Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 13

Zapp

Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999), also known mononymously as Roger, was an American composer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced west coast hip hop due to the scene’s heavy sampling of his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument (frequently a keyboard, but most commonly a guitar) to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix “Golden Throat,” as well as a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s.

Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Roger was the fourth of ten children. He was a late-arriving member of Parliament-Funkadelic and played on the band’s final Warner Brothers’ album The Electric Spanking of War Babies. The first band Roger was in was THE CRUSADERS. The band played in Cincinnati and recorded a 45 record Busted Surfboard and Seminole. The band members were Rick Schoeny, Roy Beck, Dave Spitzmiller, and Denny Niebold. Troutman had formed various other bands with his four brothers, including Little Roger and the Vels and Roger and the Human Body. In 1977, he and the Human Body issued their first single, “Freedom”. Within two years, Roger and his brothers were discovered by George Clinton, who signed the newly christened Zapp to his Uncle Jam Records label in 1979. The original line-up consisted of Roger Troutman, Larry Troutman, Lester Troutman, Terry Troutman, Gregory Jackson and Bobby Glover. Zapp made their professional television debut on the first and only Funk Music Awards show. A year later, as Uncle Jam Records was forced to close, Zapp signed to Warner Bros. Records and released their self-titled debut, which yielded the Bootsy Collins produced & Troutman-composed hit, “More Bounce to the Ounce.” The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart in the fall of 1980. The debut album reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and firmly launched Zapp and Roger into the national spotlight.

Between 1980 and 1985, Zapp released the gold-selling albums Zapp, Zapp II, Zapp III and The New Zapp IV U and released top ten R&B hit singles such as “Be Alright”, “Dance Floor”, “I Can Make You Dance”, “Heartbreaker”, “It Doesn’t Really Matter” – which was a tribute to black artists of the past and present, and the Charlie Wilson and Shirley Murdock-assisted funk ballad, “Computer Love”. Zapp’s hit making magic faded shortly after the release of their fifth album, Zapp Vibe, in 1989. Throughout Zapp’s tenure, the original lineup grew to around fifteen. In 1993, the group scored their biggest-selling album when a compilation album, Zapp & Roger: All the Greatest Hits, was released, featuring remixed cuts of Roger’s solo singles and featuring the new single “Slow and Easy” as well as “Mega Medley”, which put together a collection of the group’s hit singles in a remix. The album sold over two million copies giving the collective their most successful album to date. After the untimely death of Roger and Larry, the remaining brothers have stepped forward with the album, Zapp VI: Back By Popular Demand in 2002.

In 1981, upon the fast-paced success of Zapp’s first album, Troutman cut his first solo album, The Many Facets of Roger. Featuring his frenetic funk cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, the song exploded to number one on the R&B singles chart helping the album sell over a million copies. The album also featured the hit, “So Ruff, So Tuff”, which was similar to “More Bounce…” as were most Roger/Zapp singles during this time. In 1984, Troutman issued his second solo album, The Saga Continues, which featured the singles “Girl Cut It Out”, “It’s in the Mix” – which was dedicated to Soul Train and its host Don Cornelius in one verse, and a cover of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour”, which featured gospel group The Mighty Clouds of Joy. In 1987, Troutman scored his most successful solo album with Unlimited!, which featured the massive hit, “I Want to Be Your Man”, which rose to number one R&B and number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

Alongside his successful careers as Zapp member and solo star, Troutman also became a hands-on producer and writer for other artists including Shirley Murdock, whose 1985 platinum debut featured the Roger-produced hit, “As We Lay”. He also produced for Zapp member Dale DeGroat on his solo efforts. In 1988, Troutman made an appearance on Scritti Politti’s third album Provision, providing talk box vocals on the songs “Boom There She Was” and “Sugar and Spice”. Three years later, Troutman released his final solo album with Bridging the Gap, featuring the hit “Everybody (Get Up)”. He worked with Elvis Costello as a guest appearance on 1991’s Mighty Like a Rose on the song “The Other Side of Summer”. In 1989, NBA Entertainment selected Troutman among a variety of renowned candidates to record a tribute song called “I’m So Happy” for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who at the time was in the final year of his record-breaking, 20-year career in the NBA.

After the release of All the Greatest Hits, Roger and Zapp existed primarily as a touring group, recording only sporadically. Troutman was starting to be featured on hip-hop songs by this time agreeing to appear on rapper Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut, Doggystyle. In 1995 he was featured on Eazy-E’s posthumous album Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton on the last track, “Eternal E”, along with DJ Yella. The same year Troutman agreed to enlist vocals on 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s single, “California Love”. The song became Troutman’s biggest-selling and most successful single to date as the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over two million copies giving Troutman a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. This success led to Troutman being included in a top ten R&B hit cover of The Persuaders’ “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”, which he produced and enlisted the talk box alongside Shirley Murdock and R&B group H-Town. The A Thin Line Between Love and Hate movie soundtrack also included a club hit “Chocolate City”. In 1998, he appeared in a remix version of Sounds of Blackness’ “Hold On (A Change Is Coming)”, which sampled Zapp’s “Doo-Wah Ditty (Blow That Thing)”. Throughout the 1990s, Roger was promoted heavily by Timothy Olague Entertainment in shows at emerging Indian Casinos in Arizona and California. Roger’s last recorded guest feature was on the song “Master of The Game” from rapper Kool Keith’s Album Black Elvis/Lost In Space.

On the morning of April 25, 1999, Roger Troutman was found shot and critically wounded outside his northwest Dayton recording studio around 7 a.m. According to doctors, the 47-year-old had been shot several times in the torso and listed in critical condition. Roger died during surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital and Health Center. Roger’s brother Larry was found dead in a car a few blocks away with a single gunshot wound to the head. A pistol was found inside the vehicle, which matched the description of a car leaving the scene of Roger Troutman’s shooting according to witnesses. The gun found with Larry Troutman also matched the one that fired the fatal shots into Roger, suggesting that Larry had shot Roger and then taken his own life.[3] With both men dead, and with no known witnesses, the specific motive for the attack remains unknown. Friends and family could only speculate that the source of a dispute was a rising tension between the brothers over issues such as Larry’s financial troubles and Roger’s desire to dissolve their business partnership.

Troutman, who lived 24 years in the Dayton area, was survived by 6 sons: Roger Lynch (January 31, 1970 – January 22, 2003), Callie Williams, Larry Gates, Lester Gates, Brent Lynch, Ryan Stevens and Taji J. Troutman; 5 daughters: Daun Shazier, Hope Shazier, Summer Gates, Mia Paris Collins, Gene Nicole Anderson; 9 grandchildren, among them are: Lonnie Allen Wright III, Lara Thomas, Joy Love, Ruth Love and Samuel Williams.

Written by Dianne Washington

Nas

On this date in 1973, Nas was born. He is a Black is a Black rapper, songwriter, entrepreneur, and investor.

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. His father, Olu Dara (born Charles Jones III), is a jazz and blues musician from Mississippi. His mother, Fannie Ann Little died 2002. She was a Postal Service worker from North Carolina. He has a brother, Jabari Fret, who raps under the name Jungle and is a member of the Bravehearts. His father adopted the name “Olu Dara” from the Yoruba people. “Nasir” is an Arabic name meaning “helper and protector”, while “bin” means “son of” in Arabic.

As a young child, Nas and his family relocated to the Queensbridge Houses in the borough of Queens. His neighbor, Willy “Ill Will” Graham, influenced his interest in hip hop by playing him records. His parents divorced in 1985 and he dropped out of school after the eighth grade. He educated himself about African culture through the Five Percent Nation (a splinter group of the Nation of Islam) and the Nuwaubian Nation. In his early years, he played the trumpet and began writing his own rhymes.

His great-great-great-grandmother, Pocahontas Little, was a slave who was sold for $830. He owns the marriage certificate of his great, great, great grandmother, Pocahontas, and great-great-great-grandfather, Calvin.

His musical career began in 1991, as a featured artist on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque”. His debut album Illmatic (1994) received universal acclaim from both critics and the hip-hop community and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. Nas’s follow-up It Was Written debuted atop the Billboard 200, and stayed there for four consecutive weeks, and made Nas internationally known. On June 15, 1994, Nas’s ex-fiancée Carmen Bryan gave birth to their daughter, Destiny. She later confessed to Nas that she had a relationship with Jay-Z, also accusing Jay-Z of putting subliminal messages in his lyrics about their relationship together, causing an even bigger rift in the feud between the two hit rap music giants. From 2001 to 2005, Nas was involved in a highly publicized feud with Jay-Z, popularized by the diss track “Ether”.

Nas signed to Def Jam in 2006. In 2006, MTV ranked Nas fifth on their list of “The Greatest MCs of All Time”. In 2010, he released Distant Relatives, a collaboration album with Damian Marley, donating all royalties to charities active in Africa. His 11th studio album, Life Is Good (2012) was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2012, The Source ranked him second on their list of the “Top 50 Lyricists of All Time”. In 2013, Nas was ranked 4th on MTV’s “Hottest MCs in the Game” list. About.com ranked him first on their list of the “50 Greatest MCs of All Time” in 2014, and a year later, Nas was featured on the “10 Best Rappers of All Time” list by Billboard.

He is also an entrepreneur through his own record label; he serves as associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine and the co-founder of Mass Appeal Records. Nas is a spokesperson and mentor for P’Tones Records, a non-profit after-school music program with the mission “to create constructive opportunities for urban youth through no-cost music programs.” He is a cousin of American actress Yara Shahidi. In 2005, he married R&B singer Kelis in Atlanta after a two-year relationship. Kelis gave birth to Nas’s first son on July 21, 2009, the couple’s divorce was finalized on May 21, 2010. In January 2012 Nas was involved in a dispute with a concert promoter in Angola, having accepted $300,000 for a concert in Luanda, Angola’s capital for New Year’s Eve and then not showing up. As of the end of the month, Nas returned all $300,000 and after 49 days of the travel ban, Allocco and his son were both released.

Written by Dianne Washington

Ruben Studdard

Ruben Studdard (born September 12, 1978) is an American singer and actor. He rose to fame as winner of the second season of American Idol and received a Grammy Award nomination in 2003 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his recording of “Superstar”. In the years following Idol, Studdard has released seven studio albums, including his platinum-selling debut, Soulful, and the top-selling gospel follow-up, I Need an Angel. He is most well known for his recording career, which has produced hits including “Flying Without Wings”, “Sorry 2004”, and “Change Me”, but he has also segued into television and stage work. Most notably, he starred as Fats Waller in a national tour revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’, which spawned a Grammy-nominated soundtrack.

In 2013, Studdard appeared as a contestant on the fifteenth season of weight-loss competition show The Biggest Loser. He later signed to Verve Records and collaborated with the label’s chairman, David Foster, on Studdard’s sixth studio album, Unconditional Love, in 2014. That album received strong reviews as a return-to-form and included a tour with Lalah Hathaway. In 2018, Studdard, who has long been compared to R&B singer Luther Vandross, released a cover album called Ruben Sings Luther and launched his Always & Forever national tour.

He made his Broadway theatre debut in December 2018 in Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show (aka Ruben & Clay’s Christmas Show) at the Imperial Theatre.

Studdard was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, to American parents, while his father was stationed there with the U.S. Army, and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. The youngest son of two teachers, at the age of three, he sang for the first time at the Rising Star Baptist Church in his hometown of Birmingham. He continued singing gospel in church, performing solos as a child while his mother sang in the local choir. While at Huffman High School, he played football for which he received a scholarship to Alabama A&M University. While at Alabama A&M, he joined the Omicron Delta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the men’s music fraternity of America.

After growing up listening to his mother’s Donny Hathaway albums, Fred Hammond, and gospel music, Studdard began to pursue a career in the music industry, majoring in voice studies at Alabama A&M. He sang with Just a Few Cats, a popular local Birmingham jazz and R&B band founded by members of Ray Reach’s UAB Jazz Ensemble, along with other local musicians. Years later, Studdard stated: “A lot of people don’t realize how hard I was trying to get into the business before American Idol. I was making demos and just working so hard.” A back-up singer from Just a Few Cats asked him to accompany her to Nashville, Tennessee for an audition on the 2003 second season of American Idol.

Studdard met Surata Zuri McCants in October 2006, when he was signing CDs at a Wal-Mart in Atlanta. On June 28, 2008, Studdard married McCants in a short, private ceremony in Mountain Brook, Alabama. On November 16, 2011, Studdard’s attorney announced that Studdard was in the process of a divorce. Studdard’s divorce was finalized in April 2012.

Studdard received an honorary Master of Arts degree from his alma mater of Alabama A&M University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Vocal Studies, at its December 2015 commencement ceremony. He is a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity. In 2022, it was announced that Studdard would teach a masterclass for performing arts majors at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Written Dianne Washington

Nell Carter

Nell Carter was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American singer and actress.

From Birmingham, Alabama while growing up, Carter listened to her mother’s recordings of Dinah Washington and B. B. King, and her brother’s Elvis Presley records. She liked Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mathis, and admired the work of Cleo Laine and Barbra Streisand. Early in her career, she performed as a singer on the gospel circuit. She moved on to coffeehouses and nightclubs in her hometown, before going on to New York.

While there Carter started out as a cabaret performer, then leaped to stardom in the musical revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” for which she won a Tony award. She continued in theater with a revival of “Annie,” where she won the Outer Circle Critics Award, the Obie, and the Drama Desk Award. On TV, Carter worked on the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” and the prime-time series “The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo” as police sergeant Hildy Jones.

In 1981 Carter had her biggest TV hit was on the sitcom “Gimme a Break” which ran until 1987. In 1990, she was in the short-lived series “You Take the Kids” and from 1993 to 1995 she appeared in the recurring role of Mark Curry’s boss in “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper”. Carter also appeared in TV-movies, including the musical “Cindy” 1978, she also played the mother of ill-fated athlete Hank Gathers in “Final Shot: The Hank Gathers Story” 1992 “Maid for Each Other” later that same year.

Carter’s musical specials have a been many, a guest appearance on “Baryshnikov on Broadway” 1980; “Ain’t Misbehavin'” 1981; and “Evening at the Pops” 1987. Carter’s feature film appearances included “Black Boys/White Boys,” Milos Forman’s “Hair” 1979, “Modern Problems” and “Back Roads” both in 1981. In 1992, Carter’s voice was featured for the animated feature “Bebe’s Kids”. She has also performed in Las Vegas, headlined a 1991 Los Angeles revival of “Hello, Dolly!” with an African-American cast and played the villainous Miss Hannigan in the 1996-97 revival of the stage musical “Annie”.

Her last appearance was an episode of “Touched By an Angel” in 2001. Nell Carter died from complications of diabetes on January 23, 2003.

Written by Dianne Washington

Queen Elizabeth II Dies at 96

Queen Elizabeth II the longest-serving monarch in British history — has died.

The Royal Family announced Thursday, “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon” … just a few hours after the palace had announced she was under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle, her estate in Scotland.

They also made it clear, King Charles ill be in power, writing, “The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”

King Charles just released a statement. He says “the death of my beloved Mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family.”

“We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished Sovereign and a much-loved Mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.”

“During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held.”

Dave Chappelle

David Khari Webber Chappelle (born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. After beginning his film career in 1993 as Ahchoo in Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights, he landed supporting roles in box office hits including The Nutty Professor, Con Air, You’ve Got Mail, Blue Streak and Undercover Brother. His first lead role was in the 1998 comedy film Half Baked, which he co-wrote with Neal Brennan. Chappelle also starred in the ABC TV series Buddies. His comedy focuses on racism, relationship problems, social problems, politics, current events, and pop culture.

In 2003, Chappelle became more widely known for his sketch comedy television series, Chappelle’s Show, also co-written with Brennan, which ran until his retirement from the show two years later. After leaving the show, Chappelle returned to performing stand-up comedy across the U.S.

In 2016 he signed a $20 million per release comedy special deal with Netflix, which has released four of his specials.

By 2006, Chappelle was called the “comic genius of America” by Esquire and, in 2013, “the best” by a Billboard writer. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him No. 9 in their “50 Best Stand Up Comics of All Time.” Chappelle was awarded an Emmy Award for his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live In 2017. He received a Grammy Award for his Netflix specials The Age of Spin & Deep in the Heart of Texas.

David Khari Webber Chappelle was born in Washington, D.C. on August 24, 1973, the youngest of three children. His father, William David Chappelle III, worked as a statistician before becoming a professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. His mother, Yvonne K Chappelle Seon (née Reed), is half white and was a professor at Howard University, Prince George’s Community College, and the University of Maryland. Seon also worked for Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. She is also a Unitarian Universalist minister. Chappelle has a stepmother and a stepbrother. He is the great-grandson of Bishop William D. Chappelle, a former president of Allen University.

Chappelle grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Woodlin Elementary School. His parents were politically active, and family house visitors included Pete Seeger and Johnny Hartman. The latter predicted Chappelle would be a comedian and, around this time, Chappelle’s comic inspiration came from Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. After his parents separated, Chappelle stayed in Washington with his mother while spending summers with his father in Ohio. In 1991, he graduated from Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he studied theatre arts.

Written by Dianne Washington

Viola Davis

Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and producer. She is the only black woman to be nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one, and is the only black actress to win the Triple Crown of Acting. In 2012 and 2017, she was listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, Davis began her career on stage and won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody’s Ruby. She played supporting and minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the films Kate & Leopold (2001) and Far from Heaven (2002), and the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2001, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the original production of August Wilson’s King Hedley II. Davis’ film breakthrough came in 2008 when her supporting role in the drama Doubt earned her several nominations, including the Golden Globe, SAG, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Greater success came to Davis in the 2010s. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Rose Maxson in the revival of August Wilson’s play Fences. For her lead role as 1960s housemaid Aibileen Clark in the comedy-drama The Help (2011), she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress among others, and won a SAG Award.

Since 2014, Davis has played lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC television drama How to Get Away with Murder, and in 2015 she became the first black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Her portrayal also won her two SAG Awards in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Davis played Amanda Waller in the superhero action film Suicide Squad and reprised the role of Rose Maxson in the film adaptation of Fences, for which she won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics’ Choice Award, SAG Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, are the founders of the production company JuVee Productions. Davis has starred in their productions Lila & Eve (2015) and Custody (2016).

Written by Dianne Washington

Danny Glover

Danny Glover was born on this date in 1946. He is an African American actor and director and an activist.

Danny Lebern Glover was born in San Francisco. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University. As a young man he was a member of the Black Panther Party.

At the University, he met and married his wife, Asake Bomani, in 1975; they have one child named Mandisa.

Glover received his dramatic training at the American Conservatory Theatre’s Black Actors’ Workshop. He made his film debut in “Escape from Alcatraz” (1979). In the early 1980s, Glover made his name portraying characters ranging from the sympathetic in “Places in the Heart” (1984) to the menacing in Witness (1985) and “The Color Purple” (1984).

He reached boxoffice gold status with the three Lethal Weapon movies. Glover contributed an amusing cameo in “Maverick”(1994). That same year Glover made his directorial debut with the Showtime channel short film “Override.” In 1998, Glover again had his role for “Lethal Weapon 4,” and that same year gave a stirring performance in the little-seen “Beloved.” He also joined the ranks of actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Elliot Gould, and Robert Mitchum who have portrayed Raymond Chandler’s private eye detective Phillip Marlowe in the episode “Red Wind” of the Showtime network’s 1995 series “Fallen Angels.”

On television, Glover played the title role in “Mandela” (1987), Joshua Deets in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” legendary railroad man John Henry in a 1988 installment of Shelley Duvall’s “Tall Tales,” and the mercurial leading character in the 1989 “American Playhouse” revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.”

In March 1998, he was appointed ambassador to the United Nations Development Program. Among his many awards, he has won five NAACP Image Awards for his achievements as a Black actor. Danny Glover is also chairman of TransAfrica.

While attending San Francisco State University (SFSU), Glover was a member of the Black Students Union, which, along with the Third World Liberation Front and the American Federation of Teachers, collaborated in a five-month student-led strike to establish a Department of Black Studies. The strike was the longest student walkout in U.S. history. It helped create not only the first Department of Black Studies but also the first School of Ethnic Studies in the United States.

Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation, was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover later co-chaired Vanguard’s board. He is also a board member of The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, Walden House, and Cheryl Byron’s Something Positive Dance Group. He was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly after being arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington during a protest over Sudan’s humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Glover’s long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE, and numerous service unions. In March 2010, Glover supported 375 Union workers in Ohio by calling upon all actors at the 2010 Academy Awards to boycott Hugo Boss suits following announcement of Hugo Boss’s decision to close a manufacturing plant in Ohio after a proposed pay decrease from $13 to $8.30 an hour was rejected by the Workers United Union.

In January 2006, Harry Belafonte led a delegation of activists, including Glover and activist/professor Cornel West, in a meeting with President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez.

Glover was an early supporter of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries until Edwards’ withdrawal, although some news reports indicated that he had endorsed Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich,[27] whom he had endorsed in 2004. After Edwards dropped out, Glover then endorsed Barack Obama.

Glover was an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, calling him a known racist. “Yes, he’s racist. We all knew that. As Texas’s governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died were Afro-Americans or Hispanics.”

Glover’s support of California Proposition 7 (2008) led him to use his voice in an automated phone call to generate support for the measure before the election.

On April 6, 2009, Glover was given a chieftaincy title in Imo State, Nigeria. Glover was given the title Enyioma of Nkwerre, which means A Good Friend in the language of the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria.

Glover has become an active member of board of directors of The Jazz Foundation of America.[33] Danny became involved with The Jazz Foundation in 2005, and has been a featured host for their annual benefit A Great Night in Harlem[34] for several years, as well appearing as a celebrity MC at other events for the foundation. In 2006, Britain’s leading African theatre company Tiata Fahodzi appointed Glover as one of its three Patrons, joining Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jocelyn Jee Esien opening the organization’s tenth-anniversary celebrations (Sunday, February 2, 2008) at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, London.

Glover is also an active board member of the TransAfrica Forum.

On January 13, 2010, Glover compared the scale and devastation of the 2010 Haiti earthquake to the predicament other island nations may face as a result of the failed Copenhagen summit the previous year. Glover said: “…the threat of what happens to Haiti is a threat that can happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations… they’re all in peril because of global warming… because of climate change… when we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens…”In the same statement, he called for a new form of international partnership with Haiti and other Caribbean nations and praised Venezuela, Brazil, and Cuba, for already accepting this partnership.

On November 1, 2011, Glover spoke to the crowd at Occupy Oakland on the day before the Oakland General Strike where thousands of protestors shut down the Port of Oakland.

Glover is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank led by economist Dean Baker.

Glover wrote the foreword to Phyllis Bennis’ book, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power.

Written by Dianne Washington

Donna Summer

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), widely known by her stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer, songwriter, and painter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach No. 1 on the United States Billboard 200 chart and charted four number-one singles in the U.S. within a 12-month period. Summer has reportedly sold over 140 million records worldwide, making her one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. She also charted two number-one singles on the R&B charts in the U.S. and a number-one in the U.K.

Summer earned a total of 32 hit singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top ten. She claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984, and from her first top ten hit in 1976, to the end of 1982, she had 12 top ten hits (10 were top five hits), more than any other act during that time period. She returned to the Hot 100’s top five in 1983, and claimed her final top ten hit in 1989 with “This Time I Know It’s for Real”. Her most recent Hot 100 hit came in 1999 with “I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro)”. While her fortunes on the Hot 100 waned through those decades, Summer remained a force on the U.S. Dance/Club Play Songs chart over her entire career.

While influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, Summer became the lead singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she left New York and spent several years living, acting, and singing in Europe, where she met music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte.

Summer returned to the U.S., in 1975 after the commercial success of the song “Love to Love You Baby”, which was followed by a string of other hits, such as “I Feel Love”, “Last Dance”, “MacArthur Park”, “Heaven Knows”, “Hot Stuff”, “Bad Girls”, “Dim All the Lights”, “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (duet with Barbra Streisand), and “On the Radio”. She became known as the “Queen of Disco”, while her music gained a global following.

Summer died on May 17, 2012.

Written by Dianne Washington

Jaguar Wright

Jacquelyn Suzette Wright (born May 17, 1977), better known by her stage name, Jaguar Wright, is an American R&B and neo soul singer and songwriter. She is part of the Okayplayer collective. She started her career as an intern with various record labels. Wright has performed and collaborated alongside rap acts such as The Roots, Jay-Z, and Blackalicious.
Wright was brought to the attention of hip-hop group The Roots in 1998, which eventually led to her going to tour with them. She later appeared as a back-up singer for Jay-Z in 2001, and appeared in a Coca-Cola advert as part of the brand’s “Nu Soul” campaign. She has released two solo albums to date: Denials, Delusions & Decisions in 2002, and Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul in 2005. Wright also recorded an album entitled. And Your Point Is? which was due for release in 2003 on MCA Records (who also distributed her debut), before the label folded. However, many of the tracks recorded for that album later appeared on Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul. In 2007, two new songs appeared on her MySpace profile. One was a live version of new song “Sometimes”, the other a cover of “Let’s Do It Again”. A further two new songs surfaced in 2009, “Beautiful” and “Surely Shawty”, although neither saw an official release. She has toured every year since her debut album was released. In March 2008, she toured Europe with Bahamadia and Hezekiah for the “Philly Sounds” tour. Wright did not perform any new material on the tour, but did live cover versions of Cherrelle’s “Saturday Love” and Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)”. During the tour, Wright announced that she was in the process of writing a novel, and working on a third album. No release dates have been confirmed for either as yet. In 2008, she supplied backing vocals for Al Green’s album Lay It Down. In January 2011, Jaguar Wright toured Europe with Lady Alma on the “Philly Sounds 2011” tour. She revealed that she was working on a third album, due out in the summer of 2011, the lead single from the new album to be called “Switch”. In the summer of 2012, she assembled a “rock & soul band” of seasoned Philadelphia musicians called The W.E. ft. Jaguar Wright.

Written by Dianne Washington