Public Enemy is an American hip hop group formed by Chuck D and Flavor Flav on Long Island, New York, in 1985. The group rose to prominence for their political messages including subjects such as American racism and the American media. Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim, and their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), was the first hip hop album to top The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll. Their next three albums, Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black (1991) and Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994), were also well received. The group has since released twelve more studio albums, including the soundtrack to the 1998 sports-drama film He Got Game and a collaborative album with Paris, Rebirth of a Nation (2006).
The The are an English post-punk band. They have been active in various forms since 1979, with singer-songwriter Matt Johnson being the only constant band member. The The achieved critical acclaim and commercial success in the UK, with 15 chart singles, and their most successful album, Infected (1986), spent 30 weeks on the chart. They followed this with the Top Ten albums Mind Bomb (1989) and Dusk (1993).
Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. was an American singer, actor, songwriter, and composer. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a session musician and record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes and Porter were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of songs for themselves, the duo Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and others. In 2002, Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Earl Silas Johnson IV, known as Earl King, was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, most active in blues music. A composer of blues standards such as "Come On" and "Big Chief", he was an important figure in New Orleans R&B.
Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Kevin Danell Mann, better known by his stage name Brotha Lynch Hung, is an American rapper and record producer from Sacramento, California who has been described as "the creator of horrorcore rap." He is also a former 24th Street Garden Blocc Crip gang member which is a Crip affiliated street gang based in Meadowview, Sacramento.
African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans. Their origins are in musical forms that arose out of the historical condition of slavery that characterized the lives of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. Some of the most popular music types today, such as rock and roll, country, rock, funk, jazz, rap, blues,hip-hop, rhythm, and rhythm and blues were created and influenced by African-American artists. It has been said that "every genre that is born from America has black roots."
Blue-eyed soul is rhythm and blues and soul music performed by white artists. The slang, coined in the mid-1960s, was invoked by music magazines in the 1960s such as Life who used it for the Righteous Brothers, Barry McGuire, Sonny & Cher; other times it meant style and mannerisms associated with soul music sung by white musicians. Though many rhythm and blues radio stations in the United States in that period would only play music by black musicians, some began to play music by white acts considered to have "soul feeling" and their music was then described as "blue-eyed soul."
Jon Gordon Langseth Jr., known as Jonny Lang, is an American blues, gospel, and rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has made five albums that have charted on the top 50 of the Billboard 200 chart and has won a Grammy Award for Turn Around.
Carl Dean Wilson was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He is best remembered as their lead guitarist, as the younger brother of bandmates Brian and Dennis Wilson, and as the group's de facto leader in the early 1970s. He was also the band's musical director on stage from 1965 until his death.
Ray Erskine Parker Jr. is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. As a solo performer, he wrote and performed the theme song to the 1984 film Ghostbusters. Previously, Parker achieved a US top-10 hit in 1982 with "The Other Woman". He also performed with his band, Raydio, and with Barry White.
Montell Du'Sean Barnett Jordan is an American pastor, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Best known for his 1995 single "This Is How We Do It", Jordan was the primary male solo artist on Def Jam's Def Soul imprint until leaving the label in 2003.
Gordie Johnson is a Canadian musician, best known as the front man for the blues/reggae rock band Big Sugar, Austin-based blues/gospel band Sit Down Servant, and southern rock band Grady.
William Alan Hawkshaw was a British composer and performer, particularly of library music used as themes for movies and television programs. Hawkshaw worked extensively for the KPM production music company in the 1950s to the 1970s, composing and recording many stock tracks that have been used extensively in film and TV.
The Southside Movement was an American soul and funk musical group from Chicago, Illinois. Composed of vocalist Melvin Moore, guitarist Bobby Pointer, keyboardist Morris Beeks, bassist Ronald Simmons, drummer Willie Hayes, alto saxophonist Milton Johnson, trumpeter Stephen Hawkins, and trombonist Bill McFarland, the group began as the backing band for the soul duo Simtec & Wylie. Southside Movement issued their self-titled debut album on the Wand record label in 1973; it included the Top 20 US Billboard R&B chart hit, "I've Been Watching You". Their second album, Movin’ appeared in 1974, which provided another breakbeat favorite in the track "Save the World".
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with protest songs and chants, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South.
John Ellison is an American/Canadian musician, best known for writing the song "Some Kind of Wonderful." He was born in Montgomery, West Virginia, and was raised in Landgraff, West Virginia, a small, poverty-stricken coal mining village near Welch, West Virginia, and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, receiving his Canadian citizenship in 2006.
Eric Alexander Mercury was a Canadian musician, singer and composer who was a member of Canadian soul group, The Soul Searchers during the 1960s. He later made waves in 1969 with his Electric Black Man album. He had two hits, the first on the Canadian charts in 1972 with "I Can Smell That Funky Music", and the second in the United States in 1983, singing a duet with Roberta Flack with "Our Love Will Stop the World". He also co-wrote the song "Down the Backstairs of My Life".
Dywane Thomas Jr., professionally known as MonoNeon, is an American bassist, luthier, experimental musician, songwriter and YouTuber. His work, spanning multiple experimental projects and collaborations, including with American musician Prince, has seen an online cult following. Thomas was the last bassist Prince hired before his death in 2016, and he additionally collaborated with American singer Ne-Yo in 2010. He has since become known for his videos that harmonize viral videos with basslines, and his compositions that utilize microtonality. He is a native of Memphis, Tennessee.
