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Today we’ll look at the spoken word roots of hip hop by examining the life and career of one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time; Richard Pryor. Here is the entry on Richard Pryor from upcoming eight-volume ‘African American National Biography’.
Many words resemble mushrooms growing on a tree stump: they don’t have common roots but are still related. I will use few examples, because if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Nothing is known about the origin of cub, which surfaced in English texts only in 1530 (that is, surprisingly late).
“As daylight slowly returned and the wind eased during the morning of Tuesday, August 25, survivors emerged, stunned, from the debris. Some wept, some were stoic, and many were so dazed they did not recognize their profoundly altered surroundings. In many places, little but rubble stretched as far as the eye could see. What few […]
Dallol, Ethiopia Coordinates: 14° 14 N | 40° 18 E Elevation: -157 feet (-48 meters) If beating the heat is your goal, then Death Valley, California–the hottest location in the United States–might be one spot to avoid in late August. Dallol, Ethiopia is another. A small settlement in the state of Afar near the Eritrean […]
Below is an excerpt from the preface of The Accidental Investment Banker.
In this post, we look at rapper Ice-T, and his influence on the development of hip hop. A prolific and outspoken Rap artist, Ice-T helped pioneer the ‘gangsta’ musical style, in which the turmoil of urban street life is exposed through blunt, explicit lyrics and a bass-heavy, fluid musical style.
Oxford University Press congratulates Terence Tao on his prodigious accomplishment, winning the Fields Medal. The Fields Medal, which is named after Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields and awarded by the International Mathematical Union every four years, is the most prestigious international prize a mathematician can receive. Tao, who was born in Adelaide, Austrailia and now […]
Mount Cuba was the home of Lammot du Pont Copeland and his wife Pamela from 1937 until her death in 2001. They sited their Georgian house (Victorin and Samuel Homsey, architects) atop one of Delaware’s highest hills with magnificent views across steep hills and deep valleys of the Eastern American Piedmont, to the Delaware river […]
OUP Staff: How did you come to write this book? Jonathan Knee: Over the years as an investment banker and a business school teacher, two related phenomena have always struck me. First, how little the general public understands what investment bankers actually do. Even other professionals and clients who deal with investment bankers often find […]
Today we’ll look at the jazz roots of hip hop by examining the charismatic stage presence and dapper style of the great Cab Calloway. As a pioneer of the genre, Calloway was described by President Bill Clinton as a ‘true legend among the musicians of this century’ – and his legacy lives on today.
Our egalitarian predilections have partly wiped out the difference between “vulgar” and “cool,” and the idea of being judgmental or appearing better educated than one’s neighbor scares the living daylights out of intellectuals. Dictionaries, we are told, should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Crime Films: A Monthly Column By Nicole Rafter Miami Vice is a major disappointment in an already frustrating movie summer. I had hoped for more not only because of the stylishness of the 1980s television series on which it is based but also because director Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) and Collateral (2004) had proved him […]
An Introduction to a New Monthly Feature By Nicole Rafter My original interest in crime films led me to introduce courses that examined the dynamic interplay of art and life in crime films at Northeastern University, and it eventually resulted in my book Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society (Oxford University Press, 2d.ed. […]
South Queensferry Coordinates: 55° 59 N | 3° 23 W Population: 9, 370 (2001 est.) Mad dogs and Englishmen may be unable to resist the midday sun, but it’s the Scottish who will venture into the heat covered head to toe in 10,000 prickly seed pods from the burdock plant. For centuries now, August in […]
Today, we’ll look at one of the literary forerunners of the hip hop revolution; Iceberg Slim. Slim’s works are marked by a criticism of American justice, devotion to the politics of the Black Panthers, frank language, and a combination of violence and sexuality. They remain influential to this day.
Today, we’ll look at a towering figure in 1970s soul music and a forebear of modern hip hop and rap; Isaac Hayes. His classic 1969 record, the sumptuous, deep-grooving ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, made Hayes a star and cemented his image in the minds of a generation of young African Americans.