The Beast (band)
The Beast is an American alternative hip hop band from Durham, North Carolina. They were formed in 2007 by emcee Pierce Freelon, drummer Stephen Coffman, bassist Peter Kimosh and pianist Eric Hirsh. All members of the band are graduates of UNC Chapel Hill. The Beast is best known for their 2010 album, Freedom Suite, which was recorded with jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon and released in collaboration with Okayplayer's jazz channel The Revivalist. Other artists the Beast has collaborated with include 9th Wonder, YahZarah, Phonte, The Apple Juice Kid, Geechi Suede (of Camp Lo) and Branford Marsalis Branford Marsalis (born August 26, 1960) is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ense .... The band has been praised for their progressive lyrics and eclectic, jazz-based production. Discography * ''Belly'' (EP, 2008) * ''Sil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County and Wake County. With a population of 283,506 in the 2020 Census, Durham is the 4th-most populous city in North Carolina, and the 74th-most populous city in the United States. The city is located in the east-central part of the Piedmont region along the Eno River. Durham is the core of the four-county Durham-Chapel Hill Metropolitan Area, which has a population of 649,903 as of 2020 U.S. Census. The Office of Management and Budget also includes Durham as a part of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary Combined Statistical Area, commonly known as the Research Triangle, which has a population of 2,043,867 as of 2020 U.S. census. A railway depot was established in 1849 on land donated by Bartlett S. Durham, the namesake of the city. Following the American Civil War, the community of Durham Station expanded rapidly, in part due ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 African ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nnenna Freelon
Nnenna Freelon (born July 28, 1954) is an American jazz singer, composer, producer, and arranger. Early life and education Freelon was born Chinyere Nnenna Pierce to Charles and Frances Pierce in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was raised. She has a brother Melvin and a sister named Debbie. As a young woman, she sang extensively in her community and the Union Baptist Church and at St. Paul AME. She recalled, "I started singing in the church, like so many others...." Nnenna graduated from Simmons College in Boston with a degree in health care administration. For a while she worked for the Durham County Hospital Corporation, Durham, North Carolina. She suggests that her influences included several "not famous people" and well as Nina Simone and Billy Eckstine, whose records her parents played at home. "It's important to expose your children to a wide musical environment," she says. "I did something that my grandmother told me: 'Bloom where you're planted', 'don't get on a bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phonte
Phonte Lyshod Coleman, known mononymously as Phonte (born December 28, 1978), is an American rapper, singer, and producer. He is currently of the North Carolina hip-hop trio/duo Little Brother (revived in 2019 without producer 9th Wonder) and one-half of the duo The Foreign Exchange. He has also recorded R&B-flavored output as a singer (often under the pseudonym Percy Miracles), and with Nicolay on The Foreign Exchange. His rhymes tend to be no-frill perspectives on working-class life. Career Little Brother Phonte first met the other members of Little Brother, rapper Big Pooh and producer 9th Wonder, in 1998 while attending North Carolina Central University, as an English major. The three shared common musical interests and decided to form a group. "Speed", the group's first song recorded together, led to them signing a deal with the independent ABB Records, and recording their debut album, '' The Listening''. The album's success led to the group signing a non-exclusive d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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9th Wonder
Patrick Denard Douthit (born January 15, 1975), better known as 9th Wonder, is a hip hop music, hip hop record producer, record executive, DJ, and rapper from . He began his career as the main producer for the group Little Brother in [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Questlove
Ahmir Khalib Thompson (born January 20, 1971), known professionally as Questlove (stylized as ), is an American musician, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thought) for the hip hop band the Roots. The Roots have been serving as the in-house band for '' The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'' since 2014, having the same role in ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon''. Questlove is also one of the producers of the cast album of the Broadway musical '' Hamilton''. He is the co-founder of the websites Okayplayer and OkayAfrica. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University. Questlove has produced recordings for artists including Elvis Costello, Common (rapper), Common, D'Angelo, Jill Scott (singer), Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Bilal (American singer), Bilal, Jay-Z, Nikka Costa, and more recently, Booker T. Jones, Al Green, Amy Winehouse, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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YahZarah
Dana Nicole Amma Williams (born June 24, 1978), is known professionally as YahZarah, is a Ghanaian American singer and music producer. She is known for radio hits "Wishing" and "Why Dontcha Call Me No More". In 1997, she began her career as a background singer for Erykah Badu. In 2000, Yahzarah signed to Keo Music Records released her first album, ''Hear Me''. In 2002, Yahzarah signed a recording contract with Three Keys Music and released her second album, ''Blackstar'', in September 2003. In 2004, YahZarah left Three Keys Music and join The Foreign Exchange. After a brief hiatus, Yahzarah returned the music industry. In 2008, she released her extended play, ''The Prelude'', on the +FE Music recording label. In January 2010, Yahzarah released her single "Why Dontcha Call Me No More" followed by her third album, '' The Ballad of Purple St. James'' in May 2010. Her musical genre has varied throughout her career including R&B, rock, acoustic, soul, jazz, and pop. Her artistic inf ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Apple Juice Kid
Stephen Levitin (aka Apple Juice Kid) is an American record producer. Apple Juice Kid's production has been heard on songs by Mos Def, Azealia Banks, Wale, Camp Lo and MC Lyte. He has released several jazz remix albums with support from Okayplayer including ''Miles Davis Remixed'' and ''Frank Sinatra Remixed''. Apple Juice Kid is also a DJ and a drummer. He has been a guest DJ on Mark Ronson's East Village Radio. He has performed as a drummer in the studio with Timbaland, and on stage with The Foreign Exchange and The Jungle Brothers. Deepak Chopra interviewed Stephen for his One World program. Levitin co-founded the Emmy Award winning Beat Making Lab, which began as a class in the Music Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His latest projects include DJing, releasing records on VP Records, Ultra Records and developing Beat Making Labs internationally with the support of Apple and PBS.Schacht, John (October 5, 2012)"UNC Professors Bring Beat Making ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alternative Hip Hop
Alternative hip hop (also known as alternative rap) is a subgenre of hip hop music that encompasses a wide range of styles that are not typically identified as mainstream. AllMusic defines it as comprising " hip hop groups that refuse to conform to any of the traditional stereotypes of rap, such as gangsta, bass, hardcore, and party rap. Instead, they blur genres drawing equally from funk and pop/rock, as well as jazz, soul, reggae, and even folk." Alternative hip hop developed in the late 1980s and experienced a degree of mainstream recognition during the early-to-mid 1990s. While some groups such as Arrested Development and The Fugees managed to achieve commercial success before breaking up, many alternative rap acts tend to be embraced by alternative rock listeners other than hip-hop or pop audiences. The commercial and cultural momentum was impeded by the then -also emerging, significantly harder-edged West Coast gangsta rap. A resurgence came about in the lat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pierce Freelon
Pierce Freelon is an American musician, educator, author and politician from Durham, North Carolina. He is a GRAMMY-nominated family music artist and former Durham City Council Member. Freelon is the founder of Blackspace, an Afrofuturist digital makerspace. He co-founded Beat Making Lab, an Emmy Award winning PBS web-series. He is co-director, writer and composer of The History of White People in America, a PBS animated series. Freelon has taught in the departments of African, African American and Diaspora Studies and Music at UNC-Chapel Hill and in the Department of Political Science at North Carolina Central University. He is a former board member of the North Carolina Arts Council. Career Music Educator As an undergraduate at UNC Chapel-Hill Freelon created a Hip-Hop curriculum, which he has taken into over 100 schools and community centers internationally. After graduating from Syracuse, Freelon developed the ''Bebop to Hip Hop'' program for the Thelonious Monk Institute of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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UNC Chapel Hill
UNC is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to: Education * University of Northern California (other), which may refer to: ** University of Northern California (Santa Rosa), in Petaluma, California, United States ** University of Northern California, Lorenzo Patiño School of Law in Sacramento, California, United States * The University of North Carolina system in the United States ** University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the flagship campus of the UNC system *** North Carolina Tar Heels, the athletic program of the Chapel Hill campus * University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado, United States * Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Córdoba, Argentina * ''Universidad Nacional de Cajamarca'', Spanish name of National University of Cajamarca * ''Universitas Nicolai Copernici'', Latin name of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland * Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (University of New Caledonia), the French university located in Nouméa, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |