Tons Of Fun University
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Tons Of Fun University
Tons of Fun University is a musical, spoken word trio based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which formed in 2003. It consists of Canadian poets Shane Koyczan and C. R. Avery, and American poet Mighty Mike McGee. The group tours their self-described "talk rock" around many of the North American music festivals and theaters. Tons of Fun University, also known as T.O.F.U., are historically rooted in poetry slam. In 2000, Koyczan became the first international slam poet to win the National Poetry Slam Individual Grand Championship, an award won by McGee in 2003. Avery became noticed in the Vancouver poetry slam scene by incorporating keyboards, harmonica, poetry and beatboxing – simultaneously – throughout his performances. These elements are heavily used in the group's performances, along with influences pulled from hip hop, rock and roll, folk music and spoken word. They have described themselves as a cross between LL Cool J and Sylvia Plath. Tons of Fun Unive ...
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Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The Greater Vancouver, Greater Vancouver area had a population of 2.6million in 2021, making it the List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada#List, third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Greater Vancouver, along with the Fraser Valley Regional District, Fraser Valley, comprises the Lower Mainland with a regional population of over 3 million. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada, with over 5,700 people per square kilometre, and fourth highest in North America (after New York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City). Vancouver is one of the most Ethnic origins of people in Canada, ethnically and Languages of Canada, linguistically diverse cities in Canada: 49.3 percent of ...
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Musical Groups Established In 2003
Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narrative songs sung by the characters * MusicAL, an Albanian television channel * Musical isomorphism, the canonical isomorphism between the tangent and cotangent bundles See also * Lists of musicals * Music (other) * Musica (other) * Musicality Musicality (''music-al -ity'') is "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical", and is used to refer to specific if vaguely defined qualities in pieces and/or genres of music, such as melodiousness ...
, the ability to perceive music or to create music * {{Music disambiguation ...
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Canadian Spoken Word Poets
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''Canadian''. Canada is a multilingual and multicultural society home to people of groups of many different ethnic, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of French and then the much larger British colonization, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly two centuries and continue today. Elements of Indigenous, French, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have combined to form the culture of Canada, and thus a Canadian identity. Canada has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic, and e ...
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Vancouver Folk Music Festival
The Vancouver Folk Music Festival (VFMF), founded in 1978, is an outdoor multistage music festival, located at Jericho Beach Park on the west side of Vancouver, British Columbia. It takes place annually, on the third weekend of July. The festival has attracted artists from across the world, including Adam Cohen, Ani Difranco, Utah Phillips, Ricky Pinball, Tuvan Throat singers, Sarah Harmer, Veda Hille, Feist, K'naan, and Ferron, among many others. 2016 Lineup The 39th annual festival was held July 15–17, 2016. *Jojo Abot *Ajinai *Elida Almeida *The Americans *Faris Amine *Geoff Berner *The Bills *Birds of Chicago *Hayes Carll *Martin and Eliza Carthy *Bruce Cockburn *The Crooked Brothers *Élage Diouf *Mike Edel *Emilie and Ogden *Lee Fields and the Expressions *Dominique Fricot *Martin Harley *The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer *Les Hay Babies *Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton *I Draw Slow *Hubby Jenkins *Kaumakaiwa Kanaka‘ole with Shawn Pimental *Shane Koyczan a ...
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Café Deux Soleil
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-caffeinated beverages. In continental Europe, cafés serve alcoholic drinks. A coffeehouse may also serve food, such as light snacks, sandwiches, muffins, fruit, or pastries. Coffeehouses range from owner-operated small businesses to large multinational corporations. Some coffeehouse chains operate on a franchise business model, with numerous branches across various countries around the world. While ''café'' may refer to a coffeehouse, the term "café" generally refers to a diner, British café (colloquially called a "caff"), "greasy spoon" (a small and inexpensive restaurant), transport café, teahouse or tea room, or other casual eating and drinking place. A coffeehouse may share some of the same characteristics of a bar or restaurant, bu ...
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Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960) and ''Ariel'' (1965), as well as ''The Bell Jar'', a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death in 1963. ''The Collected Poems'' was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plath graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Cambridge, England, where she was a student at Newnham College. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. Their relationship was tumultuous and, in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hand ...
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LL Cool J
James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968), known professionally as LL Cool J (short for Ladies Love Cool James), is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is one of the earliest rappers to achieve commercial success, alongside fellow new school hip hop acts Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. Signed to Def Jam Recordings in 1984, LL Cool J's breakthrough came with his single "I Need a Beat" and his landmark debut album, ''Radio'' (1985). He achieved further commercial and critical success with the albums ''Bigger and Deffer'' (1987), ''Walking with a Panther'' (1989), ''Mama Said Knock You Out'' (1990), '' Mr. Smith'' (1995), and ''Phenomenon'' (1997). His twelfth album, ''Exit 13'' (2008), was his last in his long-tenured deal with Def Jam. LL Cool J has appeared in numerous films, including ''Halloween H20'', '' In Too Deep'', ''Any Given Sunday'', '' Deep Blue Sea'', ''S.W.A.T.'', ''Mindhunters'', ''Last Holiday'', and '' Edison''. He currently plays NCIS Spec ...
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Spoken Word
Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation and word play, such as the performer's live intonation and voice inflection. Spoken word is a "catchall" term that includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including poetry readings, poetry slams, jazz poetry, and hip hop music, and can include comedy routines and prose monologues. Unlike written poetry, the poetic text takes its quality less from the visual aesthetics on a page, but depends more on phonaesthetics, or the aesthetics of sound. History Spoken word has existed for many years; long before writing, through a cycle of practicing, listening and memorizing, each language drew on its resources of sound structure for aural patterns that made spoken poetry very different from ordinary discourse and easier to commit ...
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Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ...
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Rock And Roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie woogie, gospel music, gospel, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s,Peterson, Richard A. ''Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity'' (1999), p. 9, . the genre did not acquire its name until 1954. According to journalist Greg Kot, "rock and roll" refers to a style of popular music originating in the United States in the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, rock and roll had developed into "the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known in many circles as rock and roll."Kot, Greg"Rock and roll", in the ''Encyclopædia Bri ...
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