B Top Ten hit was "Breathless" (1986) from their final album Theater of the Mind. They recorded with Epic Records until the late 1980s. Group member Agee went solo in 1987.

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Tags: Mtume - Juicy Fruit
Date: 2011-01-27

It’s been a rags to riches glory ride, an emotional rollercoaster, an all action, all-star blockbuster. Three young Dubliners took on the world, with music fashioned from the emotional detritus of their own hard lives raised up by a love of pop, rock, hip hop and soul. In two years they notched up a handful of hit singles, including ‘We Cry’, ‘Breakeven’ and ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’. Their 2008 debut album, ‘The Script’, went to number one in the UK and Ireland, approaching 2 million world wide sales. They played stadium shows with music heroes U2, Take That and Paul McCartney. They played a triumphant homecoming set at Ireland’s Oxegen festival before 78,000 fans and won Best Live Performance at the 2010 Meteor Awards (beating their mentors U2). And to cap it all, ‘Breakeven’ became one of the slowest climbers in US pop history, eventually hitting the top of Billboards Adult Pop Song radio airplay chart after 40 weeks on release. ‘Breakeven’ has sold over 1.7 million downloads in the US alone. But that was just the first draft. Now it’s time to write a whole new Script. The scene is a recording studio in London. Two young Irishmen are listening to playback. Handsome, dark haired Danny O’Donoghue is The Script’s charismatic vocalist and keyboard player. Shaven headed Mark Sheehan is their intense, loquacious guitarist. Third member, friendly but taciturn drummer and multi-instrumentalist Glen Power is in an adjoining studio, laying down a beat. Danny and Mark cannot sit still. They are leaping about to the music blasting from huge speakers, an addictive blend of hip hop rhythms, flowing melodies, sparkling hooks and emotive, story-spinning lyrics, with Danny’s mellifluous soulful vocals riding high over huge, anthemic choruses. This is their forthcoming second album, ‘Science And Faith’, and it is fair to say the band are excited. “We’ve gone from playing little clubs to doing theatres, festivals and stadiums,” says Mark. “It’s a little bit shocking to us as new band, playing to these mass audiences. And we feel we have to touch everybody, hit ever fucker in there.” “I’m just so excited about this record,” declares Danny. “We are more confident about our sound, so you really want to fine tune your writing skills. Find the essence of what we do, songs that mean something, that people would like to sing out loud at a concert.” “We’ve had to really think about who we are, what we are, and why it matters,” continues Mark. “Take all that experience and try and do something positive with it. We really just want to nail that last album. Put it to the wall.” “For me, it’s like working out to the point of exhaustion,” continues Danny. “We come in here and try and give ourselves to the track, emotionally, spiritually, lyrically, musically, whatever we can give, and then walk out here utterly spent. And then, job done.” The studio door flies open, and in bursts drummer Glen. “I’ve nailed that track lads!” he declares. “Wait til you hear it! I’ve got blisters on my hands!” The Script are like this all the time, highly passionate, sincere and poetically articulate, with a tendency to talk over each other in their eagerness to express themselves. The journey to their new album has been a strange one, with many twists and turns. Danny and Mark met in their early teens in Dublin, and had a long struggle for musical recognition, albeit picking up early admirers for their prodigious songwriting talent in U2. They somehow wound up in the US, working as songwriters and producers with such R’n’B heroes as Dallas Austin, Teddy Riley and The Neptunes. A chance encounter with Glen focussed their ideas on making their own music, and the trio was formed. But in the midst of recording their debut album in Dublin, both Mark’s mother and Danny’s father passed away, inspiring bittersweet live favourite ‘The End Where I Begin’. A meteoric rise through the world’s charts followed but, even at the moment of their greatest triumph, they found themselves having to keep their pride in check, as their native Ireland sank into a devastating economic crisis, amongst the hardest hit of European nations following the credit crunch. And this is where the new chapter in The Script’s tale really began. “We were coming back to Dublin victorious, only to be confronted with stark reality,” recalls Danny. “It’s like you've waited for that great day when you can say, ‘I've finally made it’ and everyone else is saying, ‘My life has turned to shit’.” “I actually felt really guilty,” admits Mark. “Meeting my mates who used to tell me I might need to get a real job to support my family, and buying me a beer when I was the one who was suffering. The tables have turned quite considerably, and you want to be a little bit excited and go, ‘oh, man, we just played with McCartney, we just got to number one,’ but they're going ‘I just lost my job’, or ‘I split up with my wife.” “What’s going on in Ireland is a microcosm for the rest of the world,” suggests Danny. “So here we were back in Dublin and there’s a lot of relationships going on and we're seeing people who have met under money, under the Celtic Tiger, and they've never known what to do without money. People are getting stripped of everything, stripped of their jobs and their homes and their furniture, so its going to back to an old thing of drinking cheap bottles of wine, having dinner on the floor, nothing but candlelight, and it’s like they are meeting each other for the first time. But I'm not saying that in a bad sense. Its getting back to reality, you are standing naked in front of this person. That notion really resonated with us, and we wrote a song, ‘For The First Time’. I felt like it was something that could be a real flagship, to set the tone for what we want to talk about, emotionally. And the rest has spun off from there.” The songs came thick and fast. ‘Exit Wounds’, about the damage relationships can wreak. ‘You Won’t Feel A Thing’, about suffering all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to protect your most loved ones. ‘Nothing’ about a drunken, broken hearted phone call to a lost love (“We’ve all been there,” as Danny says). ‘Don’t Change A Thing’ about always leaving the door open for the possible return of a loved one. And the title track, ‘Science And Faith’, about the primacy of love in the universal equation. “With all of these subjects, we're always trying to attack at a level where it’s optimistic,” insists Danny. “We're dealing with complex emotions in the simplest of ways, that's what we battle with in these songs.” “On first listen, the subject matter might sound bleak,” says Mark. “But I think being Irish there is this undertone of hope all the time. It’s about having coping skills to get over things. With Irish people, no matter how bad things get, you always pick yourself up and carry on.” The Script are songwriters of the first order, combining thoughtful, heartfelt lyrics with lush melodies. They have fielded numerous requests to write for other artists (including Beyonce and James Blunt), preferring instead to focus on each other. “I feel, honestly, we are three people who write for us, and we write together, and feel those songs, internally, as mates,” explains Mark. “If there was somebody I wanted to write with, I’d probably be in a band with them,” points out Danny. “I love writing with these ****ers! It’s a challenge. You walk in here, you better be on the ball, cause these guys are good.” They still pronounce themselves incredulous that Paul McCartney personally asked The Script to support him at a series of American stadium shows. “That was pretty mad, that he loved our songs, he knew them, came and watched us while we were playing on stage,” says Mark. “He said the reason he picked us was our message is very humble and honest. We're not preaching, we invite people into our world, and our experiences, and to relate to us. He felt like we were dealing with important stuff.” There can surely be no higher honour for a songwriter than the imprimatur of a Beatle. But that’s where the Script operate, in the highest realms of pop, easily accessible yet artistically, emotionally and spiritually resonant. “I don’t see us as anything other than lads from Dublin,” admits Mark. “I don’t feel like I‘m in some big band. We come in and we make really heartfelt music. I get to really express myself in this band. And that’s as far as it goes for me. I’m not trying to change the world. I’m not trying to heal anybody. I generally find most of these songs are healing myself because getting them out has certainly helped externalise the feelings. ‘The End Where I Begin’ is such a poignant song for us, from losing parents, that when we play it people ask ‘do you feel like your reopening those wounds every night?’ Well, yeah, I honestly do. I set myself up for that song, I remind myself why it was written and what it was all about, and then we play it. Yet it’s not tough for me at all. I feel justified. I feel like I’m actually sharing something that you all relate to. You have all lost somebody too. You can all understand exactly where this is coming from. And it feels good to do that.” “You know what the Script is?” says Danny. “It’s the journey from a feeling of devastation in the pit of my stomach, for me to be able to think about that, put it into words, to be able to sing it, a band to play it, for you to hear it, to go to your brain, to understand it and for you to replicate that same feeling. It’s such an amazing thing. You couldn’t work it out with a calculator. But that’s what we try and do.” “And that’s the pay off,” says Mark. “The thought of some person somewhere sitting in their apartment putting our music on because they are hurting and we’re the soundtrack to that emotion, whatever is going on in their life. That to me is the greatest power of music. And I cannot get over that they might choose our record. Cause I do that. I sit in a room and pick out a song to articulate my feelings. It floors me every time.” Get ready for the return of The Script. There are going to be more twists in this tale before it is done.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: The Script - Before The Worst
Date: 2011-01-10

G.Parkes is a versatile Artist from London, UK. He was born in Forest Gate and raised in Stratford, East London. He was born in the early 80’s and was brought up by his single parent mother. His Background As a baby he was lulled to sleep to a soundtrack of Soul, R;B, Reggae and Rare Groove, but growing up in a tough environment he soon found himself relating to rap music above all genres. He would listen to the likes of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G, but didn’t think about becoming a rapper himself until he was in his late teens. After making a conscious decision to focus on something meaningful, he decided to write his life experiences down in song form. He soon realized he couldn’t rely on other people to make things happen for him, so he decided to research and learn the art of song making, vocal recording/editing, video recording/editing, plus website designing and more. After a lot of hard work, he is now able to produce promotional CD's by himself. He is currently focused on creating music aimed at his local community, but the emotion of his music is heart felt and could be understood by many people across the world. His Musical Style The music from G.Parkes is diverse but the rap influence in his vocal is dominant throughout. He speaks on a wide range of topics and can cross genres when creating songs. His Music He has recently produced a promotional Mixtape consisting of RnB remixes, along with Hip Hop and Funky House tracks. The Mixtape is called “Concrete Love” and relates to different aspects of relationships in society. The next Mixtape to be released by G.Parkes is entitled “Breaking Free” and it has a wide range of topics for the listeners to relate to, make sure you keep both eyes open for that!.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: G.Parkes - Digga
Date: 2008-11-16

Tramar Dillard, better known by his stage name Flo Rida, is a Haitian-American rapper and singer. Later, he appeared albums, most notably in We the Best in 2006. Mail on Sunday was Flo Rida's solo debut album; its first single "Low", featuring T-Pain which was a #1 hit for ten weeks in United States in early 2008. Two other singles resulted from Mail on Sunday: "Elevator" and "In the Ayer". In 2009, his second album R.O.O.T.S. was released; its most successful single "Right Round" was at the top of the Hot 100 for six weeks. Since then, he has released a mini-album titled "Only One Flo (Part 1)", which will see a sequel titled "Only One Rida (Part 2)". Early life Tramar Dillard was born in the 187th Street projects of Carol City, Florida. His single mother raised him and his seven sisters, some of whom sang in a local gospel group. Dillard's brother-in-law was a hypeman for local rap group 2 Live Crew, and, while in Ninth Grade, Dillard formed his own amateur group with some friends called the Groundhoggz. His work with 2 Live Crew member Fresh Kid Ice attracted attention of DeVante Swing, a member of the band Jodeci. However, he was rejected by several of the major labels, so he sought many other jobs outside of music. After graduating from high school in 1998, he studied international business management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for two years and attended Barry University for two months. He returned to Florida to continue pursuing his music career after receiving a phone call from a representative of the independent label Poe Boy Entertainment. Dillard signed with Poe Boy in 2006, and as Flo Rida he began affiliating with other artists, such as Rick Ross, Trina, T-Pain, and Trick Daddy. A promotional street single entitled "Birthday", featuring Rick Ross, was his first significant release. He made his debut guest appearance with the song "Bitch I'm from Dade County" on DJ Khaled's album We the Best, which featured Trick Daddy, Trina, Rick Ross, Brisco, C-Ride, and Dre. Flo Rida's first single was "Low", featuring T-Pain. It was his first official single from his debut album Mail On Sunday and the soundtrack to the movie Step Up 2 The Streets. "Low" reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[6] "Elevator", featuring Timbaland, "In the Ayer" featuring will.i.am, and "Roll" featuring Sean Kingston followed and all charted on the Hot 100 and other charts. After the success of Mail on Sunday, Flo Rida made guest performances on other R;B, rap, and pop singles, including "Move Shake Drop" by DJ Laz, "We Break the Dawn" by Michelle Williams, the remix of "4 Minutes" by Madonna, "Running Back" by Australian R;B singer Jessica Mauboy, "Feel It" by DJ Felli Fel, and the remix of "Speedin'" by Rick Ross. During the summer of 2008, he did live performances on the Fox dance competition program So You Think You Can Dance in the US and 2008 MuchMusic Video Awards in Canada. He appeared on the albums We Global by DJ Khaled, Gutta by Ace Hood, and starstruck by Lady Gaga, among others. R.O.O.T.S. (2009) According to, Billboard magazine, Flo Rida began recording his sophomore nine months after Mail On Sunday. The album is titled R.O.O.T.S. and was released on March 31, 2009. The first single "Right Round" featured Ke$ha and was released for airplay in January 2009. "Right Round" jumped from number 58 to the top spot in one week in late February. The song broke a record for the most digital one week sales in the U.S., with 636,000, beating the previous record he had set himself with "Low". "Right Round" sampled "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", a 1985 hit by Dead or Alive. The second official single was "Sugar", which featured R;B singer Wynter Gordon. The song reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other singles were "Jump" featuring Nelly Furtado, which reached #54 on the Hot 100 and was the promotional single for the animated film G-Force, and "Be On You" featuring Ne-Yo, which reached #19 on the Hot 100. In addition to singles from his own album, Flo Rida made guest performances on "Feel It" by DJ Felli Fel, "The Fame" by Lady Gaga, and "Feel It" by Three 6 Mafia. "Bad Boys", the first single by winner of British reality show The X Factor Alexandra Burke that featured Flo Rida, debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart in October. Only One Flo (Part 1) (2010) Flo Rida's third album Only One Flo (Part 1) was released on November 24, 2010. In March 2010, Flo Rida announced on Twitter that the album would be titled The Only One. Billboard reported that The Only One was to be a double album. The single "Zoosk Girl", featuring T-Pain was leaked online on March 28. J-Rock produced "Zoosk Girl". "Club Can't Handle Me", produced by David Guetta, was the first official single and reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and #4 on the Canadian Hot 100. "Club Can't Handle Me" was also on the soundtrack for Step Up 3-D. Flo Rida also made guest appearances on "iYiYi", a song by Australian teen singer Cody Simpson, and on the song "Out My Video" by Bulgarian singer LiLana. On 31 August 2010, it was announced that Flo Rida had collaborated with English/Irish girl group The Saturdays, after he beat the group to the number one spot in the UK for the second time. It was later confirmed, by The Saturdays official website that Flo Rida had recorded a new version of the girl's ninth single, "Higher", in which Rida's vocals would be featured. It was also announced that the single would be released on the 29th of September 2010 Flo Rida recorded his parts of the music video separately. The video was completed on 29 August 2010. In December 2010, the Associated Press reported that Flo Rida had created his own label, International Music Group, inspired by Nicki Minaj's signing with Lil Wayne's. He has signed an 18 year-old rapper, Brianna, to International.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Flo Rida - Club Can't Handle Me ft. David Guetta [Official Video]
Date: 2011-02-06

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires (known as Byron Lee's Dragonaires since Lee's death) are a Jamaican ska, calypso and soca band. The band played a crucial pioneering role in bringing Caribbean music to the world. Byron Lee died on 4 November 2008, after a long battle with cancer.The band was originally formed around 1950 by Byron Lee and his friend Carl Brady, taking its name from the St. George's College football team that they played for. The band originally played mento, and performed their first shows in the college common room to celebrate the team's victories. After a few years of playing at parties, birthdays and weddings, Lee decided to turn professional. By 1956, the Dragonaires had become a fixture on Jamaica's hotel circuit, playing under their own name and also providing backing to visiting American stars including Harry Belafonte, Chuck Berry, The Drifters, Sam Cooke, and Fats Domino. The Dragonaires prided themselves on being able to play any style of music, their repertoire including covers of American pop and R;B hits, and they soon adapted to include ska when that became popular. The band recorded their debut single, "Dumplin's", in 1959 at the WIRL studios owned by future Prime Minister Edward Seaga, who would also become the band's manager. The single was released on the Dragonaire's own Dragon's Breath label in Jamaica, and was the second release on the Blue Beat label in the United Kingdom, and was unusual for a Jamaican single as it featured an electric organ and a Fender bass which Lee had purchased during a visit to the United States - the first such instruments ever seen on the island. Lee and Seaga both realised that ska was the music to provide Jamaica with a musical identity that could break the domination of American R;B, and the Dragonaires became one of the major ska bands of the early 1960s, releasing singles such as "Fireflies", "Mash! Mr Lee", "Joy Ride", and a ska version of "Over the Rainbow", both under their own name, and as The Ska Kings.[1] In 1961, the band received a huge break when they were cast as the hotel band in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. The band performed several songs in the film, although the recordings were actually made by guitarist Ernest Ranglin. The band received another major boost when they were selected by Seaga, then the island's head of Social Welfare and Economic Development, in 1964 to travel to the New York World's Fair and perform as a backing band for a showcase of Jamaican talent, including Jimmy Cliff, Prince Buster, and Millie Small. The trip was not a great success, with the Dragonaires' "uptown" musicians not fitting in with the other "downtown" artists Realising that their appeal to ska crowds was diminishing, Lee took the band in a new direction, incorporating calypso and touring Trinidad ; Tobago in 1963 and 1964. Lee's relationship with Atlantic Records (he acted as head of distribution for the US company in Jamaica) led to the label releasing Dragonaires records in the US, including two albums timed to capitalise on interest generated from the World's Fair performances, Jump Up and Jamaican Ska (on which the Dragonaires backed the likes of The Blues Busters, The Charmers, The Maytals, Stranger Cole, Ken Boothe, and Patsy Todd). The band also targeted the international rocksteady market with albums of mainly cover versions such as Rock Steady Beat and Rock Steady '67. Further, Atlantic Records tried to push the album Jamaican Ska by using house producer and sound engineer Tom Dowd, who produced all of Aretha Franklin's greatest singles, to produce the album.[citation needed] In addition, the Dragonaires were renamed as "The Ska Kings" on the album. Unfortunately, despite Atlantic's best efforts, Jamaican Ska failed to take off in the United States. Lee bought the WIRL studios from Seaga and turned into Dynamic Sounds Recording Co., where the Dragonaires naturally recorded, using the superior facilities to record a string of well-produced albums during the late 1960s and early 1970s, often containing cover versions aimed at tourists, and they went on to record a series of "Reggay"-titled albums in the early 1970s. The WIRL name had remained with its division in Barbados and had remained the ever-popular brand of Bajan music until 1995, when it changed its name to E.A. Best Music Ltd, and eventually to its current name, Caribbean Records - still the major record company and distributor of Barbados. Back in Jamaica, Dynamic had become a bigger force than ever before, investing in presenting more of Jamaica's talent to vinyl, including Toots ; the Maytals, Eric Donaldson, John Holt, Barry Biggs, Freddie McKay, Tommy McCook, and Max Romeo, issued on imprints such as Jaguar, Panther, Afrik, and Dragon. In 1974, the band played at Trinidad ; Tobago's carnival for the first of many times, and the same year they released the Carnival in Trinidad album. They would release both reggae and carnival-oriented albums throughout the 1970s, and in 1975 took in another genre with the Disco Reggae album, released on Mercury Records in the US. The band played at the Reggae Sunsplash festival in both 1978 and 1979, and were one one of the main backing bands in 1982. They would also appear in 1984 and 1990. From 1979, the Dragonaires output was heavily concentrated on calypso, soca, and mas, regularly performing at Trinidad ; Tobago's carnival, and also touring the Caribbean and North America.Throughout the 1990s they were also regulars at Jamaica's carnival, and their "Dance Hall Soca" hit (recorded with Admiral Bailey) was credited with starting the ragga-soca craze of the late 1990s. The band continue to tour, recently performing with Kevin Lyttle at the Cricket World Cup 2007 opening ceremony. Byron Lee died on 4 November 2008, aged 73, from cancer. The band has continued since Lee's death, with the name slightly altered to Byron Lee's Dragonaires.Albums * Come Fly With Lee (1962) * The Sound of Jamaica (1963) * First Class With Lee (1964) * Caribbean Joyride (1964) * Jump Up (1964) * Christmas Party Time (1966) * Rock Steady '67 (1967) * Rock Steady Beat (1967) * People Get Ready, This is Rock Steady (1967) * Rock Steady Intensified (1968) * Reggay With Byron Lee (1968) * The Many Moods of Lee (1968) * Reggay Blast Off (1969) * Reggay Eyes (1969) * Tighten Up (1969) * Goin' Places (1970) * Reggay Splash Down (1971) * Reggay Hot Cool and Easy (1972) * Reggay Roun' The World (1973) * Reggae Fever (1974) * Dancing Is Forever (1974) * Carnival in Trinidad (1974) * Carnival 75 (1975) * Disco Reggae (1975) * The Midas Touch (1975) * Reggay International (1976) * Six Million Dollar Man (1976) * This Is Carnival (1976) * Art of Mas (1977) * Jamaica's Golden Hits (1977) * More Carnival (1978) * Reggae Hits (1978) * Carnival Experience (1979) * Soca Carnival (1980) * Carnival 81 (1981) * Byron 1982 (1982) * Soft Lee Vol 1 (1983) * Soul Ska (1983) * Carnival City 83 (1983) * Original Rock Steady Hits (1984) * Jamaica's Golden Hits Vol 2 (1984) * Heat in De Place (1984) * Christmas In the Tropics (1984) * Wine Miss Tiny (1985) * Soca Girl (1986) * De Music Hot Mama (1988) * Soca Bacchannal In The City (1989) * Wine Down (1992) * Soca Thunder (1992) * Soca Butterfly (1994) * Soca Tatie (1995) * Soca Engine (1996) * Soca Greatest Hits (1997) * Trinidad Tobago Carnival City (1997) * Socarobics (1997) * Soca Frenzy (1998) * Soca Tremor (1999) * Soca Fire Inna Jamdown Stylee * Jump and Wave For Jesus (1999) * Soca Thriller (2000)

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Byron Lee & The Dragonaires Tiny Winey
Date: 2008-12-14

AHMIR is a male contemporary R;B group based in Boston, Massachusetts. AHMIR is the #1 most popular R;B group on YouTube. The group is currently unsigned to a record label. The members of AHMIR consist of "Sing-Sing" (from Philadelphia, PA), "Big Mike" from (Harlem, NY), "Mr. Jones" (from Boston, MA) and "KC" (from Rochester, NY). AHMIR is managed by Michael J. Cheung, president of Chino World Management, Inc.Several years ago, Mr. Jones and Big Mike formed a friendship in Boston based on mutual respect for one another's talents. Big Mike made his way to Boston by attending Boston University. Michael Cheung, who is the current manager for AHMIR, had also developed a friendship with Mr. Jones while attending Boston University. Before long Mr. Jones, Big Mike and Michael Cheung each shared a vision of developing a male R;B group. Shortly thereafter, Michael Cheung brought in KC through auditions and Sing-Sing was scouted by Big Mike at a show at Berklee College of Music where he was a student.AHMIR gained in popularity in 2006 with their hit single, "Welcome To My Party." Although being an unsigned group, the single was announced as being the #19 top selling R;B Hip Hop Single of 2006 on Billboard's year-end chart. In addition, the track was deemed eligible for a 2007 Soul Train Music Award for Best R;B Track. Billboard featured them in an article entitled "They're Next" as the group won the "We Hear The Future" Showcase at the annual Billboard R;B Hip Hop Conference in Atlanta. AHMIR's notoriety also grew with their song entitled "The Wedding Song". "The Wedding Song" circulated quickly via Internet websites such as Myspace and a music video for the song on YouTube. Both songs were included on the group's debut album, "The Gift" which was released independently on April 11, 2007. "The Gift" was re-released on February 19, 2008 with 3 new tracks. This included the single "Angel", "No Place Like Home", and an acapella version of "No Place Like Home". "No Place Like Home" garnered honors as a finalist for the International Songwriting Competition and winner for the R;B Category of the USA Songwriting Competition. On June 26, 2007, AHMIR performed on the NBC TV Series America's Got Talent. They made it to the Top 35 round in Las Vegas. On the show, they mentioned that the word AHMIR is Arabic for prince (Amir / Emir in Arabic أمير) Two international tours increased AHMIR's global fanbase. The tours were entitled "The Welcome To My Party Tour" and "Comeback Tour" which included cities such as Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Linz, and Düsseldorf. AHMIR has opened for major recording artists such as John Legend, Busta Rhymes, 112, Jagged Edge and Boyz II Men and have been the recipient of many awards. In 2009, AHMIR became the #1 most popular R;B group on the website YouTube through an array of unique covers of contemporary top-charting songs, parodies, original music, and video blogs. As of December 2009, AHMIR's total video views on YouTube totaled more than 10,000,000. The popularity of AHMIR's covers such as Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" have led to online praise by celebrities such as Ryan Seacrest, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Lovato, Owl City, Brian J. White, Tiffany Thornton, Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, and Michael Mauldin father of Jermaine Dupri and industry veteran. AHMIR's growing presence on YouTube led to the release of the "AHMIR - Covers Collection Vol. 1". The group is also an advocate of several charity organizations including American Red Cross, Songs of Love, Autism Speaks, American Cancer Society, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Words Matter, Yele Haiti and the YMCA. AHMIR has been seen performing at benefit concerts and dedicating songs on YouTube to bring awareness to these charities. They also appear in We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition) produced and edited by Lisa Lavie and Iman Crosson. In 2010, AHMIR had their world premiere single "Come Back". The song was written by band member Sing-Sing and produced by Big Dawg Productions (EMI) and Spikey Spike / Ahmir Music / Bos. America. The music video was directed by Conner Daly (ConnorBear Films).Media coverage * Television performances include the Fox Morning News, New England Cable News (NECN) Morning Show and Backstage with Barry Nolan on Comcast CN8. * Several newspapers in their home base of Boston have covered the success of AHMIR including: The Boston Globe - "Ahmir - Out of Nowhere, They've Topped Topped the Charts" April 11, 2007, "They've Got Talent" July 16, 2007; The Boston Herald - "The Perfect Gift" July 14, 2007; and the Boston Metro - "Ahmir's Got Talent" July 16, 2007. * The magazine VIBE also featured AHMIR in their September 2007 issue as an "Artist of the Month" feature with BlackPlanet.com * AHMIR appeared on the BET show 106 ; Park on February 13, 2008, where they won the weekly Wild-Out Wednesday competition in the male R;B Group category with 45% of national audience online voting. Awards * "Best R;B Group" at the New England Urban Music Awards * Overall winner at the Worcester Idol Competition * First place at the Urban Explosion Talent Competition in NYC held by Urban Threshold * "Best Male R;B Group or Duo" at the 4th Annual Underground Music Awards in New York City * Winner at the "We Hear the Future" Showcase ; Competition at the Billboard R;B Hip Hop Conference in Atlanta * "Best Album" for The Gift at the New England Urban Music Awards

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Ahmir - When You Look Me In The Eyes
Date: 2008-11-18

Joseph Junior Adenuga, aka Skepta, has always managed to balance being part of a scene with following his own path. Like so many others, the 27-year-old North London MC and producer is parlaying a youth spent cutting his teeth on pirate radio and in grime raves into a mainstream career with seemingly unstoppable momentum, but along every step of the way he has done things his own way - and he has no intention of changing this to please anyone. It's certainly stood him in good stead so far - and this year, Skepta pulled off one of the biggest coups yet among his peers in attracting the eye of none other than P. Diddy, the hip-hop titan who took to Twitter in search of an artist to give his new Diddy Dirty Money project's lead single a grime twist. The response was overwhelming from Diddy's UK fans, and one name popped up again and again: Skepta. Charismatic and distinctive as an MC, he had also produced some of the decade's most seminal grime beats; he was the ideal choice to represent the UK on the world stage. And he came through with shining colours, reworking Diddy's sleek hip-hop beats into something dirtier, grimier, unmistakeably British - and smashing a confident, witty guest verse: "Wow, I blow my own trumpet/And if you don't like it, lump it/I'm a UK bad boy - and just for the record, I like tea but I don't like crumpets." Appropriately enough, Skepta was in the queue at the bank when he first received Diddy's message - though he laughs when he remembers his initial reaction, "I thought Diddy's phone had been hacked!" It's fitting that Skepta's biggest break to date came not as the result of marketing meetings or record label focus groups, but due to a spontaneous, organic and unorchestrated fan movement. Street-level support has been the driving force behind Skepta's rise; unlike his fellow grime crossovers, he has not been snapped up by a major label, and has never had the benefit of a massive marketing budget. His two albums to date - 2007's wittily titled ‘Greatest Hits’ and 2008's ‘Microphone Champion’ - were both released on his own crew's independent Boy Better Know label, as will this year's ‘Doin' It Again’ be, and he has put the hard yards in when it comes to live performance. A recent stint supporting Chipmunk was instrumental to the expansion of his fan base - even if many of his original fans felt that, by rights, it should have been the other way round. "We've always felt like we don't rely on the radio so much - we rely on our direct contact with our fans," Skepta says. "Signing stuff for them, giving them stuff, interacting with them - making them feel like they're part of the team. We're all doing it together." This is so important to Skepta that he will even Ustream interviews such as this, live online, regularly breaking off to address watching fans, play them exclusive snippets of beats for forthcoming tracks and answer questions. Hard work means little without talent, though, but Skepta has plenty of that. He's nothing if not versatile: he can do menacing, he can do witty; he can do thoughtful, he can do feel-good party tracks. He can make you laugh and get you hyped up, and he's never less than a thrill to listen to. As word has spread, Skepta's entry to the mainstream has been slow but steady, with each single to date doing better than the one before. 2009 saw the club anthem ‘Too Many Man’ become a minor hit; despite mainstream radio failing to pick up on it, it garnered over 2.5 million YouTube views. The versatile Skeptas’ expansion of his range this year saw the electro-tinged ‘Bad Boy’ become his first top 30 hit - again, without radio support until it actually became a hit - and the dub step beats of ‘Rescue Me’ crash the top 20 for the first time. Unlike some of his contemporaries, though, Skepta is adamant that he will not abandon grime in favour of transient commercial trends, and to this end, his next single, ‘Cross My Heart’, signals a return to a grimier sound in a bid to prove that he doesn't need to water himself down to gain success. "I'm never going to run away from it, it's my home," Skepta states. "No matter what I make or MC on, when you look at me, you have to see grime - I've contributed to the inner history of the scene. Beats that I've made, clashes I've had that are legendary; I've made proper marks in grime, and no matter what I do I'll always touch base with it." He doesn't lie: when the annals of grime are written, Skepta will be considered as crucial to its development as the more celebrated Wiley and Dizzee Rascal. He stood out from the beginning. The amateurish energy of grime was part of its thrill, but an artist as focused and charismatic as Skepta, immediately caught the ear. Remarkably, his initial vocation was not as an MC, but rather as a DJ on the D;eacutejà Vu pirate station as part of the Meridian Crew, which also included his little brother, JME - a talent-in-waiting in his own right. Skepta would pull together beats and join the dots between some of the best grime crews of the time - Pay As U Go Cartel, Ruff Sqwad, Roll Deep - all of which have nurtured some of the UK's most talented MCs. But it was only when Skepta's records were lost one day that he was forced to step up to the mic himself - and as he puts it, "I turned the whole room into the devil's house!" Looking back, he cites the camaraderie and competition of pirate radio as vital to his development as an artist - and the ease with which he performs now. He's come a long way since then, and even further from his early years, growing up with little money to spare. Back then, a youthful Skepta would shut himself in his room for hours on end playing beats - much to the disapproval of his mother. "She was always, like, turn the bass down! She never thought it would come to nothing - 12 men coming to the house back in the day, everyone smoking and stinking out the house. She was thinking, when is this going to stop, when are you going to grow out of this, are you going to get a proper job? That's all I used to hear: When are you going to get a real job, Junior? And now whenever I see her, it's just bare kisses and hugs." Between Skepta and JME, the Adenuga brothers' mother has much to be proud of - and Skepta himself is proud of the path he's forged, and is continuing to forge. "People are now realising that there's success to be had in music," he says. "Back in the day, the only path out was football. It's good to show the youth that there's another path."

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Skepta ft. Preeya Kalidas - Cross My Heart
Date: 2011-02-06

Busy Signal - Reanno Gordon, better known by his stage name, Busy Signal, is an artist from St Ann, Jamaica. He has also lived in Tivoli Gardens, Papine, Spanish Town and other areas in West and East Kingston Jamaica and is a past student of Brown's Town Comprehensive High School. Known as one of the artists leading the contemporary Dancehall movement, Busy Signal has been a large part of the scene since 2003. His first hit single, "Step Out", was one of the most popular dancehall songs in 2005. A music video of Step Out was released shortly afterwards./nHe was nicknamed Busy Signal by his friends because of the fact that he is constantly busy. His hit tracks for 2007/2008 were "Nah Go A Jail Again", "Smoke Some High Grade", "Tic Toc" and the crazy track ripping the charts entitled "Unknown Number" has made tremendous airplay and dancehall reviews especially in the Caribbean and the U.S. He has released a hit dancehall album entitled Step Out./nOn The September 22, 2008, Busy Signal released his second studio album titled Loaded, a 15 track compilation of from Vp Records of well known dancehall hits such as "Jail", "Whine Pon Di Edge", These are the days among others as well as never heard before exclusive tracks such as "People So Evil", "Hustle Hard" etc./nBusy Signal is also known as one of the most prominent artists of the Bounty Killer-led Alliance along with Mavado, Roderick (ROD) Douglas, Wayne Marshall and Bling Dawg. He was once at odds with fellow dancehall artist Aidonia where both exchange lyrical words but that didn't materialize in a clash. Later in 2008 dancehall artist Vybz Kartel produced various "dis tracks" aimed at Busy Signal and other alliance members, to which Busy responded with a few tracks.

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Tags: Busy Signal - Step Out RAW
Date: 2008-11-30

Without a doubt, one of the sexiest Slow Jams in history is a song called Knockin' Da Boots, by three guys from Houston. Shazam, Dino, and G.I. made up the group H-Town, who over the years were responsible for creating some of the hottest Slow Jams ever made! H-Town started doing big things when the group members were just teens, as they teamed up with Luther Campbell, who managed and produced them. You may remember "Luke" from 2 Live Crew, so it didn't come as a big surprise that H-Town's first album Fever For Da Flavor included song titles such as Lick U Up, Sex Me and of course, Knockin' Da Boots. What was shocking, however, was the success of the songs, which led the album to sell over a million copies and ranked H-Town among the top of the heap of R;B crooners. To their credit, for all the attention given to carnal matters, the threesome also concentrated, on motion picture soundtracks spawning MORE PLATINUM SUCCESS./nH-TOWN WAS ALIVE AND ON FIRE WITH THERE FIRST SOUNDTRACK ON DEATHROW RECORDS "ABOVE THE RIM" THAT RELEASED YET ANOTHER PLATINUM SUCCESS FOR THE YOUNG HOUSTON TRIO WITH ANOTHER HIT SINGLE "PART-TIME LOVER" HELPING PUSH THE SOUNDTRACK TO MUTI-PLATINUM STATUS. THE NEXT SOUNDTRACK SUCCESS CAME A YEAR LATER WHEN ACTOR MARTIN LAWRENCE SOUGHT THE YOUNG PROTÉGÉS TO LEAD HIS FIRST HIT FILM WHERE THE TRIO ONCE AGAIN GOT A SMASH SINGLE WITH THERE CLASSIC VERSION OF "THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE".THE GUYS WHERE ON TOP OF THE WORLD WHICH BROUGHT MAJOR AWARDS AND ACCOLADES FOR THE YOUNG STARS. Having hit the ground running with their freshman effort, they continued their up-front style with their second album, BEGGIN' AFTER DARK, which ALSO went platinum solidifying them as a force in the R;B game, and as one of the most successful group of there era./nAlthough the album didn't receive the same financial backing from luke as the first album, spawning only one platinum single "Emotions", the CD was filled with super-sexy Slow Jams, including some reggae-laced love songs featuring Papa Reu that can get anyone in the mood. In 99' the boys returned with album number three, THE LADIES EDITION WHICH SPAWNED SUCH GOLD SINGLES AS "THEY LIKE IT SLOW" AND "NATURAL WOMAN"./nOn Tuesday, January 28, 2003, the legacy of H-Town was cut short, as ONE OF THE TWINS IN THE GROUP Keven A. Conner a.k.a. Dino died in a car accident. He was just 28. The singer and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Teshya Rae Weisent, were leaving a recording studio in Houston when the car accident occurred. The car driven by Weisent was struck by a SUV that had allegedly ran a red light. Reports said Weisent was killed instantly and Dino died en route to the hospital. The trio had just finished an H-Town reunion album. Although Dino is no longer with us, his life and music still lives on... /nH-Town is an American R;B/hip hop vocal group that was formed in 1992 by Keven "Dino" Conner, his twin brother Solomon "Shazam" Conner, and their longtime friend Darryl "G.I." Jackson. H-Town borrowed their name from the nickname of their home town Houston, Texas.Growing up in a family of singers, brothers Keven and Solomon Conner began their careers singing in talent shows and plays before a local producer sent their demo tape to onetime 2 Live Crew rapper and record label executive Luther "Luke" Campbell. After an impromptu audition, Campbell signed the group to his label, Luke RecordsFever for Da Flavor/nH-Town's debut album Fever for Da Flavor was released on April 15, 1993. The group achieved hit status in the United States with "Knockin' Da Boots," which became H-Town's biggest hit and also their signature song. "Boots" was a #1 hit on the R;B charts, and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Lick U Up," the bands follow-up single, was less successful on the charts. H-Town won the 1993 Soul Train Music Award for Best New Artist. That same year, they signed on as a part of the Coca-Cola Summerfest tour, which also included Shai, SWV, Jade, Naughty by Nature, LL Cool J and SilkBeggin' After Dark/nIn 1994, H-Town returned the studio to record their second album Beggin' After Dark . It was released on November 8, 1994./nThe most popular single from this album was "Emotions." It became a #11 hit on the Billboard R;B chart and reached #51 on the Hot 100. Other tracks from the album included "Sex Bowl," "Full Time," "Much Feelin' (And It Tastes Great)," "Buss One," featuring reggae singer Papa Reu, and "Baby I Love Ya," featuring Roger Troutman.Ladies Edition, Woman's World/nBy the time H-Town returned to the studio to record Ladies Edition, they had undergone some changes. They recorded a cover version of The Persuaders' "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate" for the 1996 film of the same name. The song became H-Town's first Top 40 pop hit in three years, peaking at #37./nThey then cut ties with Luther Campbell, underwent a spiritual awakening of sorts, and became more aware of women's issues on their third album Ladies Edition, Woman's World. It was released on October 28, 1997. The album's general theme centers on a man's penitence for his past transgressions with his woman, a theme conveyed in songs such as "Don't Sleep on the Female," "Julie Rain" (a sobering account of spousal abuse), and "Jezebel." According to the liner notes, the album was dedicated to Nicole Brown Simpson and "all the women of the world." Twenty national women's telephone helplines were also listed on the back cover.In July 2000, Solomon "Shazam" Conner released a solo album entitled Bringing the Heat. Selected tracks from Shazam's solo effort were included on H-Town's 2004 album Imitations Of Life./nOn January 28, 2003, Dino was killed in an automobile accident in Houston, Texas. According to police, Dino had just left a recording studio and was a passenger in a car being driven by his girlfriend, 22-year-old Teshya Rae Weisent. Their vehicle was struck by an SUV that ran a red light, and both Dino and Weisant were killed./nThree people were in the SUV, all of whom fled after the accident. One of them, Juan Diaz, was later apprehended, however, and faced a felony charge of failure to stop and render aid./nAt the time of Conner's death H-Town was said to have just finished what would become their fourth album. They eventually released their reunion album Imitations of Life on October 12, 2004./nThe Single for "Knockin Your Heels" off was just released and is the title track off the upcoming album and features longtime friends "Jodeci". They were featured in the video for the single also. But not listed as Jodeci due to a pending lawsuit they have against Universal Music Group for the release of the "Jodeci" name. The song has been added to MTV2. VH1 Soul and Music Choice and is being added in rotation across 40 states.Keven A. Conner, better known to R;B fans as Dino, lead singer of the group H-Town, was killed in a car accident on Tuesday./nAccording to Houston police, Dino, 28, had just left a recording studio and was a passenger in a car being driven by his girlfriend, 22-year-old Teshya Rae Weisent. Their vehicle was struck by an SUV that ran a red light and both Dino and Weisant were killed./nThree people were in the SUV and all fled after the accident. One man, Juan Diaz, was apprehended, however, and faces felonious charges of failure to stop and render aid./nOriginally signed to a recording contract by 2 Live Crew's Luther "Luke" Campbell, H-Town rose to prominence 10 years ago with their debut album, Fever for Da Flavor, which spawned their biggest hit, "Knockin' the Boots." In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Shazam, Dino's twin brother and groupmate, said the trio had just finished an H-Town reunion album. Their last LP, Ladies Edition, was released in 1997.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: H Town And Jodeci Knockin Your Heels Off
Date: 2010-04-10

Elise van der Horst (born 22 July 1982 in Utrecht, The Netherlands), better known as EliZe, is a Dutch singer. Growing up in Bussum, EliZe shared her mother's passion for singing. As an eight year old she was selected to sing in a children's television show, Kinderen voor Kinderen ("Children for Children"), in which she performed for six years. Career After starring in the national TV show Kinderen voor Kinderen (Kids for Kids) between age 8-14, she joined "Non Stop", a teenage choir, and participated in two amateur productions of the musicals Chicago and Les Misérables. In 2004, EliZe recorded an album in Denmark. The songs were written and produced by Peter Hartmann and Jan Langhoff, who also worked with Aqua. The first single, "Shake", was released in 2004 in the Netherlands. Though the song received the title "Dancesmash!" by Radio 538, the single was a modest hit by peaking at number 32 on the Dutch Top 40. "Automatic (I'm Talking to You)", the second single, was released in 2005 in the Netherlands and also earned the title "Dancesmash!" shortly after its release. The song became her signature song, peaking at number 7 there and becoming her best-selling single to date. It is also the first song that has ever charted outside the Netherlands, charting in Finland and Belgium amongst others in the top 20. Her third single, "I'm No Latino", was released in August 2005, and became a TMF Superclip shortly after its introduction. The song didn't perform as well as "Automatic" did, but still managed to peak at number 14 on the Dutch Top 40 and remaining in the chart for 6 weeks. EliZe has signed a contract at CMM and placed her management activities under AT Productions. Her latest single "Into Your System" debuted at number number 33 the week after its release in the national Top 40. The following week, it superstipped itself to number 23. Following the latest two singles, also "Into Your System" reached the top 20, peaking at number 18. Following the success of the singles, she released her long awaited debut album In Control on 29 September 2006. Of the album, which was released in the Benelux too, rumors were circulating it to be named Rhythm of Love. The album peaked at number 66 in the Dutch Mega Album Top 100. Many critics have the opinion the album should have been released after the success of her second single "Automatic." In May 2008, she released the first single of her forthcoming album, "Lovesick." In Bulgaria she scored a #1 hit with "Lovesick". She stayed on #1 for 6 weeks. This has been her first and latest #1 hit. The second single from the unyet named new album is "Hot Stuff", a cover from Donna Summer. It was physically released on 19 September 2008. The track debuted at number 15 in the Dutch top 100, dropped to 16 in the second week to rise to #15 again in its third week. After that, "Hot Stuff" raised 4 spots to #11, where it peaked. It also debuted at #34 at the Dutch Top 40, peaking at #27 later. It was announced in December 2008 that the third single from her upcoming album would be "Can't You Feel It", which got its full and physical release on 2 March 2009 in prior to the album. Her second album More Than Meets the Eye was released on 26 June 2009 in the Netherlands. In 2007, EliZe hosted the Dutch version of the TV show "Kids Top 20" and won the "Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards" in the category "Best Singer" while up against Holland's #1 singer "Marco Borsato" and "Hilary Duff". in 2008 EliZe hosted the first season for the Dutch version of the internationally acclaimed TV show "So You Think You Can Dance". In 2009, Elize was voted the countries "Most desirable single women" and won the "Single ; Famous award" Albums Released: 6 October 2006 Label: CMM Producer: Peter Hartmann and Jan Langhoff Chart position: #66 NL Singles: "Shake", "Automatic", "I'm No Latino", "Into Your System", "Itsy Bitsy Spider"

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Tags: EliZe - Hot Stuff
Date: 2011-01-10

Alexandra Imelda Cecelia Ewan Burke (born 25 August 1988) is an English singer and winner of the fifth series of UK television singing talent show The X Factor. Burke had previously auditioned for the 2005 series of the show, where she reached the last seven in her category but was not selected for the live shows. Burke's prize, as winner, was a recording contract with Simon Cowell's Syco record label, which is co-owned Sony Music Entertainment. The contract has a stated value of £1 million, of which £150,000 is a cash advance and the remainder is allocated to recording and marketing costs. On 15 December 2008, Burke became the current European record holder for single sales over a period of 24 hours, selling 105,000 copies of her debut single, "Hallelujah", in one day. The figure beats that of her X Factor predecessor, Leona Lewis, who previously held the record for selling 82,000 copies of her single, "A Moment Like This", over 24 hours. Hallelujah went on to become the Christmas number one single of 2008. It was also announced as the top-selling song of the year on the BBC Radio 1 Chart Show on 28 December 2008, beating The X Factor finalists' song "Hero". It is the first time that an X Factor winner has topped the end of year chart in the UK with their winner's single. Sales of "Hallelujah" passed 1 million by 9 January 2009, making Burke the first British female soloist to sell 1 million copies of a single in the UK. Her debut album, Overcome, was released on 19 October 2009 and entered the charts at number one. It will be released in the US at a later date. Lead single and BRIT-nominated single "Bad Boys" featuring Flo Rida was released on 12 October 2009 and debuted at number-one in the UK, becoming her second consecutive number-one single. The single was released to European markets in early 2010 and charted well in the top tens, and twenties in many countries. Alexandra has enjoyed a total of seven non-consecutive weeks at Number 1 on the UK Singles Chart (three with "Hero" with the X Factor Finalists of 2008, three with "Hallelujah", and one with "Bad Boys"). She has been nominated for two BRIT Awards. She has achieved two number one singles ("Hallelujah" and "Bad Boys") as well as two number one singles as a featured artist ("Hero" and "Everybody Hurts" chartity singles).Early life Burke was born on 25 August 1988 in Islington, London. Her middle names come from her great grandmother (Imelda) and grandfather (Cecil) and her mother's maiden name (Ewan). She is the daughter of Jamaican-born David Burke and British-born Melissa Bell of Jamaican, Irish and Dougla descent, who is a former Soul II Soul member. Her parents split up when she was six. She has lived in Islington all of her life and has four brothers and one sister. Burke started singing when she was five and, prior to The X Factor, had no professional vocal training. At nine years old, she sang on stage in Bahrain with her mother. At the age of twelve, Burke entered the TV talent show Star for a Night where she was the youngest person in the competition. She was beaten to the number-one spot by Joss Stone. At age twelve, she also sang down the phone to Stevie Wonder. When Burke's mother asked her to sing to Jean Carne, Carne was so impressed that she asked her to perform at her show the next night. Burke attended Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in Islington and after her GCSEs she left school to pursue a career in music. Before her X Factor success, she had been working as a singer, gigging at weekends in clubs. She also went on tour with "Young Voices", a charity that raises money for children with leukemia, where she performed at large venues such as the Royal Albert Hall.2005 Burke auditioned for the second series of The X Factor in 2005 (which was eventually won by Shayne Ward). She made it through to the final seven in Louis Walsh's 16–24 category, effectively the top 21 of the competition; however, Walsh did not choose her for his final four as he felt that she was too young for the competition.2008 Burke's second bid to win The X Factor came in 2008. Falling into the "Girls" category, she was mentored by Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole who selected her for the finals—a series of ten weekly live shows in which contestants are progressively eliminated by public vote. On the first live show, Burke performed Whitney Houston's classic "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". For the second live show she covered "I'll Be There" by The Jackson 5. In week three, big band week, Burke performed Christina Aguilera's "Candyman" and received her first standing ovation. For the disco-themed fourth live show, Burke performed Donna Summer's "On the Radio". During Mariah Carey week on 8 November, Burke and the other finalists met Carey for individual masterclasses, with Carey complimenting Burke on her voice. Burke performed "Without You" and received a standing ovation from the judges who all gave her positive comments. Cowell commented that "by any standard, that was just outstanding". Following the show Burke's performance was also praised by Carey who called her rendition of the song "absolutely amazing". In weeks 6 and 7, Burke received positive comments from the judging panel for her performances of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful" and Dan Hartman's "Relight My Fire" (the popularity of which in the UK is mostly a result of Take That's 1993 revival thereof). Week 8 saw her replace Diana Vickers as the bookies' favourite after performing Britney Spears' "Toxic" and Beyoncé Knowles' "Listen", for which she received yet another standing ovation. In week 9, Burke performed Rihanna's hit song "Don't Stop the Music" and again received positive comments, with Louis calling her "the British Beyoncé" and Simon commenting "...We may be seeing the birth of a star here you've got it all, that was a terrific performance". Diana Vickers was eliminated in the semi-final, to the shock and upset of both Burke and Eoghan Quigg. Burke confessed after Vickers' final performance that she thought Vickers was going to win. Burke was joined in the grand final by Irish teenager Eoghan Quigg and boyband JLS. She sang "Listen" as a duet with Beyoncé (who later performed her UK number-one single "If I Were a Boy"), and after performing with the American singer she proclaimed: "I have achieved a dream".2008–2009: Hallelujah After the elimination of Quigg she sang what became her debut single, a 1984 song by Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah, for the first time. Finally, with over eight million votes cast in total, Burke was revealed as the winner with 58% of the final vote. The single went on to become the Christmas number one of 2008, holding the top spot for three weeks and selling one million copies. There was also a campaign to take Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah to the top of the Christmas chart to deny Burke the top spot. The campaign was fuelled by Jeff Buckley fans' dislike of The X Factor's commercialism and the song's arrangement, as well as a desire by this contingent to introduce younger music fans to Buckley's version. Burke herself was not enamoured of the choice of song, remarking "It just didn’t do anything for me".On 13 February 2009 it was reported that Burke signed a £3.5 million, five-album US record deal with Epic Records. Burke's first album was originally scheduled for March 2009 however, Simon Cowell confirmed that her album was scheduled for release later in the year to allow Burke to polish her skills and find the right songs for the album and that it would not be rushed, as previously happened with Leona Lewis' debut album. The album was released on 19 October 2009 in the UK, titled Overcome. Burke's first commercial single from her debut album is titled "Bad Boys" which features Flo Rida. The single premiered in the UK on The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 on 25 August 2009. On 18 October 2009 Bad Boys topped the UK Singles Chart. After visiting Burke in the studio, Beyoncé spoke of possibly recording a duet with Burke and also for Burke to join her for Beyonce's second European leg of her I Am… Tour. Bad Boys was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry on 7 January 2010. American rapper 50 Cent has expressed an interest in Burke, correctly predicting that she would win The X Factor and invited her to appear in an upcoming music video of his, most likely for a song from his upcoming album Before I Self Destruct. On 19 July 2009, Burke confirmed that she had signed a six figure contract with Italian fashion designers Dolce ; Gabbana, to become the face of a new fashion line. She will also model their clothes and accessories in her music videos. Burke performed on the Royal Variety Show on 7 December 2009. It was confirmed by Burke on 17 November 2009, that "Broken Heels" will be the 2nd commercial single, (3rd overall), from Overcome. She also confirmed via her Official Twitter page that the video was shot in Los Angeles on 22 and 23 November 2009. The single was released on 18 January 2010. Burke appeared on the The Paul O'Grady Show on 3 November 2009 to perform "The Silence". She performed on the penultimate episode on 17 December 2009 singing "Broken Heels". She also performed on So You Think You Can Dance on 16 January and GMTV on 19 January 2010. On January 18th 2010, Burke began her European Promo Tour in Brussels, Belgium. The tour lasted for 2 weeks and covered all major European cities including Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Milan and Paris. Since her launch in Europe, Burke's single Bad Boys has charted in the top 20 on several European charts and charted at #1 in Poland. She returned to Poland on February 23rd 2010 to continue her European promotion. Burke signed a five album £3.5 million American recording deal with Epic Records in February 2009. She has also has revealed that she is working on the US version of Overcome due to be released in April 2010. Burke and RedOne also revealed on their Twitter pages that they were working on new tracks for the US version of Overcome. Burke said that the music videos for her singles in the US would not be different to those released in the UK, Europe and Asia saying that "Personally I think its wiser and cheap just to have one video for all markets". On March 12, Alexandra confirmed on Twitter that "All Night Long" will be her new single, featuring Pitbull. Alexandra briefly appeared on Dancing on Ice during the show's fifth season and seventh week to help Emily Atack dance "Bad Boys". Alexandra later appeared on the show during the semi-final, performing All Night Long.Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, many celebrities, including Alexandra, wanted to help the suffering people of the country. Burke was confirmed for the Haiti Charity single, Everybody Hurts, commenting "I hope the single raises lots of money. It's great that we can come together and do this. It's a very special song." Soon after, Alexandra revealed she would be travelling to Haiti so she can physically help the people out there, saying "For me, singing two lines on a single doesn't mean I have really helped. I wanted to go out and physically help the kids. I'm not a doctor, but I can give clothes, food and love. At least I'll be able to make a couple of kids smile." Alexandra visited and helped in the week beginning 8 February 2010, and posted two video blogs about her visit on YouTube. Before her X Factor success, she went on tour with "Young Voices", a charity that raises money for children with leukemia, where she performed at large venues such as the Royal Albert Hall.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Alexandra Burke Hallelujah
Date: 2008-12-14

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands The Wailers (1964–1974) and Bob Marley ; The Wailers (1974–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience. Marley's best known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, being 10 times Platinum (Diamond) in the U.S., and selling 20 million copies worldwide. Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley. A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of English descent whose family came from Essex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60. Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected: I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white. Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders such as Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa. In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon". Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions. In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work. In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers". They later changed their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys", then to "The Wailing Wailers", at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to "The Wailers". By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh. In 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mother's residence in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley. Though raised in the Catholic tradition, Marley became captivated by Rastafarian beliefs in the 1960s, when away from his mother's influence. Formally converted to Rastafari after returning to Jamaica, Marley began to wear his trademark dreadlocks (see the religion section for more on Marley's religious views). After a conflict with Dodd, Marley and his band teamed up with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. Although the alliance lasted less than a year, they recorded what many consider The Wailers' finest work. Marley and Perry split after a dispute regarding the assignment of recording rights, but they would remain friends and work together again. Between 1968 and 1972, Bob and Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer re-cut some old tracks with JAD Records in Kingston and London in an attempt to commercialise The Wailers' sound. Bunny later asserted that these songs "should never be released on an album … they were just demos for record companies to listen to". Also in 1968, Bob and Rita visited the Bronx to see Johnny Nash's songwriter Jimmy Norman. A three-day jam session with Norman and others, including Norman's co-writer Al Pyfrom, resulted in a 24-minute tape of Marley performing several of his own and Norman-Pyfrom's compositions. This tape is, according to Reggae archivist Roger Steffens, rare in that it was influenced by pop rather than reggae, as part of an effort to break Marley into the American charts. According to an article in The New York Times, Marley experimented on the tape with different sounds, adopting a doo-wop style on "Stay With Me" and "the slow love song style of 1960's artists" on "Splish for My Splash". An artist yet to establish himself outside his native Jamaica, Marley lived in Ridgmount Gardens, Camden, London during 1972. The Wailers' first major label album, Catch a Fire, was released worldwide in 1973, and sold well. It was followed later that year by Burnin', which included the songs "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff". Eric Clapton recorded a hit cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" in 1974, raising Marley's international profile. The band was scheduled to open 17 shows for the number one black act in the States, Sly and the Family Stone. After 4 shows, the Wailers were fired because they were more popular than the bands they were opening for. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members pursuing solo careers. The reason for the breakup is shrouded in conjecture; some believe that there were disagreements amongst Bunny, Peter, and Bob concerning performances, while others claim that Bunny and Peter simply preferred solo work. Despite the break-up, Marley continued recording as "Bob Marley ; The Wailers". His new backing band included brothers Carlton and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on drums and bass respectively, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. The "I Threes", consisting of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Marley's wife, Rita, provided backing vocals. In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry", from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by his breakthrough album in the United States, Rastaman Vibration (1976), which spent four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. In December 1976, two days before "Smile Jamaica", a free concert organised by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in an attempt to ease tension between two warring political groups, Marley, his wife, and manager Don Taylor were wounded in an assault by unknown gunmen inside Marley's home. Taylor and Marley's wife sustained serious injuries, but later made full recoveries. Bob Marley received minor wounds in the chest and arm. The shooting was thought to have been politically motivated, as many felt the concert was really a support rally for Manley. Nonetheless, the concert proceeded, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt. When asked why, Marley responded, "The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?" The members of the group Zap Pow, which had no radical religious or political beliefs, played as Bob Marley's backup band before a festival crowd of 80,000 while members of The Wailers were still missing or in hiding. Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and after a month-long "recovery and writing" sojourn at the site of Chris Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, arrived in England, where he spent two years in self-imposed exile. Whilst there he recorded his Exodus and Kaya albums. Exodus stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks. It included four UK hit singles: "Exodus", "Waiting in Vain", "Jamming", and "One Love" (a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's hit, "People Get Ready"). During his time in London, he was arrested and received a conviction for possession of a small quantity of cannabis.[24] In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica and performed at another political concert, the One Love Peace Concert, again in an effort to calm warring parties. Near the end of the performance, by Marley's request, Michael Manley (leader of then-ruling People's National Party) and his political rival Edward Seaga (leader of the opposing Jamaica Labour Party), joined each other on stage and shook hands. Under the name Bob Marley and the Wailers eleven albums were released, four live albums and seven studio albums. The releases included Babylon by Bus, a double live album with 13 tracks, was released in 1978 to critical acclaim. This album, and specifically the final track "Jamming" with the audience in a frenzy, captured the intensity of Marley's live performances. Survival, a defiant and politically charged album, was released in 1979. Tracks such as "Zimbabwe", "Africa Unite", "Wake Up and Live", and "Survival" reflected Marley's support for the struggles of Africans. His appearance at the Amandla Festival in Boston in July 1979 showed his strong opposition to South African apartheid, which he already had shown in his song "War" in 1976. In early 1980, he was invited to perform at the 17 April celebration of Zimbabwe's Independence Day. Uprising (1980) was Bob Marley's final studio album, and is one of his most religious productions; it included "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah". Confrontation, released posthumously in 1983, contained unreleased material recorded during Marley's lifetime, including the hit "Buffalo Soldier" and new mixes of singles previously only available in Jamaica. Illness It was at the start of the European tour when Bob injured his toe playing football. In July 1977, Marley was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma. Despite his illness, he wished to continue touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in South America this was no longer mentioned. The album Uprising was released in May 1980 and the band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour. Shortly afterwards, his health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was canceled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, he boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica. Death and Legacy While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, accepting that he was going to die, Marley's vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, he was taken to hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life". Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster ). A month before his death, on April 20, 1981, he had also been awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. Several months after his death, Jamaica issued a series of postage stamps honouring Bob Marley. In 1994, Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1999 Time magazine chose Bob Marley ; The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century. In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, The Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words. A statue was inaugurated, next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him. In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard" Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae. Bob Marley became a leading proponent of the Rastafari, taking their music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene. As observant Rastafari practice Ital, a diet that shuns meat, Marley was a vegetarian. According to his biographers, he affiliated with the Twelve Tribes Mansion. He was in the denomination known as "Tribe of Joseph", because he was born in February (each of the twelve sects being composed of members born in a different month). He signified this in his album liner notes, quoting the portion from Genesis that includes Jacob's blessing to his son Joseph. Marley was baptised by the Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica, on 4 November 1980 Wife and children Bob Marley had a number of children: three with his wife Rita, two adopted from Rita's previous relationships, and several others with different women. The Bob Marley official website acknowledges eleven children. Those listed on the official site are: Sharon, born 23 November 1964, to Rita in previous relationship Cedella born 23 August 1967, to Rita David "Ziggy", born 17 October 1968, to Rita Stephen, born 20 April 1972, to Rita Robert "Robbie", born 16 May 1972, to Pat Williams Rohan, born 19 May 1972, to Janet Hunt Karen, born 1973 to Janet Bowen Stephanie, born 17 August 1974; according to Cedella Booker she was the daughter of Rita and a man called Ital with whom Rita had an affair; nonetheless she was acknowledged as Bob's daughter Julian, born 4 June 1975, to Lucy Pounder Ky-Mani, born 26 February 1976, to Anita Belnavis Damian, born 21 July 1978, to Cindy Breakspeare Makeda was born on 30 May 1981, to Yvette Crichton, after Marley's death. lists her as Marley's child, but she is not listed as such on the Bob Marley official website.

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Dig if u will the picture Of u and I engaged in a kiss The sweat of your body covers me Can u my darling Can u picture this?/nDream if u can a courtyard An ocean of violets in bloom Animals strike curious poses They feel the heat The heat between me and u/nHow can u just leave me standing? Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold) Maybe I'm just 2 demanding Maybe I'm just like my father 2 bold Maybe you're just like my mother She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied) Why do we scream at each other This is what it sounds like When doves cry/nTouch if u will my stomach Feel how it trembles inside You've got the butterflies all tied up Don't make me chase u Even doves have pride/nHow can u just leave me standing? Alone in a world so cold? (World so cold) Maybe I'm just 2 demanding Maybe I'm just like my father 2 bold Maybe you're just like my mother She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied) Why do we scream at each other This is what it sounds like When doves cry/nHow can u just leave me standing? Alone in a world that's so cold? (A world that's so cold) Maybe I'm just 2 demanding (Maybe, maybe I'm like my father) Maybe I'm just like my father 2 bold (Ya know he's 2 bold) Maybe you're just like my mother (Maybe you're just like my mother) She's never satisfied (She's never, never satisfied) Why do we scream at each other (Why do we scream, why) This is what it sounds like/nWhen doves cry When doves cry (Doves cry, doves cry) When doves cry (Doves cry, doves cry)/nDon't Cry (Don't Cry)/nWhen doves cry When doves cry When doves cry/nWhen Doves cry (Doves cry, doves cry, doves cry Don't cry Darling don't cry Don't cry Don't cry Don't don't cry /nPrince (born Prince Rogers Nelson; June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He has been known under the unpronounceable symbol Prince logo.svg, which he used between 1993 and 2000. This name change invoked controversy and many referred to him as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", often abbreviated to "TAFKAP", or simply "The Artist" during that period./nAccording to Robert Larsen in his book, History of Rock and Roll, Prince is "one of the most talented and commercially successful pop musicians of the last twenty years", producing ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label, writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of the instruments on his recordings. In addition, Prince has been a "talent promoter" for the careers of Sheila E, Carmen Electra, The Time and Vanity 6, as well as writing songs that became hits for other artists including Chaka Khan, The Bangles, and Sinéad O'Connor, making him one of the most successful artists in music history./nPrince is reported to have written more than one thousand songs, some of which have been released by Prince under pseudonyms or recorded and released by other artists.[citation needed] Prince also has hundreds of unreleased songs in his "vault". He has won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year he was eligible./nIn that same year Rolling Stone ranked Prince #28 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time./nIn a poll by BBC 6Music listeners in April 2010, Prince was ranked the 8th best guitarist of the previous 30 years./nPrince's music has been influenced by R;B, soul, funk, rock, blues, New Wave, psychedelia, folk, jazz and hip hop. His artistic influences include Sly ; the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Duke Ellington, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder. Prince pioneered the "Minneapolis sound", a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R;B and New Wave that influenced other musiciansPrince Rogers Nelson was born June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw. Prince's father was a pianist and songwriter and his mother was a jazz singer. Prince was named after his father, whose stage name was Prince Rogers, and who performed with a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In a 1991 interview with A Current Affair, Prince's father said, "I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do." Prince's childhood nickname was Skipper./nIn a PBS interview Prince told Tavis Smiley that he was "born epileptic" and "used to have seizures" when he was young. During the interview Prince also said that "My mother told me, one day I walked into her and said mom I'm not going to be sick anymore, and she said 'why?' and I said; 'an angel told me so.'"/nPrince's sister Tika Evene (usually called Tyka) was born in 1960. Prince's parents then separated when Prince was ten years old and Prince lived with his father. Prince moved out after his father found him in bed with a female friend. Prince moved into the home of a neighbor, the Andersons, and befriended their son, Andre Anderson who later became known as André Cymone)./nPrince and Anderson joined Prince's cousin, Charles Smith, in a band called Grand Central while they were attending Minneapolis's Central High School (which later merged with South High School). Smith was later replaced by Morris Day on the drums. Prince played piano and guitar for the band which performed at clubs and parties in the Minneapolis area and was managed by the mother of one of the band members. Grand Central later changed its name to Champagne and started playing original music influenced by Sly ; the Family Stone, James Brown, Earth, Wind ; Fire, Miles Davis, Parliament-Funkadelic, Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix. Career/nIn 1976, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon in Moon's Minneapolis studio. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Minneapolis businessman Owen Husney. Husney signed Prince, at the age of 17, to a management contract and helped Prince create a demo recording at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis using producer/engineer David Z. The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney's ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies including Warner Bros., A;M, and Columbia Records. With the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. records. Warner Bros. agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and ownership of the publishing rights. Husney and Prince then left Minneapolis and moved to Sausalito, California where Prince's first album, For You, was recorded at the Record Plant recording studio. Subsequently, the album was mixed in Los Angeles and released in 1978. Musical beginnings: 1977–80/nIn 1977, Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin, Shantel, formed the band 94 East with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry. Willie added Andre Cymone and Prince to the band. Prince composed music for the lyrics written by Willie and played guitar and keyboards on some studio recordings. Prince also wrote for 94 East including the song "Just Another Sucker". The band recorded tracks which later became the album Minneapolis Genius – The Historic 1977 Recordings. In 1995, Willie released the album 94 East featuring Prince, Symbolic Beginning which included original recordings by Prince and Cymone./nPrince released the album For You on April 17, 1978. The album was written and performed by Prince, except for the song "Soft and Wet" which had lyrics co-written by Moon. According to the For You album notes Prince produced, arranged, composed and played all 27 instruments on the recording./nThe cost of recording the album was twice Prince's initial advance. Prince used the Prince's Music Co. to publish his songs. The single from the album reached #12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and #92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Just as Long as We're Together" reached #91 on the Hot Soul Singles chart./nIn 1979 Prince created a band which included André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z on drums. Their first show was at the Capri Theater on January 5, 1979. Warner Bros. executives attended the show but decided that Prince and the band needed more time to develop his music./nIn October 1979, Prince released a self-titled album, Prince, which was #4 on the Billboard Top R;B/Black Albums charts, and #22 on the Billboard 200, going platinum. It contained two R;B hits: "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover". "I Wanna Be Your Lover" sold over a million copies, and reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 for two weeks on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince performed both these songs on January 26, 1980 on American Bandstand. On this album, Prince used Ecnirp Music – BMI. Controversy era: 1980–84/nIn 1980 Prince released the album, Dirty Mind, which he recorded in his own studio. The album was "certified gold" and the attendant single "Uptown" reached #5 on the Billboard Dance chart and #5 on the Hot Soul Singles charts. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James' 1980 Fire it Up tour. Dirty Mind contained sexually explicit material, including the title song, "Head", and the song "Sister". In February 1981, Prince made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing "Partyup"./nIn 1981 Prince released the album, Controversy. The songs on Controversy were published by Controversy Music – ASCAP a practice he continued until the Emancipation album in 1996./nIn 1981, Prince formed a "side project" band called The Time. The band released four albums between 1981 and 1990, with Prince writing and performing most of the instrumentation and backing vocals, with lead vocals by Morris Day./nIn 1982, Prince released a double album, 1999, which sold over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became his first top ten hit in countries outside the U.S. Prince's "Little Red Corvette" was one of the first videos by a black artist played in heavy rotation on MTV./nThe song "Delirious" also placed in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Revolution: 1984–87/nDuring this period Prince referred to his band as The Revolution. The band's name was also printed, in reverse, on the cover of 1999 inside the letter "I" of the word "Prince". The band consisted of Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and Dez Dickerson on guitar. Jill Jones, a backing singer, was also part of The Revolution line up for the 1999 album and tour. Following the 1999 Tour, Dickerson left the group for religious reasons. In the 2003 book Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince, author Alex Hahn says that Dickerson was reluctant to sign a three year contract and wanted to pursue other musical ventures. Dickerson was replaced by Wendy Melvoin, a childhood friend of Coleman. At first the band was used sparsely in the studio but this gradually changed during the mid-1980s./nPrince's 1984 album Purple Rain sold more than thirteen million copies in the U.S. and spent twenty-four consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film of the same name won an Academy Award and grossed more than $80 million in the U.S. Prince performing in Brussels during the Hit N Run Tour in 1986/nSongs from the film were hits on pop charts around the world, while "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" reached #1 and the title track reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the number one album, single, and film in the U.S.; it was the first time a singer had achieved this feat. Prince won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for Purple Rain, and the album is ranked 72nd Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album is also part of Time magazine's All-Time 100 Albums./nAfter Tipper Gore heard her 12-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince's song "Darling Nikki", she founded the Parents Music Resource Center. The center advocates the mandatory use of a warning label ("Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics") on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors. The recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request./nIn 1985 Prince announced that he would discontinue live performances and music videos after the release of his next album. His subsequent recording Around the World in a Day, held the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 for three weeks./nIn 1986 his album Parade reached #3 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the R;B charts. The first single, "Kiss", reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was originally written for a side project called Mazarati. That same year the song "Manic Monday", which was written by Prince and recorded by The Bangles, reached #2 on the Hot 100 chart./nThe album Parade served as the soundtrack for Prince's second film, Under the Cherry Moon. Prince directed and starred in the movie, which also featured Kristen Scott Thomas. In 1986, Prince began a series of sporadic live performances called the Hit N Run Tour. The European tour went to Europe in the summer and ended that September in Japan./nAfter the tour Prince fired Wendy ; Lisa and replaced Bobby Z. with Sheila E.. Brown Mark quit the band while keyboardist Doctor Fink remained. Prince then recruited new band members Miko Weaver on guitar, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, Eric Leeds on saxophone, Boni Boyer on keyboards, Levi Seacer, Jr. on bass and dancer Cat Glover. Solo again and spiritual rebirth: 1987–91/nPrior to the disbanding of The Revolution, Prince was working on two separate projects. The Revolution album, Dream Factory and a solo effort, Camille. Unlike the three previous band albums, Dream Factory included significant input from the band members and even featured a number of songs with lead vocals by Wendy ; Lisa, while the Camille project saw Prince create a new persona primarily singing in a sped up, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of The Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled Crystal Ball. However, with the low sales of his previous two albums, Warner Bros. forced Prince to make the release a double album and Sign o' the Times was released on March 31, 1987./nThe album peaked at #6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The first single, "Sign o' the Times", would chart at #3 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "If I Was Your Girlfriend" charted poorly at #67 on the Hot 100, but went to #12 on R;B chart. The third single, a duet with Sheena Easton, "U Got the Look" charted at #2 on the Hot 100, #11 on the R;B chart, and the final single "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" finished at #10 on Hot 100 and #14 on the R;B chart./nDespite the album receiving the greatest critical acclaim of any album in Prince's career, including being named the top album of the year by the Pazz ; Jop critics' poll, album sales steadily declined, although it eventually sold 3.2 million copies. In Europe however, it performed well and Prince promoted the album overseas with a lengthy tour. Putting together a new backing band from the remnants of The Revolution, Prince added bassist Levi Seacer, Jr., Boni Boyer on keyboards, and dancer/choreographer Cat Glover to go with new drummer Sheila E. and holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford, and Greg Brooks) for the Sign o' the Times Tour. The tour was a huge success overseas, with Warner Bros. and Prince's managers wanting to bring it to the U.S. to resuscitate sagging sales of Sign o' the Times, however Prince balked at a full U.S. tour, as he was ready to produce a new album. A compromise was made where he filmed the last two nights of the tour to be released in movie theaters as a concert film. Unfortunately, the film quality was deemed subpar and reshoots were performed at his Paisley Park studios. The film Sign o' the Times was released on November 20, 1987. Much like the album, the film was critically praised (at least more than the previous year's Under the Cherry Moon); however, its box office receipts were minimal, and it quickly left theaters./nThe next album intended for release was to be The Black Album. More instrumental and funk and R;B themed than recent releases, The Black Album also saw Prince experiment with rap on the songs "Bob George" and "Dead on It". Prince was set to release the album with a complete monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but at the last minute, even though 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled, although it would later be released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994. Prince went back in the studio for eight weeks and recorded Lovesexy./nReleased on May 10, 1988, Lovesexy serves as a spiritual opposite to the dark The Black Album. Every song is a solo effort by Prince, with exception of "Eye No" which was recorded with his backing band at the time, dubbed the "Lovesexy Band" by fans. Lovesexy would reach #11 on the Billboard 200 and #5 on the R;B albums chart. The lead single, "Alphabet St.", peaked at #8 on the Hot 100 and #3 on the R;B chart, but finished with only selling 750,000 copies./nPrince again took his post-Revolution backing band (minus the Bodyguards) on a three leg, 84-show Lovesexy World Tour; that although played to huge crowds and were well received shows, lost money due to the expensive sets and props incorporated. Prince performing during his Nude Tour in 1990/nIn 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna's studio album Like a Prayer, co-writing and singing the duet "Love Song" and playing electric guitar (uncredited) on the songs "Like a Prayer", "Keep It Together", and "Act of Contrition". He also began work on a number of musical projects, including Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic and early drafts of his Graffiti Bridge film, but both were put on hold when he was asked by Batman director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989. Batman peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling 4.3 million copies. The single "Batdance" topped the Billboard and R;B charts./nAdditionally, the single "The Arms of Orion" with Sheena Easton charted at #36, and "Partyman" (also featuring the vocals of Prince's then-girlfriend, nicknamed Anna Fantastic) charted at #18 on the Hot 100 and at #5 on the R;B chart, while the love ballad "Scandalous!" went to #5 on the R;B chart. However, he did have to sign away all publishing rights to the songs on the album to Warner Bros. as part of the deal to do the soundtrack./nIn 1990, Prince went back on tour with a revamped band for his stripped down, back-to-basics Nude Tour. With the departures of Boni Boyer, Sheila E., the horns, and Cat, Prince brought in Rosie Gaines on keys, drummer Michael Bland, and dancing trio, The Game Boyz, Tony M., Kirky J., and Damon Dickson. The European and Japanese tour was a financial success with its short, greatest hits setlist. As the year progressed, Prince finished production on his fourth film, Graffiti Bridge, and the album of the same name. Initially, Warner Bros. was reluctant to fund the film, however, with Prince's assurances it would be a sequel to Purple Rain as well as the involvement of the original members of The Time, the studio greenlit the project. Released on August 20, 1990, the album reached #6 on the Billboard 200 and R;B albums chart. The single "Thieves in the Temple" reaching #6 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the R;B chart. The film, released on November 20, 1990, was a critical and box office flop, grossing just $4.2 million. After the release of the film and album, the last remaining members of The Revolution, Miko Weaver and Doctor Fink left Prince's band. Also from that album, "Round and Round" placed at number 12 on the U.S. charts and Number 2 on the R;B charts. The song featured the teenage Tevin Campbell (who also had a role in the film) on lead vocals. The New Power Generation and name change: 1991–94 Prince's Yellow Cloud Guitar at the Smithsonian Castle. Prince can be seen playing this guitar in the "Gett Off" video./n1991 marked the debut of Prince's new band, The New Power Generation. With guitarist Miko Weaver and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink gone, Prince added bass player Sonny T., Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, and a brass section known as the Hornheads to go along with Levi Seacer (taking over on guitar), Rosie Gaines, Michael Bland, and the Game Boyz. With significant input from his band members, Diamonds and Pearls was released on October 1, 1991. Reaching #3 on the Billboard 200, Diamonds and Pearls saw the singles "Gett Off" chart at #21 on the Hot 100 and #6 on the R;B charts while "Cream" gave Prince his fifth U.S. number one single./n1992 saw Prince and The New Power Generation release his twelfth album, Prince logo.svg, bearing only an unpronounceable symbol on the cover (later copyrighted as Love Symbol #2). The album, generally referred to as Love Symbol, would peak at #5 on the Billboard 200. While the label wanted "7" to be the first single, Prince fought to have "My Name Is Prince" as he "felt that the song's more hip-hoppery would appeal to the same audience" that had purchased the previous album. Prince got his way but "My Name Is Prince" only managed to reach #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #23 on the R;B chart. The follow-up single "Sexy MF" fared worse, charting at #66 on the Hot 100 and #76 on the R;B chart. The label's preferred lead single choice "7" would be the album's lone top ten hit, reaching #7. Prince logo.svg would go on to sell 2.8 million copies worldwide./nAfter two failed attempts in 1990 and 1991, Warner Bros. finally released a greatest hits compilation with the three-disc The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993. The first two discs were also sold separately as The Hits 1 and The Hits 2. In addition to featuring the majority of Prince's hit singles (with the exception of "Batdance" and other songs that appeared on the Batman soundtrack), The Hits includes an array of previously hard-to-find recordings, notably B-sides spanning the majority of Prince's career, as well as a handful of previously unreleased tracks such as the Revolution-recorded "Power Fantastic" and a live recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" with Rosie Gaines. Two new songs, "Pink Cashmere" and "Peach", were chosen as promotional singles to accompany the compilation album./n1993 also marked the year in which Prince changed his stage name to the Love Symbol, which is a combination of the symbols for male and female . Because the symbol is unpronounceable, he was often referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince". Increased output: 1994–2000/nIn 1994, Prince's attitude towards his artistic output underwent a notable shift. He began to view releasing albums in quick succession as a means of ejecting himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of the Love Symbol album, claiming that it was insufficiently marketed by Warner. It was out of these developments that the aborted Black Album was officially released, approximately seven years after its initial recording and near-release. The "new" release, which was already in wide circulation as a bootleg, sold relatively poorly./nFollowing that disappointing venture, Warner Bros. succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come. When Come was eventually released, it confirmed all of Warner's fears. It became Prince's poorest-selling album to date, struggling to even shift 500,000 copies. Even more frustrating was the fact that Prince insisted on crediting the album to "Prince 1958–1993"./nPrince pushed to have his next album The Gold Experience released simultaneously with Love Symbol-era material. Warner Bros. allowed the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release was successful, reaching #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and #1 in many other countries, but it would not prove to be a model for subsequent releases. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing The Gold Experience, fearing poor sales and citing "market saturation" as a defense. When eventually released in September 1995, The Gold Experience failed to sell well, although it reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 initially, and many reviewed it as Prince's best effort since Sign o' the Times.The album is now out-of-print. Chaos and Disorder, released in 1996, was Prince's final album of new material for Warner Bros., as well as one of his least commercially successful releases. Prince attempted a major comeback later that year when, free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., he released Emancipation, a 36-song, 3-CD set (each disc was exactly 60 minutes long). The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs on Emancipation, Prince did not use Controversy Music – ASCAP, which he had used for all his records since 1981, but rather used Emancipated Music Inc. – ASCAP./nCertified Platinum by the RIAA, Emancipation is the first record featuring covers by Prince of songs of other artists: Joan Osborne's top ten hit song of 1995 "One of Us"; "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and Linda Creed); "I Can't Make You Love Me" (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid); and "La-La (Means I Love You)" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and William Hart)./nPrince released Crystal Ball, a 5-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was disorderly, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was eventually shipped to them, and months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The retail edition has only four discs, as it is missing the "Kamasutra" disc. There are also two different packaging editions for retail, one being in a 4-disc sized jewel case with a simple white cover and the Love Symbol in a colored circle; the other is all four discs in a round translucent snap jewel case. The discs are the same, as is the CD jacket. The Newpower Soul album released three months later failed to make much of an impression on the charts. His collaboration on Chaka Khan's Come 2 My House, and Larry Graham's GCS2000, both released on the NPG Records label around the same time as Newpower Soul met with the same fate, despite heavy promotion and live appearances on Vibe with Sinbad, and the NBC Today show's Summer Concert Series./nIn 1999, Prince once again signed with a major label Arista Records to release a new record, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. In an attempt to make his new album a success, Prince easily gave more interviews than at any other point in his career, appearing on MTV's Total Request Live (with his album cover on the front of the Virgin Megastore, in the background on TRL throughout the whole show), Larry King Live (with Larry Graham) and other media outlets. Nevertheless, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic failed to perform well commercially. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career, and his final recording commitment on his contract with Warner Bros. The greatest success he had during the year was with the EP 1999: The New Master, released in time for Prince to collect a small portion of the sales dollars Warner Bros. had been seeing for the album and singles of the original 1999./nThe pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000, was broadcast on December 31, 1999 and consisted of footage from the December 17 and December 18 concerts of his 1999 tour. The concert featured appearances by many guest musicians including Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton, Jimmy Russell, and The Time. It was released to home video the following year. A remix album, Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (as opposed to "Un2") was released exclusively through Prince's NPG Music Club in April 2000. Turnaround: 2000–05/nOn May 16, 2000, Prince ceased using the Love Symbol moniker and returned to using "Prince" again, after his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell expired. In a press conference, he stated that, after being freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name "Prince", he would formally revert to using his real name. Prince still frequently uses the symbol as a logo and on album artwork and continues to play a Love Symbol-shaped guitar./nFor several years following the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Prince primarily released new music through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com (later NPGMusicClub.com). Two albums that show substantive jazz influence were available commercially at record stores: 2001's The Rainbow Children, and the 2003 instrumental record N.E.W.S which was nominated for a Best Pop Instrumental Album Grammy Award. Another album of largely jazz-influenced music, Xpectation, was released via download in 2003 to members of the NPGMusicClub./nIn 2002, Prince released his first live album, One Nite Alone... Live!, which features performances from the One Nite Alone tour. The 3-CD box set, which also includes a disc of "aftershow" music entitled It Ain't Over!, failed to chart. During this time, Prince sought to engage more effectively with his fan base via the NPG Music Club, pre-concert sound checks, and at yearly "celebrations" at Paisley Park, his music studios. Fans were invited into the studio for tours, interviews, discussions and music-listening sessions. Some of these fan discussions were filmed for an unreleased documentary, directed by Kevin Smith. Smith discusses what happened during those days at length in his An Evening with Kevin Smith DVD. Performances were also arranged to showcase Prince's talents, as well as to collaborate with popular and well-established artists and guests including Alicia Keys, The Time, Erykah Badu, Nikka Costa, George Clinton, Norah Jones./nOn February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the Grammy Awards with Beyoncé Knowles. In a performance that opened the show, Prince and Knowles performed a medley of "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star", and Knowles' "Crazy in Love" to positive reviews. The following month, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The award was presented to him by Alicia Keys along with Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast. As well as performing a trio of his own hits during the ceremony, Prince also participated in a tribute to fellow inductee George Harrison in a rendition of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", playing a long guitar solo that ended the song./nOn February 19, The Tavis Smiley Show broadcast included a performance of "Reflection" from Prince's Musicology album. Prince was accompanied by Wendy Melvoin, formerly of The Revolution./nIn April 2004, Prince released Musicology through a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose as high as the top five on a number of international charts (including the U.S, UK, Germany and Australia). The U.S. chart success was assisted by the CD being included as part of the concert ticket purchase, and each CD thereby qualifying (as chart rules then stood) towards U.S. chart placement./nThat same year, Rolling Stone magazine named Prince as the highest-earning musician in the world, with an annual income of $56.5 million, largely due to his Musicology Tour, which Pollstar named as the top concert draw among musicians in U.S. The artist played an impressive run of 96 concerts; the average ticket price for a show was U.S.$61. Further highlighting the success of the album, Prince's Musicology went on to receive two Grammy wins, for Best Male R;B Vocal Performance for "Call My Name" and Best Traditional R;B Vocal Performance for the title track. Musicology was also nominated for Best R;B Song and Best R;B Album, while "Cinnamon Girl" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The album became the artist's most commercially successful since Diamonds and Pearls, partly due to a radical scheme devised which included in Billboard's sales figures those that were distributed to each customer during ticket sales for the Musicology tour, with concert figures accounting for 25% of the total album sales./nIn 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Prince #28 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time"./nIn April 2005, Prince played guitar (along with En Vogue singing backing vocals) on Stevie Wonder's single "So What the Fuss", Wonder's first since 1999./nIn the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, Prince offered a personal response by recording two new songs, "S.S.T." and the instrumental "Brand New Orleans", at Paisley Park in the early hours of September 2. Prince again performed all instrumental and vocal parts. These recordings were quickly dispersed to the public via Prince's NPG Music Club, and "S.S.T." was later picked up by iTunes, where it reached #1 on the store's R;B chart. On October 25, Sony Records released a version of the single on CD. Move to Universal: 2005–06/nIn late 2005 Prince signed with Universal Records to release his album, 3121, on March 21, 2006 (3/21). The first single was the Latin-tinged "Te Amo Corazón", the video for which was directed by actress Salma Hayek and filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, featuring Argentine actress and singer Mía Maestro. The video for the second single, "Black Sweat", was nominated at the MTV VMAs for Best Cinematography. The immediate success of 3121 gave Prince his first #1 debut on the Billboard 200 with the album./nTo promote the new album, Prince was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2006, seventeen years after his last SNL appearance. He performed two songs from the album, "Fury" and "Beautiful, Loved ; Blessed", with Támar. Prince also held a contest to win a trip to see a 'Purple Ticket Concert' at his private residence in Hollywood, California. Seven winning tickets were placed inside 3121 CD packages in the U.S., and other tickets were given away in various contests on the Internet and around the world. On May 6, 2006, twenty-four prize winners (with a guest each) attended a star-studded private party and performance at Prince's home./nOn June 12, 2006, Prince received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his "visionary" use of the Internet; Prince was the first major artist to release an entire album, 1997's Crystal Ball, exclusively on the Internet./nOnly weeks after winning a Webby Award, Prince abruptly shut down his official NPG Music Club website at 12:00 AM on July 4, 2006 after over five years of operation. The NPG Music Club sent out an email, claiming that "in its current 4m there is a feeling that the NPGMC gone as far as it can go. In a world without limitations and infinite possibilities, has the time come 2 once again make a leap of faith and begin anew? These r ?s we in the NPG need 2 answer. In doing so, we have decided 2 put the club on hiatus until further notice." On the day of the music club's shutdown, a lawsuit was filed against Prince by the British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group, also NPG). Despite these events occurring on the same day, Prince's attorney has called it pure coincidence and stated that the site did not close due to the trademark dispute./nPrince appeared at multiple award ceremonies in 2006. On February 15, 2006, Prince performed at the BRIT Awards along with Wendy ; Lisa and Sheila E. He played "Te Amo Corazón" and "Fury" from 3121 and "Purple Rain" and "Let's Go Crazy" from Purple Rain. On June 27, 2006, Prince appeared at the BET Awards, where he was awarded Best Male R;B Artist. In addition to receiving his award, Prince performed a medley of Chaka Khan songs for Khan's BET Lifetime Award. Prince had previously written and performed several songs with the singer. In November 2006, Prince was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, appearing to collect his award but not performing. Also in November 2006, Prince opened a nightclub named 3121 in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. He performed weekly on Friday and Saturday nights until April 2007, when his contract with the Rio ended./nOn August 22, 2006, Prince released Ultimate. The double disc set contains one CD of previous hits, and another of extended versions and mixes of material that had largely only previously been available on vinyl record B-sides./nPrince wrote and performed a song for the hit 2006 animated film Happy Feet. The song, entitled "The Song of the Heart", appears on the film's soundtrack, which also features a cover of Prince's earlier hit "Kiss", sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In January 2007, "The Song of the Heart" won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Prince arrived late, apparently due to traffic problems, and thus was unable to make an acceptance speech, but actor Hugh Grant prompted him later in the ceremony to take a bow. Current work: 2007–present Prince's stage set for the Earth Tour in 2007/nOn February 2, 2007, Prince played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference. He and the band played a set comprising Chuck Berry's hit, "Johnny B. Goode", "Anotherloverholenyohead" from Parade and "Get On the Boat" from 3121. Prince performed at the Super Bowl XLI halftime show in Miami, Florida on February 4, 2007. The performance consisted of three Purple Rain tracks ("Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star" and the title track), along with cover versions of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan, the Foo Fighters song "Best of You" and "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Coincidentally, Miami had rain on the day of the Super Bowl, which was lit purple during the performance of "Purple Rain". He played on a large stage shaped as his famous symbol. The event was carried to 140 million television viewers, the largest audience of his life. On February 4, 2010, Billboard.com ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever./nPrince played 21 concerts in London during the summer of 2007. The "Earth Tour" included 21 nights at the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena. Tickets for the O2 Arena were priced at £31.21 (including a free copy of Prince's latest album), in order to make the concerts "affordable for everybody". The residency at the O2 Arena was increased to 15 nights after all 140,000 tickets for the original seven sold out in just 20 minutes. It was then further extended to 21 nights./nOn May 10, 2007, Prince performed a 'secret' gig at London's KOKO in front of a small crowd of fans and celebrities. Tickets went on sale that morning on a first-come-first-served basis (again at £31.21). A prelude to the forthcoming summer gigs in London, Prince played a relaxed set of classic hits ("Kiss", changing the lyric from "You don't have to watch Dynasty" to Desperate Housewives, "Girls ; Boys", and "Nothing Compares 2 U") alongside more recent tracks, plus a well-received cover version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"./nPrince made an appearance at the 2007 ALMA Awards, performing with Sheila E. in June 2007. On June 28, 2007, the UK national newspaper The Mail on Sunday revealed that it had made a deal to give Prince's new album, Planet Earth, away for free with an "imminent" edition of the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. This move sparked controversy among music distributors and also led the UK arm of Prince's distributor, Sony BMG, to withdraw from distributing the album in UK stores. The UK's largest high street music retailer, HMV, decided to stock the paper on release day due to the giveaway./nOn July 7, 2007 Prince returned to his hometown of Minneapolis to perform three shows in what was unofficially declared Prince Day in Minnesota. He performed concerts at the Macy's Auditorium (to promote his new perfume "3121") on Nicollet Mall, the Target Center arena, and First Avenue. It was the first time he had played at First Avenue, the club made famous in the film Purple Rain, since 1987. Prince at the Coachella Festival in 2008/nOn April 25, 2008, Prince performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he debuted a new song, "Turn Me Loose". Days after, he headlined the Coachella Festival 2008. Prince was paid more than $5 million for his performance at Coachella, according to Reuters./nPrince cancelled a concert, planned at Dublin's Croke Park on June 16, 2008, at just 10 days' notice. In October 2009 promoters MCD Productions went to court to sue Prince for €1.6 million, after paying him $1.5 million, half his agreed fee of $3 million for the concert. MCD claim they had to refund 55,126 tickets purchased and its total losses exceeded $1.66 million. Prince's lawyers argued the MCD claim was "greatly inflated". Prince settled the case out of court in February 2010 for $2.95 million. During the trial, it was revealed that Prince had been offered $22 million for seven concerts as part of a proposed 2008 European tour./nIn October 2008, Prince released a live album entitled Indigo Nights, as well as 21 Nights, an accompanying book of poems, lyrics and photos. The book chronicled his record-breaking tenure at London's O2 Arena in 2007, while the album is a collection of songs performed live at aftershows in the IndigO2./nOn December 18, 2008, Prince premiered four songs from his new album on LA's Indie 103 radio show, comprising a cover of "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, together with "Colonized Mind", "Wall of Berlin" and "4ever". The same day, another new Prince composition entitled "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" premiered on the website, mplsound.com — replacing a shorter, instrumental version of the song which streamed several days previously./nOn January 3, 2009, a new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming some of the recently-aired material ("Crimson and Clover", "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" and "Here Eye Come") and promising opportunities to listen to and buy music by Prince and guests, watch videos and buy concert tickets for future events. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: "Disco Jellyfish", and "Another Boy". "Chocolate Box", "A Colonized Mind", and "All This Love" have since been released on the website. Prince at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2009/nPrince released a triple album set containing LOtUSFLOW3R, MPLSoUND, and an album credited to his new protege, Bria Valente, called Elixer, on March 24, 2009, followed by a physical release on March 29. The release was preceded by performances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. It was released in other countries digitally, with official physical release dates yet to be announced. The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200, and critics' opinions were mixed to positive./nOn July 18, 2009, Prince performed two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, being backed by The New Power Generation including Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto, and John Blackwell. There he premiered "A Large Room With No Light" which had been in Prince's vault for some time./nOn October 11, 2009, Prince gave two surprise concerts at the glass-and-iron Grand Palais exhibition hall after visiting the landmark Paris building on the banks of the Seine. On October 12, he gave another surprise gig at La Cigale. On October 24, Prince played a concert at his own Paisley Park complex in Minneapolis, Minnesota./nIn January 2010, Prince wrote a new song, "Purple and Gold", inspired by his visit to a Minnesota Vikings football game against the Dallas Cowboys". The song is a simple, drumline-driven track with inspirational lyrics about victory. The following month, Prince let Minneapolis-area public radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song "Cause and Effect" as a gesture in support of independent radio. Personal life Prince and Mayte at the NAACP Image Awards in 1996/nPrince has been romantically linked with many celebrities, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Carmen Electra, and Anna Fantastic. He married his backup singer and dancer, Mayte Garcia, on Valentine's Day, 1996. They had one son named Boy Gregory, (born October 16, 1996) who was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died a week after birth. They were divorced in 1999. On December 31, 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony, but she filed for divorce in May 2006./nPrince became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001 following a two-year-long debate with friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness, musician Larry Graham. Prince said he didn't consider it a conversion, but a "realization"; "It's like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix", he explained. He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocks on people's doors to discuss his new faith. Prince has reportedly needed double-hip-replacement surgery since 2005 but won't undergo the operation unless it is a bloodless surgery because Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions. The condition was worsened by years of dancing onstage in high-heeled boots. He now uses a diamond-studded cane to help him walk./nPrince is a vegan. In 2006 he was voted the "world's sexiest vegetarian" in PETA's annual online poll. The liner notes for his album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production./nPrince is a Minnesota Vikings football fan, owning a skybox at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome and can be seen regularly at the games. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada./nIn 2008, Prince briefly talked about his personal views on religion and politics, which some have interpreted as opposing legal recognition of same-sex marriages Stage names Logo. Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar The unpronounceable symbol (later dubbed "Love Symbol #2")./nIn 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of Prince's album The Gold Experience, a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of Prince's output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. Prince explained his name change as follows:/n The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to the Love Symbol. Prince is the name that my mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros... I was born Prince and did not want to adopt another conventional name. The only acceptable replacement for my name, and my identity, was the Love Symbol, a symbol with no pronunciation, that is a representation of me and what my music is about. This symbol is present in my work over the years; it is a concept that has evolved from my frustration; it is who I am. It is my name./n"Prince" is a trademark owned by Paisley Park Enterprises, Inc. It was initially filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2005 in the categories of printed materials, clothing, electronic commerce, and entertainment services based on first commercial in 1978 Various searches to the USPTO did not find any registrations or transfers of "Prince" or related names by Warner Bros. In 1991, PRN Music Corporation assigned the trademarks "Prince", "The Time", "Paisley Park", "New Power Generation", and "Prince and the Revolution" to Paisley Park Enterprises./nPrince has used pseudonyms to separate himself from the music (either his own or that of others) he has had input in; "I was just getting tired of seeing my name," he said, "If you give away an idea, you still own that idea. In fact, giving it away strengthens it. Why do people feel they have to take credit for everything they do? Ego, that's the only reason." These pseudonyms include: Jamie Starr and The Starr Company (for the songs he wrote for The Time and many other artists from 1981–1984), Joey Coco (for many unreleased Prince songs in the late 1980s, as well as songs written for Sheena Easton ; Kenny Rogers), Paisley Park (occasionally used in the early 1990s for his production credits on songs, including those written for Martika and Kid Creole), Alexander Nevermind (for writing the 1984 song "Sugar Walls" by Sheena Easton), and Christopher (used for his song writing credit of "Manic Monday" for The Bangles). Copyright issues/nIn 1995, Prince threatened to sue a 900 number, operated by Nathan Wright for his Purple Underground magazine phone line, for playing to the public for the first time segments of The Black Album. Prince's attorneys, Lavely ; Singer, demanded royalties in a cease and desist letter served to Wright. Instead Wright offered to work with Prince and split the profits. Wright and Prince's attorneys then worked on a deal to share profits but the deal never transpired (copies of these documents are available for verification). Instead, Prince started his own 900 number while Wright was able to continue his without any further action./nOn September 14, 2007, Prince announced that he was going to sue YouTube and eBay because they "are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success." Web Sheriff, the international Internet policing company he hired, told Reuters: "The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever. This carries on ad nauseam at Prince's expense."/nIn October 2007, Stephanie Lenz filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Publishing Group, claiming they were abusing copyright law, after the music publisher had YouTube take down Lenz's home movie in which the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" played faintly in the background./nOn November 5, 2007, several fan sites of Prince formed "Prince Fans United" to fight back against legal requests they claim Prince made to cease and desist all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to Prince's likeness. While Prince's lawyers claimed that the use of such representations constituted copyright infringement, the Prince Fans United claimed that the legal actions were "attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince." A few days later, Prince released a statement denying the fansites' claims, stating "The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fansites, or control comment in any way. The issue was simply to do with in regards to copyright and trademark of images and only images, and no lawsuits have been filed." The statement from AEG, Prince's promoter, asserted that the only "offending items" on the three fansites were live shots from Prince's 21 nights in London at the O2 Arena earlier in the year./nOn November 8, 2007, Prince Fans United received a song named "PFUnk", providing a kind of "unofficial answer" to their movement. The song, originally debuted on the PFU main site, was retitled "F.U.N.K.", and is available on iTunes./nOn November 14, 2007, it was reported that the satirical website b3ta.com had pulled their "image challenge of the week" devoted to Prince after legal threats from the star under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. B3ta co-founder Rob Manuel wrote on the site: "Under threat of legal action from Prince's legal team of 'potential closure of your web site' - We have removed the Prince image challenge and B3ta apologises unreservedly to AEG / NPG and Prince for any offence caused. We also ask our members to avoid photoshopping Prince and posting them on our boards./nAt the 2008 Coachella Music Festival, Prince performed a cover of Radiohead's "Creep", but immediately after he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead's demand for it to remain on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, while Radiohead claimed "it's our song, let people hear it." In 2009, Prince put the video of that Coachella performance on his website LotusFlow3r.com.

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Added by: TheTeam
Tags: Prince – When Doves Cry
Date: 2010-04-16