Wes Felton
Wes Felton (W. Ellington Felton, Dub Ell) is an American singer/poet/actor/emcee born and raised in Washington DC. Personal life Wes Felton had a very musical upbringing. His father is Hilton C. Felton, a jazz pianist who had performed with George Benson, Grant Green and many others. Wes has a son named Tobias. Music Wes Felton started out with a lot of open mic nights. As a teenager he performed on the Lollapalooza tour and at the Apollo Theater. Ellington has been on stage with Mos Def, De La Soul, Meshell Ndegeocello and with his mentor UK Soul legend Omar. He has been crowned "the future folk-soul hero" by Complex Magazine for his vocals on Prince Paul’s ''Politics of the Business'' album. Collaborations His collaboration with JLaine and TFox under the name Antithesis has so far resulted in two releases on Tasteful Licks. W. E. Felton has also been working with Raheem DeVaughn. Together they are The Crossrhodes. Acting Felton studied theater for four years ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Prince Paul (producer)
Paul Edward Huston (born April 2, 1967), better known by his stage name Prince Paul, is an American record producer, disc jockey and recording artist from Amityville, New York. Paul began his career as a DJ for Stetsasonic. Since then he has worked on albums by Boogie Down Productions, Gravediggaz, MC Lyte, Big Daddy Kane and 3rd Bass, among others. Major recognition for Prince Paul came when he produced De La Soul's debut album ''3 Feet High and Rising'' (1989), in which he pioneered new approaches to hip hop production, mixing and sampling, notably by including comedy sketches. His first solo album, '' Psychoanalysis: What Is It?'', came out in 1997, followed by a second album, ''A Prince Among Thieves'', in 1999. Life and career Paul was interested in music from a young age and started collecting vinyl when he was five. According to his late mother, he was mature for his age and tended to hang out with older friends. When he was in fifth grade he started DJing, using ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rawkus Records
Rawkus Records was an American hip hop record label known for starting the careers of many rappers. Rawkus started in 1995 with releases in hip-hop, drum and bass and fun-dustrial (Dystopia One). Label heads Brian Brater and Jarret Myer then signed some of the top underground talent from the New York area, notably Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Hi-Tek and Company Flow, who went on to define the label's sound. The string of 12" releases and full-length albums that followed helped initiate a resurgence in the New York/ East Coast sound. Many of these are considered classics among hip-hop aficionados. During the mid to late 1990s, Rawkus became a dominant label in the underground hip-hop scene, producing a string of gold albums and a platinum album. History Rawkus Records was established in 1995 by Brian Brater and Jarret Myer, with financial backing from their high school buddy James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch. In 1996, Rupert Murdoch bought a majority of Rawkus. In 1999 the label en ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
DreamWorks Pictures
DreamWorks Pictures (also known as DreamWorks SKG and formerly DreamWorks Studios, commonly referred to as DreamWorks) is an American film company and distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994 as a live-action film studio by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen (together, SKG), of which they owned 72%. The studio formerly distributed its own and third-party films. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses of more than $100 million each. In December 2005, the founders agreed to sell the studio to Viacom, parent of Paramount Pictures. The sale was completed in February 2006 (this version is now named DW Studios). In 2008, DreamWorks announced its intention to end its partnership with Paramount and made a deal to produce films with India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, re-creating DreamWorks Pictures as an independent entity. The following year, DreamWorks entered into a di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Chris Rock
Christopher Julius Rock (born February 7, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and filmmaker. Known for his work in comic film, television and stage, he has received multiple accolades, including three Grammy Awards for best comedy album and four Primetime Emmy Awards as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination. He was ranked No. 5 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. He also ranked No. 5 on ''Rolling Stone'' 's list of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time. After years working as a stand-up comedian and appearing in minor film roles including ''Beverly Hills Cop II'', Rock gained prominence as a cast member of ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1990 to 1993. While at ''SNL'' he appeared in films ''New Jack City'', ''Boomerang'' and ''CB4'', which he also wrote and produced. He reached mainstream stardom with the critically acclaimed '' Bring the Pain'' in 1996, the second of his five HBO comedy specials. His other HBO comedy specials ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Razor & Tie
Razor & Tie was an American entertainment company that consisted of a record label and a music publishing company. It was established in 1990 by Craig Balsam and Cliff Chenfeld. Based in New York City (with additional offices in Los Angeles and Nashville), Razor & Tie releases were distributed by Universal Music Group. Razor & Tie initially focused on compilation albums and re-issues. Directly marketed through television spots, the label had early success with 70s, 80s and 90s-themed albums, beginning with ''Those Fabulous 70s'' in 1990. A retail label was launched in 1995 to release new albums from established and developing artists, including Dar Williams, Graham Parker and Marshall Crenshaw. Razor & Tie continued to expand their rock signings, and by 2016, with releases by artists including The Pretty Reckless, Starset, All That Remains and Red Sun Rising it had become a leader in the genre. In 2001, Balsam and Chenfeld created Kidz Bop, a series of albums with young singe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jive Records
Jive Records was an American independent record label founded by Clive Calder in 1981 as a subsidiary to the Zomba Group. In the US, the label had offices in New York City and Chicago. Jive was best known for its successes with hip hop, R&B, and dance acts in the 1980s and 1990s, along with teen pop and boy bands during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Jive was acquired by Bertelsmann Music Group in 2002. In 2008, BMG itself was bought out by Sony Music Entertainment. Jive Records thereupon remained a unit wholly owned by Sony up until the label’s dissolution in 2011, when Jive was absorbed into RCA Records. History 1970s: Beginnings In 1971, South African businessmen Clive Calder and Ralph Simon began a publishing and management company. It was named Zomba Records and relocated to London, England, four years later; their first client was a young Robert "Mutt" Lange. Zomba originally wanted to avoid record labels to instead focus on their songwriters and producers while allow ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Thievery Corporation
Thievery Corporation is an American electronic music duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton. Their musical style mixes elements of dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern music, hip hop and Brazilian music, including bossa nova. History Thievery Corporation was formed in the summer of 1995 at Washington D.C.'s Eighteenth Street Lounge. Rob Garza and Lounge co-owner Eric Hilton were drawn together over their mutual love of club life, as well as dub, bossa nova and jazz records. They decided to see what would come of mixing all these in a recording studio, and from this, in 1996 the duo started their Eighteenth Street Lounge Music record label. The duo drew attention with their first two 12-inch offerings, "Shaolin Satellite" and "2001: a Spliff Odyssey", and with their 1996 debut LP, '' Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi''. In 2001, they released ''Sounds From The Verve Hi-Fi'', a "best of" compilation of 1960s–1970s material of Verve Records that incl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nuyorican Poets Café
The Nuyorican (Puerto Rican New Yorkers) Poets Cafe is a nonprofit organization in Alphabet City, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy, and theater. Several events during the PEN World Voices festival are hosted at the cafe. The Café is meant to be a shooting-off point from which Nuyorican artists, poets, and playwrights take shared themes and messages of community, understanding, and the breaking down of arbitrary separators of color, among others, and spread them outside the environment of the Café. History Founded , the Nuyorican Poets Cafe began operating in the East Village apartment of writer, poet, and Rutgers University professor Miguel Algarín with assistance from co-founders Miguel Piñero, Bimbo Rivas, Pedro Pietri and Lucky Cienfuegos. By 1975, the number of poets involved with the venture outgrew that space, so Algarín ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
National Black Theatre Festival
The National Black Theatre Festival (NBTF) was founded in 1989 by Larry Leon Hamlin in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Serving as its executive director, Hamlin’s goal in creating the Festival was "to unite black theatre companies in America to ensure the survival of the genre into the next millennium." Held biennially since 1989 for six days, the NBTF showcases the best in African-American theater. Beginnings As he was doing research for a magazine article in the late 1980s, Hamlin discovered a disconnect between the number of black theatre companies at that time. He concluded that a festival could serve as a method to bring these companies together, and he contacted renowned author and poet Maya Angelou for support. Together, they raised $500,000 in grants and contributions to finance the festival's operating costs. The first Festival attracted 10,000 people and offered 30 different performances by 17 of America’s best professional black theatre companies. Its theme was "An In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Kennedy Center
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was named in 1964 as a memorial to Assassination of John F. Kennedy, assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, Pop music, pop, psychedelic, and folk music. Authorized by the 1958 National Cultural Center Act of Congress, which requires that its programming be sustained through private funds, the center represents a public–private partnership. Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives, almost entirely funded through ticket sales and gifts from individuals, corporations, and private foundations. The original building, designed by architect was constructed by Phil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |