Freestyle, or Latin freestyle is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area, Philadelphia, and Miami, primarily among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the 1980s. It experienced its greatest popularity from the late 1980s until the early 1990s. A common theme of freestyle lyricism originated as heartbreak in an urban environment typified by New York City.
West Coast hip hop is a regional genre of hip hop music that encompasses any artists or music that originated in the West Coast of the United States. West Coast hip hop began to dominate from a radio play and sales standpoint during the early to-mid 1990s with the birth of G-funk and the emergence of record labels such as Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records, Ice Cube's Lench Mob Records, the continued success of Eazy-E's Ruthless Records, Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment, and others.
In the United States, California is commonly associated with the film, music, and arts industries; there are numerous world-famous Californian musicians. New genres of music, such as surf rock and third wave ska, have their origins in California.
Michael Kelley was an American artist. His work involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance and video. He often worked collaboratively and had produced projects with artists Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, and John Miller. Writing in The New York Times, in 2012, Holland Cotter described the artist as "one of the most influential American artists of the past quarter century and a pungent commentator on American class, popular culture and youthful rebellion."
Joshua Bishop Kelley Sr. is an American musician and singer-songwriter. Kelley has recorded for Hollywood Records, Threshold Records and DNK Records as a pop rock artist. His songs "Amazing" and "Only You" reached the top ten on the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart.
Jawbreaker is an American punk rock band that was active from 1986 to 1996, and again since 2017. The band is considered to be extremely influential to the 1990s emo and punk genre with their "poetic take on hardcore." Their influence on the punk scene has led some critics to label Jawbreaker as the best punk rock band of the 1990s.
Bay Area thrash metal referred to a steady following of heavy metal bands in the 1980s who formed and gained international status in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Along with Central Florida, the scene was widely regarded as a starting point of American thrash metal, crossover thrash and death metal.
The University of California Marching Band, usually shortened to Cal Band, is the marching band for the University of California, Berkeley. While it is administered under the auspices of the university, the Cal Band is student-run and represents Cal at sporting events and social gatherings. The name of the band is "The University of California Band" by the constitution, but is typically called "The University of California Marching Band" or "The Cal Band". When the band marches out of Memorial Stadium's North Tunnel for football pre-games, it is referred to as "The Pacesetter of College Marching Bands, the Pride of California".
Frank Portman, better known by the pseudonym Dr. Frank, is an American musician, singer, guitarist, and author. He is the singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the Berkeley, California punk rock band The Mr. T Experience, and has remained the only consistent member of the band since its formation in 1985, performing on ten studio albums and five EPs. He has also recorded and performed as a solo artist, releasing the album Show Business is My Life in 1999 and the EP Eight Little Songs in 2003. In recent years he has pursued a writing career in young adult literature, authoring the novels King Dork (2006), Andromeda Klein (2009), and King Dork Approximately (2014).
The San Francisco sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s. It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or spread out like Los Angeles. Hence, it could support a 'scene'. According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other"
Daniel Sea is an American filmmaker, actor and musician. They rose to prominence through their role as Max Sweeney on Showtime's drama series The L Word. Sea (he/they) is a trans non-binary actor, musician and artist who has worked in film, theater, TV, and the fine arts. They played the first recurring transmasculine role on television, appearing from 2006-2009 as Max in Showtime's The L Word. In 2022, they reprised the role as Max for the current iteration of the L Word: Generation Q. They acted in films such as John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, and Barbara Albert's film The Dead and the Living.
Jerry McGeorge came to prominence in late 1965 as an American guitarist with the Chicago rock band The Shadows of Knight. He later joined the psychedelic rock band H.P. Lovecraft on bass in the summer of 1967, appearing on their debut album, H. P. Lovecraft.
Sugar Pie DeSanto is an American R&B singer and dancer, whose career in music flourished in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Bay Area Figurative Movement was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during the 1950s and onward into the 1960s. Spanning two decades, this art movement is often broken down into three groups, or generations: the First Generation, the Bridge Generation, and the Second Generation.
Stanley George Miller, better known as Mouse or Stanley Mouse, is an American artist who is notable for his 1960s psychedelic rock concert poster designs and album covers for the Grateful Dead, Journey, and other bands.
Jorh-el Aburto, better known by his stage name J Smooth, is an American rapper, music video director and hip hop producer from Los Angeles, California. His musical career began in 2006 when he released a mixtape (CD) which primarily included remixes of popular songs at the time and freestyles over existing beats. This started to get him attention in the South Bay and Los Angeles area. In the same year he landed a spot on the Wilmer Valderama executive produced show on MTV Yo Momma which gave him more exposure and he was given an opening act spot for Pitbull. From there, he landed a headlining spot for the Feria Agostina Nicaragüense, which continued to open doors for him–leading to performances for the Puerto Rican Festival, Colombian Festival, Salvadorian Festival, Guatemalan Festival, Bolivian Festival and Central American Festival, all in California. From there he was invited to Miami, Florida for the Expo Nica and Orange Festival in Orlando, Florida.
Phillip Jackson, best known as Norton Buffalo, was an American singer-songwriter, country and blues harmonica player, record producer, bandleader and recording artist who was a versatile proponent of the harmonica, including chromatic and diatonic.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is an American non-profit, professional theatre company based in Palo Alto, California, founded in July, 1970. The company is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and employs some 300 artists annually, including Equity and non-Equity actors, directors, designers and specialty artists. The company stages a year-round season of eight productions—comedies, dramas, and musicals—in the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts and in the California Mission-style Lucie Stern Theatre complex in Palo Alto.
The California Honeydrops, a dynamic band hailing from the Bay Area of San Francisco, are recognized for their eclectic and vibrant blend of old jazz, pre-blues, New Orleans funk, and classic R&B. Their music incorporates an array of instruments and styles, creating a rich, lush sound that is both cohesive and eclectic. The band's energy and style can be felt vividly in their album "A River’s Invitation," which showcases their talent for blending a diverse range of musical genres into a soulful, colorful, and uniquely engaging sound.
Stanley Harris Jr. is a music producer, rapper and singer in Los Angeles, California. He records under the stage name Quaze or Quazedelic. He received his big break into the music industry when rapper Snoop Dogg signed him to Doggystyle Records in 2001. He is most recognized for his funk music style production. His first major release with the Doggystyle Records crew was on the soundtrack of Undercover Brother, where he produced the single, Give Up the Funk. The song featured Snoop Dogg, Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Kokane and Quazedelic. Later he went on to work with many other Hip-Hop and R&B artists like Angie Stone, Baby Bash, G-Unit, Dub C, Redman, Suga Free and Goldie Loc from the Eastsidaz.
