XZibit

Alvin Nathaniel Joiner (born 18 September 1974) better known by his stage name Xzibit (pronounced as “exhibit”), is an American rapper, actor, and television personality. He is also known for hosting MTV’s Pimp My Ride and the Yo Dawg Internet meme. He released a new album once every two years from his 1996 debut At the Speed of Life until his most recent Full Circle which was released in October 2006.

Career

Xzibit began his music career as a member of the Likwit Crew, a loose collective of West Coast rappers which included King Tee, Defari, and Tha Alkaholiks. He appeared on King Tee’s album, IV Life (1994), on the song “Free Style Ghetto”, and then on Tha Alkaholiks’ Coast II Coast (1995), on the song “Hit and Run”. After touring with Likwit Crew in 1995, Xzibit signed to Loud Records and released his debut album, At the Speed of Life (1996). The album produced his first breakthrough single “Paparazzi” (#86 Billboard Hot 100).

Xzibit expanded his following with a series of albums beginning with 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz (1998). Often considered Xzibit’s best album, it produced the single “What U See Is What U Get” (#50 Billboard Hot 100). He made a number of high-profile guest appearances in 1999, joining Snoop Dogg on the Dr. Dre-produced hit “Bitch Please”, and appearing on Dr. Dre’s 6x platinum album 2001, on the songs “Lolo”, “Some L.A. Niggaz”, and “What’s the Difference” with Eminem.

Xzibit at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards in Miami.

Dr. Dre invited Xzibit to perform on his American Up in Smoke Tour in mid-2000, which featured Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Ice Cube, among many others. Loud Records released Xzibit’s Restless that year with Dr. Dre as executive producer, which produced the single “X” . The song became the rapper’s biggest hit since “What U See Is What U Get”.

Xzibit returned with another album, Man vs. Machine (2002), yet again he fell a bit short of mainstream success, although he did manage to go gold. He continued to collaborate with his closest West Coast colleagues, primarily Ras Kass and Saafir with whom he formed The Golden State Project rap collective, and Tha Liks, along with bigger names like Snoop Dogg and Eminem. His allegiance to the West Coast and former colleagues continued to win him much respect from his fans. Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004) followed. which also managed to go gold.

Film career

Xzibit has appeared in several acting roles on the big screen. He portrayed Duncan in Full Clip in 2004 and Dexter in Derailed in 2005, and he played Chief Grizzly in the animated movie Hoodwinked that year. He also played Zeke in XXX: State of the Union in 2005, and in 2007 he co-starred along with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the movie Gridiron Gang. He also had a cameo role as a freestyling co-worker of Eminem’s at New Detroit Stamping in 8 Mile. He played an FBI agent in 2008′s The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Xzibit’s latest role is as the character of Darrell Hughes in the upcoming film American Violet. He has also done some baseball voiceovers for the MLB.

Video games

Xzibit provided the voice for Abbott in the critically acclaimed 2004 video game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Xzibit is featured in the fighting game, Def Jam: Fight For NY, being aligned to Snoop Dogg’s (who lends his likeness and voice to the character Crow) group and fights with kickboxing-like attacks. Xzibit is also in the video game for Pimp My Ride. Xzibit is the main player’s “guide” in NFL Street 2 and appears as a quarterback, and is also the narrator of the tutorial mode. His song “The Mad In Game” was in Madden NFL 2001 and he was an unlockable character on Team ECKO. His song “Klack” appeared in the racing game Juiced. Another song, “L.A.X.”, appeared on the soundtrack and trial for the racing game Need For Speed Underground 2, while “Paparazzi” was featured in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 soundtrack.

Controversy

J-Ro and the Likwit Crew

Xzibit had started his career with the Likwit Crew, but after being “co-signed” by Dr. Dre and associating with his camp in the late 90s, Xzibit began to distance himself from his former crew. Xzibit later claimed that he could have gained fame without Tha Alkaholiks, the flagship group of the Likwit Crew, and criticized the crew’s founder King Tee. J-Ro would respond on “Look Out (Tha X Homie)”, a simmering criticism of Xzibit which, among other claims, dismisses his gangsta posturing as a supposed Crip, and criticizes his previous attacks on Jermaine Dupri while ignoring Snoop Dogg’s criticisms. Xzibit did not respond to J-Ro, and things have calmed down since then. Xzibit has since resumed collaborations with The Alkaholiks, King Tee and Defari. His latest collaboration with Tha Alkaholiks was in 2008 performing in L.A which was recorded and is to be released on DVD in July 2008.

Rove McManus

In June 2007, Xzibit left the Rove Live studios in Australia before an appearance. Media outlets reported that it was due to Xzibit not being given stand alone billing on the program despite not being booked in advance. According to Xzibit he walked off the set after taking offense to comments made by a Rove employee, who after informing Xzibit that his performance time would not be to his liking allegedly said: “you know we came a long way just having you on the program.” Xzibit took this to be a racist remark, staff allege they were referring to him being a late booking.

Gumball 3000
Xzibit at the Gumball 3000 Rally, London 2007.

In the Gumball 3000 2007 rally, Xzibit drove a black Lamborghini Gallardo. During the first day of the rally, Dutch police seized his driver’s license for doing 160 km/h where only 100 km/h was allowed. After the penalty, his co-driver, producer Fredwreck Nassar took over the wheel and they were allowed to continue. In an interview with Dutch radio personality Reinout ‘Q-Bah’ van Gendt, Xzibit says that he mistook the kilometers for miles. Ultimately he never got his license back from the Dutch Police and had to apply for a new one in the United States.

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Avril Lavigne

Avril Ramona Lavigne (born 27 September 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, fashion designer, actress, and philanthropist. She was born in Belleville, Ontario, but spent most of her youth in the small town of Napanee. By the age of 15, she had appeared on stage with Shania Twain; by 16, she had signed a two-album recording contract with Arista (now RCA Records) worth more than $2 million. In 2002, when she was 17 years old, Lavigne broke onto the music scene with her debut album Let Go.

Let Go made Lavigne the youngest female soloist to reach No. 1 in the UK, and the album was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. By 2009, over 16 million copies had been sold worldwide. Her breakthrough single, "Complicated", peaked at No. 1 in many countries around the world, as did the album Let Go. Her second album, Under My Skin, was released in 2004 and was her first album to peak at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, eventually selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. The Best Damn Thing, Lavigne’s third album, was released in 2007, becoming her third No. 1 album in the UK Albums Chart and featuring her first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, "Girlfriend". Lavigne has scored five number-one singles worldwide, including "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi", "I'm with You", "My Happy Ending" and "Girlfriend". With more than 30 million copies of her albums sold worldwide, Lavigne is one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA. Her fourth studio album, Goodbye Lullaby, was released in March 2011. Goodbye Lullaby gave Lavigne her fourth top 10 album on the U.S. Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart and her third No. 1 album in both Japan and Australia. Three months after the release of Goodbye Lullaby, Lavigne began work on her fifth album.

Lavigne branched out from recording music, pursuing careers in feature film acting and designing clothes and perfumes. She voiced a character in the animated film, Over the Hedge, in 2006. That same year, she made her on-screen feature film debut in Fast Food Nation. In 2008, Lavigne introduced her clothing line, Abbey Dawn, and in 2009, she released her first perfume, Black Star, which was followed by her second perfume, Forbidden Rose, in 2010 and her third perfume, Wild Rose, in 2011. In July 2006, Lavigne married her boyfriend of two years, Deryck Whibley, lead singer and guitarist for Sum 41. The marriage lasted a little over three years, and in October 2009, Lavigne filed for divorce. Whibley and Lavigne continued to work together, with Whibley producing her fourth album, as well as Lavigne's single, "Alice", written for Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland.

Personal Life

Her father, Jean-Claude Lavigne, named her "Avril" after the French word for the month of April. At the age of two, she began singing church songs with her mother, Judith-Rosanne "Judy" (née Loshaw). Judy recognized her two-year-old daughter's talents after hearing her sing "Jesus Loves Me" in church. Lavigne has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger sister, Michelle, both of whom teased her when she sang. "My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying."

 

When Lavigne was five years old, the family moved to Napanee, Ontario, a town with an approximate population of 5,000. Although she struggled with paying attention in school, sometimes being kicked out of class for misbehaving, her parents supported her singing. Her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, several guitars, and converted their basement into a studio. When Lavigne was 14, her parents would take her to karaoke sessions. Lavigne also performed at country fairs, singing songs by Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, and Shania Twain. She also began writing her own songs. Her first song was called "Can't Stop Thinking About You", about a teenage crush, which she described as "cheesy cute".




In 1999, Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with with fellow Canadian singer Shania Twain at the Corel Centre (now Scotiabank Place) in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people. Twain and Lavigne sang "What Made You Say That", and Lavigne told Twain she was going to be "a famous singer". During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folksinger Stephen Medd. He invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, Quinte Spirit. She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow-up album, My Window to You, in 2000. In December 1999, Lavigne was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. Fabri sent out VHS tapes of Lavigne's home performances to several industry prospects, and Lavigne was visited by several executives. Mark Jowett, co-founder of the Canadian management firm Nettwerk, received a copy of Lavigne's karaoke performances recorded in her parents' basement. Jowett arranged for Lavigne to work with Peter Zizzo during the summer of 2000 in New York, where she wrote the song "Why?". Lavigne was noticed by Arista Records on a subsequent trip to New York.




Lavigne would go on to sell more than 30 million copies of her albums worldwide becoming one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA. In 2009, Billboard named Lavigne the No. 10 pop artist in the "Best of the 2000s" chart. She was listed as the 28th overall best act of the decade based on album sales, chart success, and cultural relativity in the U.S.

Discography

• Let Go (2002)
• Under My Skin (2004)
• The Best Damn Thing (2007)
• Goodbye Lullaby (2011)

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Sabrina, the Teenage Witch	Herself	Cameo; performed "Sk8er Boi"
2004	Going the Distance	Herself	Cameo; performed "Losing Grip"
2006	Fast Food Nation	Alice	High school activist
	Over the Hedge	Heather	Voice only
2007	The Flock	Beatrice Bell	Suspect's girlfriend
2010	American Idol	Herself	Guest judge (L.A. auditions)
2011	Majors & Minors	Herself	Guest mentor

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Diana Krall

Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC (born November 16, 1964) is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s. On December 11, 2009, Billboard magazine named her the second Jazz artist of the 2000–09 decade, establishing her as one of the best-selling artists of her time. She is the only jazz singer to have eight albums debuting at the top of the Billboard Jazz Albums. To date, she has won three Grammy Awards and eight Juno Awards. She also has earned nine gold, three platinum, and seven multi-platinum albums.

Personal Life

Her father played piano around the house and her mother sang in a community choir. She was playing piano herself at the age of four and playing jazz in a local restaurant at 15. She went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship before heading out to L.A. to play jazz. She returned to Canada to release her first album in 1993.

Krall lost her mother Adella to multiple myeloma in 2002, within months of also losing her mentors Ray Brown and Rosemary Clooney. Diana's only sibling, Michelle, is a former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Krall and British musician Elvis Costello were married on December 6, 2003 at Elton John's estate outside London. Their twin sons, Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James, were born December 6, 2006 in New York City.





  
Professional Career

In 1993, Krall released her first album, Stepping Out, which she recorded with John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton. It caught the attention of producer Tommy LiPuma, who produced her second album, Only Trust Your Heart (1995).
Her third album, All for You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio (1996), was nominated for a Grammy and continued for 70 weeks in the Billboard jazz charts. Love Scenes (1997) quickly became a hit record with the trio of Krall, Russell Malone (guitar) and Christian McBride (bass).
In August 2000, Krall was paired on a 20-city tour with Tony Bennett. They were paired again for a song on the TV series Spectacle: Elvis Costello with Orchestral arrangements by Johnny Mandel provided the background on When I Look In Your Eyes (1999). The band mix was kept, following arrangements on The Look of Love (2001) created by Claus Ogerman; this record achieved platinum status and reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200. The title track from the album, a cover of the Casino Royale standard popularized in the late 1960s by Dusty Springfield and Sérgio Mendes, reached number 22 on the adult contemporary chart.
In September 2001, Krall began a world tour. Her concert at the Paris Olympia was recorded and released as her first live record, Diana Krall - Live in Paris. The album included covers of Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are" (a hit on U.S. smooth jazz radio) and Joni Mitchell's "A Case Of You."
After marrying Elvis Costello, she worked with him as a lyricist and started to compose her own songs, resulting in the album The Girl in the Other Room. The album, released in April 2004, quickly rose to the top five in the United Kingdom and made the Australian top 40 album charts.
She also joined Ray Charles on his Genius Loves Company album in 2004 on the song, "You Don't Know Me".

Live at The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia - Photo by Rob Garland

 

In late May 2007, Krall was featured in a Lexus ad campaign. She also sang, "Dream a Little Dream of Me" with piano accompaniment by pianist Hank Jones.
Quiet Nights, her latest album, was released on 31 March 2009.
Krall also produced Barbra Streisand's album Love Is the Answer, released on 29 Sep 2009.

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