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Leela James
Aleicha Janeice Campbell (born May 22, 1973) known professionally as Leela James, is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter. Music career James made her debut on the soundtrack to the 2000 Jamie Foxx film '' Bait'' on The Roots song "Work", credited as Alechia James. In 2004, James toured as an opening act for The Black Eyed Peas and Macy Gray. That same year, she was featured on hip hop producer, DJ, and emcee Pete Rock's album '' Soul Survivor II'', providing vocals to the track "No Tears". In 2005, she lent her voice to the posthumously released Ray Charles album '' Genius & Friends'', duetting with the singer on the song "Compared to What". James' debut album, '' A Change Is Gonna Come'', was released on June 21, 2005. The album was conceived as a throwback to an earlier era of American soul music, building upon the legacy of 1960s and 1970s soul singers while incorporating elements of contemporary R&B, funk, and gospel. In the lyrics to the album's lead single, "M ...
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Stockholm Jazz Festival
Stockholm Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that was established in 1980 in Stockholm, Sweden, originally called the Stockholm Jazz and Blues Festival. A portion of the first festival was broadcast on Swedish television. Overview Claiming to be one of the oldest festivals in Sweden, the Stockholm Jazz Festival celebrated its 20th birthday in 2003, refusing to give up its main venue on Skeppsholmen since long having a status as the soul of the festival, the backdrop of the Stockholm harbor regarded as the distinguishing mark of the festival. The festival has hosted Swedish musicians such as Arne Domnérus, Monica Zetterlund, Nils Landgren, Peps Persson, and Lisa Ekdahl, in addition to Pepper Adams, Count Basie, B.B. King, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miriam Makeba. For the festival of 2007, a national project called ''Jazzens år 2007'' ("Year of Jazz 2007") was started. The festival is housed indoors since 2012 and in 2014 expanded to 10 full days with attendanc ...
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Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an Afric ...
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Popular Music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia'' It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional or "folk" music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences. The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States. Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music", the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music is a generic term for a wide variety of genres of music that appeal to the tastes of a large segment of the populat ...
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Gospel Music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in a call and response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand-clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "The changing nature of gospel music: A southern case study." ''African American Review'' 29.2 (1995): 185. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. October 5, 2010. Th ...
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Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first b ...
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A Change Is Gonna Come (Leela James Album)
''A Change Is Gonna Come'' is the debut album by American soul singer–songwriter Leela James. It was released on Warner Bros. Records on June 21, 2005 in the United States. Overview James covers Sam Cooke's " A Change Is Gonna Come" and No Doubt's "Don't Speak" on the album. Critical reception Allmusic editor Andy Kellman wrote that the album "retains a nostalgic tint. James has the stature of a woman who should possess a squeaky voice, but she sings with demonstrative grit. More importantly, she doesn't see her inspirations merely as artists to mimic; she sees how they learned from the past and applied it to the present. The past is built upon (if only a little), rather than simply revisited ..There's plenty of thematic range, whether there are blue lights in the basement, tears on the pillow, sweat on the dancefloor, or sun showers on the porch." Track listing Credits adapted from the liner notes of ''A Change Is Gonna Come''. Notes * denotes co-producer Sample credits ...
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Genius & Friends
''Genius & Friends'' is a 2005 studio album by rhythm and blues singer Ray Charles, consisting of previously unreleased duets between Ray and artists recorded between 1997 to 2005. The contributing artists were personally chosen by Ray Charles. Track listing #"All I Want to Do" (Walden, McKinney) with Angie Stone #"You Are My Sunshine" (Davis, Mitchell) with Chris Isaak #"It All Goes By So Fast" (Ken Hirsch, Jay Levy) with Mary J. Blige #"You Were There" with Gladys Knight #"Imagine" (John Lennon) with Ruben Studdard and The Harlem Gospel Singers #"Compared to What" (Gene McDaniels) with Leela James #"Big Bad Love" (Tyrell, Tyrell, Sample) with Diana Ross #"I Will Be There" (Walden, Dakota) with Idina Menzel #" Blame It on the Sun" ( Stevie Wonder, Syreeta Wright) with George Michael #"Touch" (Walden, Brooks, McKinney) with John Legend #"Shout" (Walden, Hilden) with Patti LaBelle and the Andrae Crouch Singers #"Surrender to Love" with Laura Pausini #" Busted" (Live) (Harlan ...
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Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two ''Modern Sounds'' albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the ''Billboard'' ...
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Soul Survivor II
''Soul Survivor II'' is a studio album by hip hop producer Pete Rock, released in 2004. The album features guest appearances from a large number of hip hop artists, including Pharoahe Monch, Little Brother, RZA, GZA, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, and former partner CL Smooth. Pete, who dropped verses on the majority of the songs found on his solo debut '' Soul Survivor'', performs only a single verse on this album ("Niggas Know") but handles several choruses throughout. Rock's engineer, Jamey Staub, co-produces a number of songs on the project. The album's front cover is a nod to the Miles Davis album '' Tutu'', which features the jazz trumpeter in an identical, albeit black and white, portrait shot. Critical reception ''RapReviews'' wrote that "Rock lets us know that he hasn’t lost a step as far as beats go, displaying an uncanny ability of picking the perfect artist for nearly each song on the disc." ''The A.V. Club'' wrote that Rock "ill-advisedly strays from his lush, mell ...
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Macy Gray
Natalie Renée McIntyre (born September 6, 1967), known by her stage name Macy Gray, is an American R&B and soul singer and actress. She is known for her distinctive raspy voice and a singing style heavily influenced by Billie Holiday. Gray has released ten studio albums, and received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one. She has appeared in a number of films, including ''Training Day'', ''Spider-Man'', '' Scary Movie 3'', ''Lackawanna Blues'', '' Idlewild'', '' For Colored Girls'', and '' The Paperboy''. Gray is best known for her international hit single " I Try", taken from her multi-platinum debut album ''On How Life Is''. Early life Natalie McIntyre was born in Canton, Ohio, the daughter of Laura McIntyre, a math schoolteacher, and Otis Jones . Her stepfather was a steelworker, and her sister is a biology teacher. She has a younger brother, Nate, who owns a gym in West Philadelphia and was featured on the season five finale of '' Queer Eye''. She began piano lesson ...
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The Black Eyed Peas
Black Eyed Peas (also known as The Black Eyed Peas) is an American musical group consisting of rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo. The group's line-up during the height of their popularity in the 2000s featured Fergie, who replaced Kim Hill in 2002. Originally an alternative hip hop group, they subsequently refashioned themselves as a more marketable pop-rap act. Although the group was founded in Los Angeles in 1995, it was not until the release of their third album, '' Elephunk'', in 2003, that they achieved high record sales. Black Eyed Peas' first major hit was the 2003 single " Where Is the Love?" from ''Elephunk'', which topped the charts in 13 countries, including the United Kingdom, where it spent seven weeks at number one and went on to become Britain's biggest-selling single of 2003. Their fourth album, '' Monkey Business'', was an even bigger worldwide success, and became certified 3× Platinum in the United States. In 2009, the group became one of only 11 arti ...
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The Roots
The Roots are an American hip hop band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The Roots serve as the house band on NBC's ''The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'', having served in the same role on ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' from 2009 to 2014. The Roots are known for a jazzy and eclectic approach to hip hop featuring live musical instruments and the group's work has consistently been met with critical acclaim. ThoughtCo ranked the band #7 on its list of the 25 Best Hip-Hop Groups of All-Time, calling them "Hip-hop's first legitimate band." In addition to the band's music, several members of the Roots are involved in side projects, including record production, acting, and regularly serving as guests on other musicians' albums and live shows. Band history 1987–1993: Early years The Roots originated in Philadelphia with Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter wh ...
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