Biography of Rihanna

She began signing when she was seven with two of her classmates but it wasn’t until she was sixteen that she met Evan Rogers and began to work with him and moved out of Barbados. A year after moving to the states she was asked to meet with Jay-z at DefJam Records where she was offered a contract in February 2005. Working with DefJam records she was able to record her first album by the end of 2005. â€Å"Music of the sun† was released and Pon De Replay became her first widely known hit making it in to the top 5 singles for that year. Just about a year later she released album number two â€Å"A Girl Like Me†. Her song S. O. S. was her first number one hit and the album was ranked in the top five albums for the year. In May 2007 she released her third album â€Å"Good Girl Gone Bad† which won her a Grammy for best rap/collaboration for her number one hit Umbrella. This album also was known for three other number one hits including Don’t Stop the Music, Take a Bow, and Disturbia. Around two years later she released her fourth album â€Å"Rated R† which was the number one album on the Billboard Hot 100 albums for the year. Three of her songs from this album made it to the top ten singles including Russian Roulette, Hard, and Rude Boy. Under a year later she released â€Å"Loud† being one of her most popular albums and being known for her three number one singles Only Girl(In the World), Samp;M, and What’s My Name?. Finally her most recent album â€Å"Talk That Talk† was released in 2012 and is currently known for the number one single We Found Love. As of now we know that she is working on her seventh album which no information has been release about. She had been on four tours around the world and has one upcoming tour Diamonds World Tour which will be her biggest, longest tour yet. Rihanna often gives credit to her idols that all influenced her in different ways. The person she says influenced her the most would be Madonna saying â€Å"I want to be the Black Madonna. † She also has said that Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Bob Marley, Marilyn Monroe, Mariah Carey and Destiny’s child were very influential on her life becoming a successful artist in today’s music industry. Rihanna has become an influential person herself, having been and idol for Justin Bieber and Rita Ora, both younger artists. She has been named one of the most influential people in the world and ranks fourth in the most powerful celebrities. She has received many awards including five American Music awards, eighteen Billboard Music awards, two BRIT awards and 5 Grammys. She has had eleven number one singles on Billboards top 100 and was named Digital Artist for the 2000’s by Billboard Music as well. She is the highest selling digital artist of all time with 47,571,000 sold singles as of early 2012. Forbes reported that she earned a little over $82 million between May 2010 and May 2012 and she continues to expand on her career. Rihanna in known for her thought provoking music videos, many of them with under-lying meanings. Much like Madonna she incorporates substance abuse, domestic violence or love triangles into her videos. She also turns obscure situations into glitz and glamorous situations. Many of her videos and outfits have caused controversy because of the explicit content. Her live shows are known for her hip shaking, sex appeal, attitude, sexy outfits and over the top performances sometimes being quite risque. She has said that â€Å"These performances are all an act, that’s not me. That’s a part I play. You know it’s like a piece of art with all these toys and textures to play with. † In her early days she was a typical teen pop star but she easily shifted her appearance dramatically and continues to change frequently. By the time she released her â€Å"Good Girl Gone Bad† album she had completely shook the teen pop star image everyone had gave her. By 2008 she was named best dressed by Peoples magazine and was on Maxims Hot 100 for five consecutive years (2007-2011). In 2009 Glamour named her Woman of the year and she ranked seventeenth out of fifty in Most Glamorous Women. She also was named sexiest women alive in 2011 by Esquire. Not only is she an extremely successful music artist, she has had her share in acting as well. In 2006 she mad a cameo appearance in the movie Bring it On: All or Nothing. In 2012 she was seen in the movie Battleship as GM2 officer Cora Raikes and had another cameo appearance in The Katy Perry Movie. In the next two years she will be seen in End of the World and Happy Smekday. The successful Barbadian superstar started out as a typical teen pop singer and has made a huge name for herself, not only singing but acting as well. Attempting to turn herself into the â€Å"Black Madonna† it seems she has met her goal although she continues to do more with her career. After seven years and six albums Rihanna has become one of the most popular music artists not only in the USA but worldwide. She is one of the most influential celebrities for upcoming music artists in the industry today.

Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Speech - Essay Example 1SG Kittles-Joyner epitomizes the phrase moral courage, as she lets nothing stand in the way of what she believes to be right. She acted first and foremost in the best interest of the soldiers, and demonstrated a remarkable tenacity to get missions accomplished. For the past four years, 1SG Kittles-Joyner was in charge of the senior leadership course. During her tenure, 1SG Keyshun Kittles-Joyner won the admiration and respect of the cadre and students of the Academy. Her SLC team supported four ALC mobile training teams and supervised execution of Camp Semaphore for the Fiscal Year 2010. 1SG Kittles-Joyner was also selected as Vice President of the prestigious Fort Gordon Sergeant Audie Murphy Club in consecutive years due to her superior knowledge and leadership abilities. Additionally, she was selected by the Garrison CSM to be the First Sergeant for the Military Police Detachment. However, the Signal Corps needed her more and so she was selected over 27 MSGs to be the Branch Chie f of the senior leadership course, where she oversaw preparation and execution of the 25B, E, S, P, U, and the 25W CMF quality assurance assessments, in which all received an Institution of Excellence rating. She mentored, prepared, and coached five NCOs, one of whom won instructor of the quarter and another Post NCO of the quarter. She also developed a study group program that resulted in five students being inducted into the SAMC; this was the highest number inductees of any unit on Fort Gordon. She was awarded the Bronze Order of Mercury during the Signal Ball for her dedication to soldiers within the Signal Community and assisting seven of the cadres to be selected as Bronze Order Recipients. She was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Award by President Obama and the Appreciation Award from the Georgia National Youth Challenge Academy in recognition of more than 3,000 countless hours of community service supporting Augusta and its surrounding communities through mentoring youth. She received accolades as the guest speaker for several 447th Signal Battalion Graduation ceremonies, Pre-Command Briefs, and also a coin of Excellence from the French Signal Commanding General and the TRADOC CSM during command briefs. Her SLC team was commended by the Inspector General for its management of the Structured Self-Development Program. Her SLC team was also instrumental in returning the Army Physical Fitness Test for Height and Weight back to the NCO Education System. She was selected for the Dean's list at Strayer University in consecutive years for maintaining a GPA average of 3.84. She is also a devoted mother to her son, Tyrome Joyner Jr. 1SG Kittles-Joyner will be joining the 1st SC Army BDE in South Korea, where she will continue to serve others. She will be sorely missed, but it is now time for her to move onto bigger and better things.   Her presence will be missed here at the Academy, and we wish her and her family the very best as she heads out to South Kor ea and her next army adventure. However, as we say goodbye to one great 1SG, we welcome another in the form of 1SG Jiggets. He has come to the RNCOA with an excellent resume. Also, he is no stranger to Fort Gordon, having served as a 1SG for the C Company, 551st Signal Battalion. He, his wife Jennifer, and their son Robert and daughter Sheila will move across post into what I expect will be one of their most rewarding assignments. 1SG Jiggets is known throughout

TS Eliot Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

TS Eliot - Essay Example Therefore, Eliot’s exertion on this particular poem has been considered commitment to religious poetic sensibility and spiritual consciousness. In the venerated poem, Eliot has emphasized on the significance of Magi’s journey to find baby Jesus, who is deemed to be Messiah. Thus, Magi’s spiritual quest; aimed to find a way for the emancipation of the world from materialism, has been depicted as uncertain. This uncertainty has been suggested as a core ingredient of conscious spiritism. Hence, Eliot has emphasized on the difficulties and persistent struggle a part of spiritual awakening, a way to attain spiritual identity (Eliot, 1953). Although, Eliot has been considered as an assorted leader of postmodern realism, but in this diverse piece; he has adapted a thought- evoking style and a vision of a spiritualist, who describes the impediments and bottleneck of the journey of redemption and inside gratification. His elusive style and bohemian repute called for sever e criticism on his Anglo-Catholic work. Thus, his former work earned him a repute of a non-believer of religion and their fundamental practices, and eventually a palpable critique of beliefs (Strandberg, 2002). In the journey of Magi, Eliot contemplated with the idea of human change, in terms of journey from physical being to spiritual beings, which was vague in the western world of 1920s. Thus, he depicted the struggle for divinity in the form of divine journey of accomplishment. In the age of secularism, Eliot identified the extinction and decline of spiritual survival. Therefore, he narrated his dogma through the eloquence of the quest for Messiah (Jesus). He regarded the need of a man to incline from the degeneration of modernism, which induced elopement of belief in man. Hence, through this belief which was found in the form of religious insight or realization; man was in a great need to revitalize spiritual consciousness. Moreover, pain and suffering which have been significan t parts of spiritual journey are disregarded by Eliot by the end of the poem due to uncertainty. Consequently, Eliot always felt that the religious beliefs were vanishing. Yet, he aimed to restore them in a narrative, which was not completely consistent on religious aspirations, but showed the uncertainty of human belief even in the presence of miracle. As change requires discarding of old beliefs and practices, hence, birth of Jesus and death of old beliefs and practices were depicted as infinite. However, the narrator describes his journey as excruciating and is in a consistent state of grief. Previously Eliot has depicted unworthiness towards the most prestigious earthly things in The Waste Land. Therefore, his famous unimpressive and un-charmed attitude towards charismatic ideology of modernism and skeptical view on the condition of modern man; was a first step towards the journey of spiritual identification (Eliot, 1990). Furthermore, he has also exemplified, how man and his li fe in society has been completely dominated by chaos. Eliot reflected the trauma stricken and despaired man due to the horrification of World War I, but along with it he also emphasized on man’s despair in not fulfilling the needs of his spiritual being. Spiritual being was marred due to the loss of faith and increased sterility of spiritual consciousness. In 1920’s the world turned around against religious fundamentalism of Victorianism and displayed eccentric manners in terms of vulgarity and expressiveness. Therefore, Western civilization collapsed