Monday, December 5, 2011

Music At Sac High Survey

Top 10 Hip-Hop Artist ( Rappers ) -



Aubrey Drake Graham was born on October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Ontario. He is the son of Dennis Graham, a drummer who worked with Jerry Lee Lewis, and Sandi Graham, an educator. Two of his uncles, Larry Graham and Teenie Hodges, are also musicians.Drake's father is an African American from Memphis, Tennessee, and Drake's mother is a white Jewish Canadian. He attended a Jewish day school and had a Bar Mitzvah. His parents divorced when he was five years old, and he was raised by his mother in Toronto's wealthy Forest Hill neighborhood. Drake attended high school at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, where he began acting, but did not graduate.He spent most summers with his father in Memphis.Drake stated that his parents' divorce greatly affected him as a person, saying, “I had to become a man very quickly and be the backbone for a woman who I love with all my heart, my mother."

  • Drake 45%
  • Lil Wayne 13%
  • J-Cole 7%
  • Wiz Khalifa 7%
  • Wale 3%
  • Mac Miller 8%
  • Tyler, The Creator 3%
  • Jay-Z 10%
  • Kanye West 9% 
  • Big Sean 5%


Lil Wayne was born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. and grew up in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. Carter was born when his mother, a chef, was 19 years old. His parents were divorced when he was 2, and his father permanently abandoned the family. Carter enrolled in the gifted program of Lafayette Elementary School and in the drama club of Eleanor McMain Secondary School.
He wrote his first rap song at age eight.In the summer of 1991, he met Bryan Williams, rapper and owner of Cash Money Records. Carter recorded freestyle raps on Williams's answering machine, leading him to mentor the young Carter and include him in Cash Money-distributed songs. He also recorded his first ever collaboration album True Story with rapper B.G.. At the time, Carter was 11, and B.G. was 14, and was billed as "The B.G.'z". When he was 12, he played the part of the Tin Man in his middle school drama club's production of The Wiz. At age 13, he accidentally shot himself with a 9 mm handgun, and off-duty police officer Robert Hoobler drove him to the hospital.At McMain Magnet School, Carter was an honor student, but he dropped out at the age of 14 to focus on a musical career.




Top 10 R&B ( Male ) Singers -



Tremaine "Trey" Aldon Neverson was born Tremaine Aldon Neverson on November 28, 1984, in Petersburg, Virginia. Raised as a military brat, Songz did not have aspirations to have a musical career as a child due to his shyness, saying "Singing wasn't a reality for me, until other people started noticing I sounded good." He recognized his vocal abilities at the age of 14. Reluctant to sing, he began performing with encouragement by friends and family in high school. Record producer Troy Taylor discovered Songz during a talent show in 2000, which led him to signing a recording contract with Atlantic Records in 2002.After graduating from high school in 2002, Songz moved to New Jersey to begin recording his debut album, though recording didn't actually begin until 2003.
  • Trey Songz 23%
  • Maxwell 12%
  • Pleasure P 6%
  • The Dream 3%
  • Ne-yo 12%
  • Jamie Foxx 4%
  • Chris Brown 22%
  • T-Pain 9%
  • Jerimiah 7%
  • Ryan Leslie 2%


Christopher Maurice Brown was born on May 5, 1989, in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, to Joyce Hawkins, a former day care center director, and Clinton Brown, a corrections officer at a local prison. The youngest child of the couple, he has an older sister, Lytrell Bundy, who works in a bank. Since his childhood, music was something which always had been present in Brown's life. He used to listen soul albums that his parents had owned, but eventually, Brown began to show interest in the hip-hop scene.
Brown taught himself to sing and dance at a young age, often citing Michael Jackson as his inspiration. He then began to perform in his church choir and in several local talent shows. While mimicking an Usher performance of My Way,his mother recognized his vocal talent and they began to look for opportunities of a record deal. At the age of 13, Brown was discovered by a local production team, Hitmission Records, who visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. Hitmission's Lamont Fleming provided voice coaching for Brown, and the team helped to arrange a demo package and approached contacts in New York to seek a record deal




Top 10 Pop ( Male ) Artist -



Justin Drew Bieber born March 1, 1994)is a Canadian pop/R&B singer, songwriter and actor.Bieber was discovered in 2008 by Scooter Braun,who came across Bieber's videos on YouTube and later became his manager. Braun arranged for him to meet with Usher in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bieber was soon signed to Raymond Braun Media Group (RBMG), a joint venture between Braun and Usher,and then to a recording contract with Island Records offered by L.A. Reid.Chris Hicks, Bieber's A&R at Island/Def Jam, explained the young artist's huge online following to HitQuarters by saying:




"He was doing something different. He was an attractive white kid singing very soulful R&B hits. That set him apart immediately from anyone in his range because no one was covering or singing these kind of records. But equally important was that you believed in these songs - it was real. And you wanted to hear more."
  • Ne-Yo 4%
  • Josh Turner 2%
  • Drake 13%
  • Chris Allen 2%
  • David Cook 2%
  • Keith Urban 2%
  • Jay-Z 12%
  • Justin Bieber 45%
  • Brad Paisley 3%
  • Jason Derulo 12%

Jason Joel Desrouleaux (born September 21, 1989), better known by his stage name Jason Derulo, was born in Miami, Florida His birth name is Desrouleaux, but he changed the spelling for his stage name to make it easier to pronounce.An American singer-songwriter, actor and dancer. After producing records for several artists and writing songs for Cash Money Records, co-founder of the label Birdman, Young Money Entertainment owner Lil Wayne and rapper Diddy, Derulo signed to minor recording label Beluga Heights. After Beluga Heights became part of the Warner Music Group, Derulo released his debut single, "Whatcha Say" in May 2009, which sold over five million digital downloads, gaining an RIAA certification of double platinum, and reaching number 1 in the US and New Zealand. Derulo released his second single, "In My Head", in December 2009. His debut album, Jason Derulo, was released in 2010.




Top 10 ( Female ) Hip-Hop / R&B artist -



Beyonce Giselle Knowles born September 4, 1981), often known simply as Beyonce, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time.Knowles' work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including 16 Grammy Awards, 11MTV Video Music Awards, a Billboard Millennium Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Destiny's Child. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Radio Songs Artist of the 2000s decade,and ranked her as the 4th overall Artist of the decade (and as the First Female Artist of that period).The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), also recognized Knowles as the Top Certified Artist of the 2000s. In the United States, Knowles has sold over 11.2 million albums and 25 million singles. She has also sold 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 2010, VH1 included Knowles on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
  • Beyonce 34%
  • Alicia Keys 21%
  • Rihanna 2%
  • Mary J. Blidge 4%
  • Melanie Fiona 3%
  • Monica 2%
  • Adele 13%
  • Nicki Minaj 12%
  • Sade 2%
  • Lady Gaga 6%

Onika Tanya Maraj (born December 8, 1982), better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; pronounced, is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist. She was born in Saint James,Trinidad and Tobago, but moved to the Queens borough of New York City at age five.
After releasing three mixtapes between 2007 and 2009 and being signed to Young Money Entertainment in August 2009, Minaj released, in November 2010, her debut album,Pink Friday, which quickly became a commercial success, peaking at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and being certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a month after its release. She became the first artist ever to have seven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time.Her second single, "Your Love", reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart, making Minaj the first female artist to top the chart unaccompanied since Missy Elliott accomplished it with Work It in 2002.She also became the first female artist to be included on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List. Due to the success of her debut album, Minaj was named the 2011 Rising Star by Billboard Magazine.




Top 10 ( Female ) Pop Artist -




She was born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins on May 5, 1988 in Enfield, North London. She came from a non-musical family but a very supportive one. Adele said that her mother used to set up a stage show for her in their own home with Adele being the performer and her mother's friends being the audience.
Like many teenagers swept with the Spice Girls fever in the '90s, Adele too liked to impersonate the all-girls band. She was also a fan of British singer Gabrielle whose songs she liked to cover. One day, her father's friend who happened to be a dance producer praised the color of her voice and thus Adele's spirit was lifted. 

She tried to cover Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and once she got a hold of a real mic, she knew it was her destiny to be a singer. "As soon as I got a microphone in my hand, when I was about 14, I realized I wanted to do this," she later on recalled. "Most people don't like the ...


  • Beyonce 21%
  • Adele 35%
  • Rihanna 2%
  • Brittney Spears 7%
  • Lady Gaga 2%
  • Katy Perry 4%
  • Tayler Swift 16%
  • Estelle 2%
  • Alicia Keys 5%
  • Hannah Montanna 5%

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country pop singer-songwriter, musician and actress.
In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw", then her self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released her second album, Fearless, and the recording earned Swift four Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, at the 52nd Grammy Awards. Fearless and Taylor Swiftfinished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. Fearless topped the Billboard 200 for 11 non-consecutive weeks. Swift was named Artist of the Yearby Billboard Magazine in 2009.Swift released her third album Speak Now on October 25, 2010, which sold 1,047,000 copies in its first week.

3 comments:

  1. This is great. I like how you had back round information on all the artists. No suggestions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great article, my favorites are Wale and Drake

    ReplyDelete
  3. I disagree with Sekina. Background info isn't needed. We need to know WHY students at Sac High listen to this music, what attracts them to it and how much they like the artist. Needs to be in article form/ interviews.

    ReplyDelete