Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 20

Tupac

Tupac Amaru Shakur born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac, Makaveli, and Pac, was an American rapper and actor. As of 2007, Shakur has sold over 75 million records worldwide. His double disc albums All Eyez on Me and his Greatest Hits are among the best-selling albums in the United States. He has been listed and ranked as one of the greatest artists of all time by many publications, including Rolling Stone, which ranked him 86th on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time. On April 7, 2017, Shakur was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground, eventually branching off as a solo artist. Most of the themes in Shakur’s songs revolved around the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, and other social problems. Both of his parents and several other people in his family were members of the Black Panther Party, whose ideals were reflected in his songs. During the latter part of his career, Shakur was a vocal participant during the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, becoming involved in conflicts with other rappers, producers, and record-label staff members, most notably The Notorious B.I.G. and the label Bad Boy Records. Apart from his career in music, Shakur also acted in films and on TV. He starred in various films in the 1990s, including Poetic Justice (1993), Gang Related (1997) and Gridlock’d (1997).On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where he died from his injuries six days later.

Written Dianne Washington

Ludacris

Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), known professionally as Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Ludacris is the founder of Disturbing tha Peace. Ludacris has won Screen Actors Guild, Critic’s Choice, MTV, and 3 Grammy Awards. Along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential “Dirty South” rappers to achieve mainstream success during the early 2000s. In 2014, Ludacris was featured in Forbes list titled “Hip-Hop Cash Kings”, as he earned $8 million.Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludacris moved to Atlanta at age nine, where he began rapping. After a brief stint as a DJ, he released his first album Incognegro in 1999, followed by Back for the First Time also in 2000, which contained the singles “Southern Hospitality” and “What’s Your Fantasy”. In 2001, he released Word of Mouf, followed by Chicken-n-Beer in 2003 and The Red Light District in 2004. He took a more serious approach with his next two albums, Release Therapy (2006), and Theater of the Mind (2008). His next record, Battle of the Sexes, was released in 2010 and featured the tone of his previous albums. Ludaversal was released on March 31, 2015. As an actor, he has appeared in films including Crash (2004), Gamer (2009), and New Year’s Eve (2011) and is best known for playing Tej Parker in The Fast and the Furious film series.Christopher Brian Bridges was born in Champaign, Illinois, the only child of Roberta Shields and Wayne Brian Bridges. He later moved to the Chicago area, where he attended Emerson Middle School in Oak Park and Oak Park & River Forest High School for one year. He then moved to Centreville, Virginia and attended Centreville High School for one year. He attended Banneker High School in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated in 1995. From 1998 to 1999, he studied music management at Georgia State University. Bridges is of African American and English ancestry, and has said that one of his great-great grandfathers was Choctaw. He is a distant cousin of late comedian Richard Pryor. Bridges wrote his first rap song at age nine when moving to Atlanta, and joined an amateur rap group three years later.

Written Dianne Washington

Nell Carter

Nell Carter (born Nell Ruth Hardy; September 13, 1948 – January 23, 2003) was an American singer and actress.Beginning her career in 1970, Carter started in theater; singing and later crossed over to television. Carter was perhaps best known for her role as Nell Harper on the NBC sitcom Gimme a Break! which originally aired from 1981 to 1987. Carter received two Emmy and two Golden Globe award nominations for her work on the series. Prior to Gimme a Break!, Carter won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical in 1978 for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain’t Misbehavin’, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award for her reprisal of the role on television in 1982.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 “Aint 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 Dianne Washington

Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981), also known by her nickname J.Hud, is an American singer and actress. Throughout her career, Hudson has received various accolades for both her music and acting, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Daytime Emmy Award, and two Grammy Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.

Written Dianne Washington

Barry White

Barry White (born Barry Eugene Carter; September 12, 1944 – July 4, 2003) was an American composer and singer-songwriter.A three-time Grammy Award–winner known for his distinctive bass-baritone voice and romantic image, White’s greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer and with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring soul, funk, and disco songs such as his two biggest hits, “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” and “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe”.During the course of his career in the music business, White achieved 106 gold albums worldwide, 41 of which also attained platinum status. White had 20 gold and 10 platinum singles, with worldwide record sales in excess of 100 million. He is one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. His influences included Rev. James Cleveland, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley plus Motown artists The Supremes, The Four Tops, and Marvin Gaye.Barry White was born Barry Eugene Carter in Galveston, Texas, and grew up in the high-crime areas of South Central Los Angeles. White was the older of two children. His brother Darryl was 13 months younger than Barry. He grew up listening to his mother’s classical music collection and first took to the piano, emulating what he heard on the records. White has often been credited with playing piano, at age eleven, on Jesse Belvin’s 1956 hit single, “Goodnight My Love.” However, in a 1995 interview with the Boston Herald’s Larry Katz, White denied writing or arranging the song. He believed the story was an exaggeration by journalists. While White and Belvin lived in the same neighborhood, Belvin was twelve years older than White. Barry White also stated that he had no involvement with Bob & Earl’s 1963 hit single Harlem Shuffle, a song he is credited with producing and in his 1999 autobiography, White confirmed the song had been produced by Gene Page, who had worked with him on many of White’s 1970s successes.White’s voice deepened suddenly when he was fourteen. White recalled: “[As a child] I had a normal squeaky kid voice. Then as a teenager, that completely changed. My mother cried because she knew her baby boy had become a man.”His brother Darryl was murdered in a clash with a rival gang, and White himself was jailed—at the age of 16—for stealing $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires.While in jail, White listened to Elvis Presley singing “It’s Now or Never” on the radio, an experience he later credited with changing the course of his life.After his release from jail, he left gang life and began a musical career at the beginning of the 1960s in singing groups. He first released “Too Far to Turn Around” in 1960 as part of The Upfronts before working for various small independent labels in Los Angeles. He also recorded several singles under his own name in the early 1960s, backed by vocal groups the Atlantics (for the Rampart and Faro labels) and the Majestics (for the Linda and Jordan labels).Bob Keane of Del-Fi Records—the man who discovered Ritchie Valens—hired him as an A&R man in the mid 1960s, and White started working with the label’s artists, including Viola Wills and The Bobby Fuller Four, as a songwriter, session musician, and arranger. He discovered singer Felice Taylor and arranged her song “I Feel Love Comin’ On”, which became a big hit in the UK. He also wrote “Doin’ the Banana Split” for TV bubblegum act The Banana Splits in 1968.In 1972, he got his big break producing a girl group he had discovered called Love Unlimited. Formed in imitative style of the Motown girl group The Supremes, the group members had gradually honed their talents with White for two years previously until they signed contracts with Uni Records. His friend Paul Politi hooked him up with music industry businessman Larry Nunes, who helped to finance their album. After it was recorded, Nunes took the recording to Russ Regan, who was the head of the Uni label owned by MCA. The album, 1972’s From A Girl’s Point of View We Give to You… Love Unlimited, became a million album seller and the first of White’s string of long-titled albums and singles.White produced, wrote and arranged their classic soul ballad “Walkin’ in the Rain with the One I Love”, which climbed to #14 in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop chart and #6 on the Billboard R&B chart in late 1972. This single also reached #12 in the UK chart. White’s voice can clearly be heard in this piece as he plays the lover who answers the phone call of the female lead.Soon after, Regan left Uni for 20th Century Records. Without Regan, White’s relationship with Uni soured. With his relationship with Uni over and Love Unlimited contract-bound with the label, White was able to switch both his production deal and the group to 20th Century Records. (They recorded several other hits throughout the 1970s, “I Belong to You”, which spent over five months on the Billboard R&B chart in 1974 including a week at #1 and “Under the Influence of Love”, which hit #3 on the Billboard Pop album charts. White married the lead singer of the group, Glodean James, on July 4, 1974.)White wanted to work with another act but decided to work with a solo male artist. While working on a few demos for a male singer, he made three song demos of himself singing and playing, but Nunes heard them and insisted that he re-record and release them himself as a solo recording artist. After arguing for days about it, White was finally persuaded to release the songs himself although he was initially reluctant to step out in front of the microphone.He then wrote several other songs and recorded them for what eventually became an entire album of music. He was going to use the name “White Heat,” but decided on using his given name instead. White was still hesitating up to the time the label copy was made. It eventually became the first solo White album, 1973’s I’ve Got So Much to Give. It included the title track and his first solo chart hit, “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby”, which also rose to #1 on the Billboard R&B charts as well as #3 on the Billboard Pop charts in 1973 and stayed in the top 40 for many weeks.Other chart hits by White included “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” (#2 R&B, #7 Pop in 1973), “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” (# 1 Pop and R&B in 1974), “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” (#1 R&B, #2 Pop in 1974), “What Am I Gonna Do with You” (#1 R&B, #8 Pop in 1975), “Let the Music Play” (#4 R&B in 1976), “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me” (#1 R&B, #4 Pop in 1977) and “Your Sweetness is My Weakness” (#2 R&B in 1978) and others. White also had a strong following in the UK, where he scored five Top 10 hits and a #1 for “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything”.In 1973 White created The Love Unlimited Orchestra, a 40-piece orchestral group to be used originally as a backing band for the girl-group Love Unlimited. However, White had other plans, and in 1973 he released a single with “Love’s Theme” (written by him and played by the Orchestra), that same track reached #1 on the Billboard Pop charts. Later, in 1974, he made the first album of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, Rhapsody in White, containing “Love’s Theme”. White is sometimes credited with ushering in the “disco” sound, seamlessly combining R&B music with classical music. Some also regard “Love’s Theme” as the first hit in the actual “disco era”.Barry White would continue to make albums with the Orchestra, achieving some successes such as: “Rhapsody in White”; “Satin Soul”; “Forever in Love”; “Midnight Groove”; “My Sweet Summer Suite”, Remake of “Theme From King Kong”. The Orchestra ceased to make albums in 1983, but continued to support Barry White as a backing band.After six years White left 20th Century in 1979 to launch his own label, Unlimited Gold, with CBS/Columbia Records. Although his success on the pop charts slowed down as the disco era came to an end, he maintained a loyal following throughout his career. Despite several albums over the next three years he failed to repeat his earlier successes, with no singles managing to reach the Billboard Hot 100 except for 1982’s “Change,” climbing into the Billboard R&B Top 20 (#12). His label venture was exacting a heavy financial cost on White, so he concentrated on mostly touring and finally folded his label in 1983.After four years he signed with A&M Records, and with the release of 1987’s The Right Night & Barry White, the single entitled “Sho’ You Right” made it to the Billboard R&B charts, peaking at #17.In 1989 he released The Man Is Back! and with it had three top 40 singles on the Billboard R&B charts: “Super Lover”, which made it to #34, “I Wanna Do It Good to Ya”, which made it to #26, and “When Will I See You Again”, which made it to #32.A 1970s nostalgia fad allowed White to enjoy a renewed wave of popularity in the 1990s. After participating in the song “The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)” from Quincy Jones’s 1989 album Back on the Block, White mounted an effective comeback with several albums, each more successful than the last. He returned to the top of the charts in 1991 with the album Put Me in Your Mix, which reached #8 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and the song by the same name reached #2 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.In 1994 he released The Icon Is Love, which went to #1 on the Billboard R&B album charts, and the single “Practice What You Preach” gave him his first #1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart in almost 20 years. The album was nominated for a Grammy in the Best R&B Album category, but lost to TLC’s CrazySexyCool.In 1996, White recorded the duet “In Your Wildest Dreams” with Tina Turner. 1996 also saw the release of Space Jam and its soundtrack, on which White had a duet with Chris Rock, called “Basketball Jones,” a remake of Cheech & Chong’s “Basketball Jones” from 1973.His final album, 1999’s Staying Power, resulted in his last hit song “Staying Power,” which placed #45 on the Billboard R&B charts. The single won him two Grammy Awards in the categories Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.His autobiography, Love Unlimited, written with Mark Eliot, was published in 1999 by Broadway Books.Over the course of his career, White sometimes did voice-over work for TV and movies. He voiced the character Bear in the 1975 film Coonskin and also played the character Sampson in the movie’s live-action segments.He appeared as himself in a few episodes of The Simpsons, and most importantly the episode “Whacking Day” in which Bart and Lisa used his famously deep bass singing voice, played through loudspeakers placed on the ground, to lull and attract snakes. White was a fan of the show, and had reportedly contacted the staff about wanting to make a guest appearance.He played the role of a bus driver for a Prodigy commercial in 1995, and he also portrayed the voice of a rabbit in a Good Seasons salad dressing mix commercial, singing a song called “You Can’t Bottle Love”.In addition, he did some work for car commercials, most famously for Oldsmobile, and later on, Jeep.He also provided voice over for Arby’s Restaurant commercials on TV and Radio to promote their ‘Market Fresh’ menu.His voice can also be heard in Apple’s first iBook commercial.He made three guest appearances on the comedy-drama TV series Ally McBeal, as his music was often featured on the show in dream sequences.White was overweight for most of his adult life—weighing 375 pounds (170 kg) according to Casey Kasem—and suffered from related health problems. In October 1995, he was admitted to a hospital as a result of high blood pressure. In August 1999, White was forced to cancel approximately a month’s worth of tour dates owing to exhaustion, high blood pressure, and a hectic schedule. In September 2002, he was hospitalized with kidney failure attributed to chronic diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure.While undergoing dialysis and awaiting a kidney transplant in May 2003, he suffered a severe stroke, which forced him to retire from public life. At around 9:30 a.m. (PDT) on July 4, 2003, 29 years to the day that he married Glodean, White died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 58. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered by his family off the California coast.

Written by Dianne Washington

Willie Tyler

Willie Tyler (born September 8, 1940) is an American ventriloquist, comedian and actor. Tyler has been credited as Willie Tyler and Lester or Willie Tyler & Lester. Willie Tyler recorded “Cannibal” for Motown Records in 1968, but it was not released. He has appeared in many television commercials, sitcoms and films. Tyler got his first big break in 1972 on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.The duo made an early appearance at the Harlem Cultural Festival in the summer of 1969.Tyler has had guest roles in The Parent ‘Hood, Pacific Blue, What’s Happening Now!!, The White Shadow and The Jeffersons, as well as serving as host of the Saturday morning children’s anthology series ABC Weekend Specials throughout the early 1980s. He appeared in the 1978 film Coming Home. In addition, he has appeared in television commercials in the 1980s for McDonald’s, Toyota, Hires Root Beer, and Rent-A-Center.He appeared as himself in the 2004 BET Comedy Awards, Frank McKlusky, C.I., For Da Love of Money, In the House, the 4th Annual Black Gold Awards, The 1st Annual Soul Train Music Awards, Motown Returns to the Apollo, Lou Rawls Parade of Stars, Powerhouse, The White Shadow, American Bandstand, Vegetable Soup, The Flip Wilson Show, The Statler Brothers Show, The Hollywood Palace, Match Game and Family Feud. On September 18, 2006, Tyler was the first ventriloquist to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman’s Ventriloquist Week. In 2009, Willie Tyler and Lester were featured in the ventriloquist comedy documentary I’m No Dummy, directed by Bryan W. Simon. On May 21, 2019, Tyler appeared as a 1972 TV version of himself on the ABC sitcom The Kids are Alright.

Written by Dianne Washington

Cardi B Gives Birth To A Baby Boy

A rep for Cardi B confirms … her second child with Offset is a healthy baby boy!!!

The couple says, “We are so overjoyed to finally meet our son. He is already loved so much by family and friends and we can’t wait to introduce him to his other siblings

Michael K. Williams Dead at 54

We’re told the actor was found in the living room of his home, and drug paraphernalia was on a table nearby … suggesting he may have died from an OD. NY Post first reported the death

Idrissa Elba

Idrissa Akuna Elba OBE (September 6, 1972) is an English actor, writer, producer, musician, DJ, rapper, and singer. He is known for roles including Stringer Bell in the HBO series The Wire, DCI John Luther in the BBC One series Luther, and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013). He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one, and was nominated five times for a Prime time Emmy Award.Elba appeared in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster (2007) and Prometheus (2012). Elba portrayed Heimdall in Thor (2011) and its sequels Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017), as well as Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). He also starred in Pacific Rim (2013), Beasts of No Nation (2015), for which he received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and Molly’s Game (2017). In 2016, he voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia, Shere Khan in the live action/CGI adaptation of The Jungle Book, Fluke in Finding Dory, and played the role of Krall in Star Trek Beyond. He made his directorial debut in 2018 with an adaptation of the 1992 novel Yardie by Victor Headley.In addition to his acting work, Elba performs as a DJ under the moniker DJ Big Driis (or Big Driis the Londoner) and as an R&B musician. In 2016, he was named in the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World. As of May 2019, his films have grossed over $9.8 billion at the global box office, including over $3.6 billion in North America, where he is one of the top 20 highest-grossing actorsIdrissa Akuna Elba, an only child, was born on September 6, 1972 in Hackney, London. His paternal grandfather, Moses, was a sailor and a policeman. His father, Winston, was a Sierra Leonean who worked at Ford Dagenham, and his mother, Eve, was Ghanaian. Elba’s parents were married in Sierra Leone and later moved to London. Elba was brought up in Hackney and East Ham, and shortened his first name to “Idris” at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. He credits The Stage with giving him his first big break; having seen an advertisement for a play in a newspaper, Elba auditioned and met his first agent while performing in the role. In 1986, he began helping an uncle with his wedding DJ business; within a year, he had started his own DJ company with some of his friends.Elba left school in 1988, and won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre thanks to a £1,500 Prince’s Trust grant. His first acting role was in Crimewatch murder reconstructions and in 1994 appeared in a BBC children’s drama called The Boot Street Band. To support himself between roles in Crimewatch reconstructions, he worked in jobs such as tyre-fitting, cold call advertising sales, and working night shifts at Ford Dagenham. He was working in nightclubs, under the DJ nickname “Big Driis”, aged nineteen, but began auditioning for television roles in his early twenties.In 1995, Elba landed his first significant role on a series called Bramwell, a medical drama set in 1890s England. He played a central character in an episode of Season 1, an African petty thief named Charlie Carter, who lost his (white) wife to childbirth and had to figure out how to support his newborn daughter. His first named role arrived earlier in 1995, when he was cast as a gigolo on the “Sex” episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Many supporting roles on British television followed, including series such as The Bill and The Ruth Rendell Mysteries. He joined the cast of the soap opera Family Affairs[10] and went on to appear on the television serial Ultraviolet and later on Dangerfield. He decided to move to New York City soon after. He returned to England occasionally for a television role, such as a part in one of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. In 2001, Elba played Achilles in a stage production of Troilus and Cressida in New York City.After a supporting turn on a 2001 episode of Law & Order, Elba landed a starring role on the 2002 HBO drama series The Wire. From 2002 to 2004, Elba portrayed Russell “Stringer” Bell in the series, perhaps his best-known role in the United States. In 2005, he portrayed Captain Augustin Muganza in Sometimes in April, an HBO film about the Rwandan Genocide. Elba appeared on the 2007 BET special Black Men: The Truth. He appeared as Charlie Gotso on The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, filmed in Botswana. The series premiered on 23 March 2008, Easter Sunday, on BBC One, receiving a high 6.3 million viewers and 27% of the audience share.In January 2009, it was reported by Variety that Elba would portray Charles Miner, a new rival to Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) for NBC’s The Office. Elba appeared in a six-episode story arc later in the 2009 season as well as the season finale. In September 2009, he signed a deal to star as the lead role on the six-part BBC television series Luther, which aired in May 2010. He appeared on Showtime’s The Big C in 2010. At the 69th Golden Globe Awards telecast on 15 January 2012, Elba won the Award for Best Actor in a Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for his role on the BBC crime thriller series Luther.Elba has been married three times: first to Hanne “Kim” Nørgaard (from 1999 to 2003) and then to Sonya Nicole Hamlin (for four months in 2006). He has two children: a daughter with Kim named Isan (born 2002), who resides with Nørgaard in Atlanta, Georgia, and a son named Winston (born 2014) with ex-girlfriend Naiyana Garth. Elba became engaged to Sabrina Dhowre on 10 February 2018, during a screening of his film Yardie at an East London cinema; the pair have been dating since early 2017. They wed on 26 April 2019, in Marrakesh.Elba states that he is spiritual but not religious. Elba is an avid supporter of Arsenal F.C. In 2015, as part of his Discovery Channel miniseries Idris Elba: No Limits, Elba broke the course record land speed “Flying Mile” for the Pendine Sands.The Prince’s Trust, a UK youth charity founded by Prince Charles in 1976, which Elba credits with helping to start his career, appointed him as their anti-crime ambassador in April 2009. Elba voiced support for a vote to remain in the European Union for the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.

Written Dianne Washington

Sylvester

Sylvester James, Jr. (September 6, 1947 – December 16, 1988), who used the stage name of Sylvester, was an American singer-songwriter. Primarily active in the genres of disco, rhythm and blues, and soul, he was known for his flamboyant and androgynous appearance, falsetto singing voice, and hit disco singles in the late 1970s. He represents the transgressive nonconforming gender expression identity that has become a hallmark of both LGBTQ studies and queer studies of the performativity of gender itself. See also Willi Ninja.Born in Watts, Los Angeles, to a middle-class African-American family, Sylvester developed a love of singing through the gospel choir of his Pentecostal church. Leaving the church after the congregation expressed disapproval of his homosexuality, he found friendship among a group of black cross-dressers and transgender women who called themselves The Disquotays. Moving to San Francisco in 1970 at the age of 22, Sylvester embraced the counterculture and joined the avant-garde drag troupe The Cockettes, producing solo segments of their shows which were heavily influenced by female blues and jazz singers like Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker. During the Cockettes’ critically panned tour of New York City, Sylvester left them to pursue his career elsewhere. He came to front Sylvester and his Hot Band, a rock act that released two commercially unsuccessful albums on Blue Thumb Records in 1973 before disbanding.Focusing on a solo career, Sylvester signed a recording contract with Harvey Fuqua of Fantasy Records and obtained three new backing singers in the form of Martha Wash, Izora Rhodes – the “Two Tons O’ Fun” – and Jeanie Tracy. His first solo album, Sylvester (1977), was a moderate success. This was followed with the acclaimed disco album Step II (1978), which spawned the singles “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Dance (Disco Heat)”, both of which were hits in the U.S. and Europe. Distancing himself from the disco genre, he recorded four more albums – including a live album – with Fantasy Records. After leaving this label, he signed to Megatone Records, the dance-oriented company founded by friend and collaborator Patrick Cowley, where he recorded four more albums, including the Cowley penned hit Hi-NRG track “Do Ya Wanna Funk.” An activist who campaigned against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Sylvester died from complications arising from the virus in 1988, leaving all future royalties from his work to San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS charities.During the late 1970s, Sylvester gained the moniker of the “Queen of Disco” and during his life he attained particular recognition in San Francisco, where he was awarded the key to the city. In 2005, he was posthumously inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, while his life has been recorded in a biography and made the subject of both a documentary and a musical.

Written by Dianne Washington