title: Dielectric

text: Debye relaxation is the dielectric relaxation response of an ideal, noninteracting population of dipoles to an alternating external electric field. It is usually expressed in the complex permittivity "ε" of a medium as a function of the field's angular frequency "ω":


title: Dielectric

text: where "ε" is the permittivity at the high frequency limit, where "ε" is the static, low frequency permittivity, and "τ" is the characteristic relaxation time of the medium. Separating into the real part formula_9 and the imaginary part formula_10 of the complex dielectric permittivity yields:


title: Dielectric

text: Note that the above equation for formula_12is sometimes written with formula_13 in the denominator due to an ongoing sign convention ambiguity whereby many sources represent the time dependence of the complex electric field with formula_14 whereas others use formula_15. In the former convention, the functions formula_9 and formula_10 representing real and imaginary parts are given by formula_18 whereas in the latter convention formula_19. The above equation uses the latter convention.


title: Dielectric

text: This relaxation model was introduced by and named after the physicist Peter Debye (1913). It is characteristic for dynamic polarisation with only one relaxation time.


title: Dielectric

text: Paraelectricity is the nominal behaviour of dielectrics when the dielectric permittivity tensor is proportional to the unit matrix, i.e., an applied electric field causes polarisation and/or alignment of dipoles only parallel to the applied electric field. Contrary to the analogy with a paramagnetic material, no permanent electric dipole needs to exist in a paraelectric material. Removal of the fields results in the dipolar polarisation returning to zero. The mechanisms that causes paraelectric behaviour are distortion of individual ions (displacement of the electron cloud from the nucleus) and polarisation of molecules or combinations of ions or defects.


title: Dielectric

text: Paraelectricity can occur in crystal phases where electric dipoles are unaligned and thus have the potential to align in an external electric field and weaken it.


title: Dielectric

text: Most dielectric materials are paraelectrics. A specific example of a paraelectric material of high dielectric constant is strontium titanate.


title: Dielectric

text: The LiNbO crystal is ferroelectric below 1430 K, and above this temperature it transforms into a disordered paraelectric phase. Similarly, other perovskites also exhibit paraelectricity at high temperatures.


title: Dielectric

text: Paraelectricity has been explored as a possible refrigeration mechanism; polarising a paraelectric by applying an electric field under adiabatic process conditions raises the temperature, while removing the field lowers the temperature. A heat pump that operates by polarising the paraelectric, allowing it to return to ambient temperature (by dissipating the extra heat), bringing it into contact with the object to be cooled, and finally depolarising it, would result in refrigeration.


title: Dielectric

text: "Tunable dielectrics" are insulators whose ability to store electrical charge changes when a voltage is applied.


title: Dielectric

text: Generally, strontium titanate () is used for devices operating at low temperatures, while barium strontium titanate () substitutes for room temperature devices. Other potential materials include microwave dielectrics and carbon nanotube (CNT) composites.


title: Dielectric

text: In 2013, multi-sheet layers of strontium titanate interleaved with single layers of strontium oxide produced a dielectric capable of operating at up to 125 GHz. The material was created via molecular beam epitaxy. The two have mismatched crystal spacing that produces strain within the strontium titanate layer that makes it less stable and tunable.


title: Dielectric

text: Systems such as have a paraelectric–ferroelectric transition just below ambient temperature, providing high tunability. Films suffer significant losses arising from defects.


title: Dielectric

text: Commercially manufactured capacitors typically use a solid dielectric material with high permittivity as the intervening medium between the stored positive and negative charges. This material is often referred to in technical contexts as the "capacitor dielectric".


title: Dielectric

text: The most obvious advantage to using such a dielectric material is that it prevents the conducting plates, on which the charges are stored, from coming into direct electrical contact. More significantly, however, a high permittivity allows a greater stored charge at a given voltage. This can be seen by treating the case of a linear dielectric with permittivity "ε" and thickness "d" between two conducting plates with uniform charge density "σ". In this case the charge density is given by


title: Dielectric

text: From this, it can easily be seen that a larger "ε" leads to greater charge stored and thus greater capacitance.


title: Dielectric

text: Dielectric materials used for capacitors are also chosen such that they are resistant to ionisation. This allows the capacitor to operate at higher voltages before the insulating dielectric ionises and begins to allow undesirable current.


title: Dielectric

text: A "dielectric resonator oscillator" (DRO) is an electronic component that exhibits resonance of the polarisation response for a narrow range of frequencies, generally in the microwave band. It consists of a "puck" of ceramic that has a large dielectric constant and a low dissipation factor. Such resonators are often used to provide a frequency reference in an oscillator circuit. An unshielded dielectric resonator can be used as a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA).


title: Dielectric

text: From 2002 to 2004, the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL) conducted research on thin film technology. Barium strontium titanate (BST), a ferroelectric thin film, was studied for the fabrication of radio frequency and microwave components, such as voltage-controlled oscillators, tunable filters and phase shifters.


title: Dielectric

text: The research was part of an effort to provide the Army with highly-tunable, microwave-compatible materials for broadband electric-field tunable devices, which operate consistently in extreme temperatures. This work improved tunability of bulk barium strontium titanate, which is a thin film enabler for electronics components.


title: Dielectric

text: In a 2004 research paper, U.S. ARL researchers explored how small concentrations of acceptor dopants can dramatically modify the properties of ferroelectric materials such as BST.


title: Dielectric

text: Researchers "doped" BST thin films with magnesium, analyzing the "structure, microstructure, surface morphology and film/substrate compositional quality" of the result. The Mg doped BST films showed "improved dielectric properties, low leakage current, and good tunability", meriting potential for use in microwave tunable devices.


title: Dielectric

text: Dielectric materials can be solids, liquids, or gases. (A high vacuum can also be a useful, nearly lossless dielectric even though its relative dielectric constant is only unity.)


title: Dielectric

text: Solid dielectrics are perhaps the most commonly used dielectrics in electrical engineering, and many solids are very good insulators. Some examples include porcelain, glass, and most plastics. Air, nitrogen and sulfur hexafluoride are the three most commonly used gaseous dielectrics.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type of financial fraud. For example, a lawyer might embezzle funds from the trust accounts of their clients; a financial advisor might embezzle the funds of investors; and a husband or a wife might embezzle funds from a bank account jointly held with the spouse.


title: Embezzlement

text: The term "embezzlement" is often used in informal speech to mean theft of money, usually from an organization or company such as an employer.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzlement is usually a premeditated crime, performed methodically, with precautions that conceal the criminal conversion of the property, which occurs without the knowledge or consent of the affected person. Often it involves the trusted individual embezzling only a small proportion of the total of the funds or resources they receive or control, in an attempt to minimize the risk of the detection of the misallocation of the funds or resources. When successful, embezzlement may continue for many years without detection.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzlement is not always a form of theft or an act of stealing, since those definitions specifically deal with taking something that does not belong to the perpetrators. Instead, embezzlement is, more generically, an act of deceitfully secreting assets by one or more persons that have been "entrusted" with such assets. The persons entrusted with such assets may or may not have an ownership stake in such assets.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzlement differs from larceny in three ways. First, in embezzlement, an actual "conversion" must occur; second, the original taking must not be trespassory, and third, in penalties. To say that the taking was not trespassory is to say that the persons performing the embezzlement had the right to possess, use or access the assets in question, and that such persons subsequently secreted and converted the assets for an unintended or unsanctioned use. "Conversion" requires that the secretion interfere with the property, rather than just relocate it. As in larceny, the measure is not the gain to the embezzler, but the loss to the asset stakeholders. An example of "conversion" is when a person logs checks in a check register or transaction log as being used for one specific purpose and then explicitly uses the funds from the checking account for another and completely different purpose.


title: Embezzlement

text: When embezzlement occurs as a form of theft, distinguishing between embezzlement and larceny can be tricky. Making the distinction is particularly difficult when dealing with misappropriations of property by employees. To prove embezzlement, the state must show that the employee had possession of the goods "by virtue of his or her employment"; that is, that the employee had formally delegated authority to exercise substantial control over the goods. Typically, in determining whether the employee had sufficient control the courts will look at factors such as the job title, job description and the particular operational practices of the firm or organization. For example, the manager of a shoe department at a department store would likely have sufficient control over the store's inventory (as head of the shoe department) of shoes; that if they converted the goods to their own use they would be guilty of embezzlement. On the other hand, if the same employee were to steal cosmetics from the cosmetics department of the store, the crime would not be embezzlement but larceny. For a case that exemplifies the difficulty of distinguishing larceny and embezzlement see "State v. Weaver", 359 N.C. 246; 607 S.E.2d 599 (2005).


title: Embezzlement

text: North Carolina appellate courts have compounded this confusion by misinterpreting a statute based on an act passed by parliament in 1528. The North Carolina courts interpreted this statute as creating an offence called "larceny by employee"; an offence that was separate and distinct from common law larceny. However, as Perkins notes, the purpose of the statute was not to create a new offence but was merely to confirm that the acts described in the statute met the elements of common law larceny.


title: Embezzlement

text: The statute served the purpose of the then North Carolina colony as an indentured servant and slave-based political economy. It ensured that an indentured servant (or anyone bound to service of labour to a master, e.g., a slave) would owe to their master their labour; and, if they left their indentured service or bound labour unlawfully, the labour they produced, either for themselves (i.e., self-employed), or for anyone else, would be the converted goods that they unlawfully took, from the rightful owner, their master.


title: Embezzlement

text: Crucially (and this can be seen as the purpose of the statute), any subsequent employer of such an indentured servant or slave, who was in fact bound to service of labour to a pre-existing master, would be chargeable with misprision of a felony (if it was proved they knew that the employee was still indentured to a master, or owned as a slave); and chargeable as an accessory after the fact, in the felony, with the servant or slave; in helping them, by employing them, in unlawfully taking that which was lawfully bound (through the master–servant relationship) in exclusive right, to the master of the indentured servant or slave.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzlement sometimes involves falsification of records in order to conceal the activity. Embezzlers commonly secrete relatively small amounts repeatedly, in a systematic or methodical manner, over a long period of time, although some embezzlers secrete one large sum at once. Some very successful embezzlement schemes have continued for many years before being detected due to the skill of the embezzler in concealing the nature of the transactions or their skill in gaining the trust and confidence of investors or clients, who are then reluctant to "test" the embezzler's trustworthiness by forcing a withdrawal of funds.


title: Embezzlement

text: Embezzling should not be confused with skimming, which is under-reporting income and pocketing the difference. For example, in 2005, several managers of the service provider Aramark were found to be under-reporting profits from a string of vending machine locations in the eastern United States. While the amount stolen from each machine was relatively small, the total amount taken from many machines over a length of time was very large. A technique employed by many small-time embezzlers can be covered by falsifying the records. (For example, by removing a small amount of money and falsifying the record the register would be consistent, while the manager would remove the profit and leave the float in; this method would effectively make the register short for the next user and throw the blame onto them.)


title: Embezzlement

text: Another method is to create a false vendor account and supply false bills to the company being embezzled so that the checks that are cut appear completely legitimate. Yet another method is to create phantom employees, who are then paid with payroll checks.


title: Embezzlement

text: The latter two methods should be uncovered by routine audits, but often are not if the audit is not sufficiently in-depth, because the paperwork appears to be in order. A publicly traded company must change auditors and audit companies every five years. The first method is easier to detect if all transactions are by cheque or other instrument, but if many transactions are in cash, it is much more difficult to identify. Employers have developed a number of strategies to deal with this problem. In fact, cash registers were invented just for this reason.


title: Embezzlement

text: Some of the most complex (and potentially most lucrative) forms of embezzlement involve Ponzi-like financial schemes where high returns to early investors are paid out of funds received from later investors duped into believing they are themselves receiving entry into a high-return investment scheme. The Madoff investment scandal is an example of this kind of high-level embezzlement scheme, where it is alleged that $65 billion was siphoned off from gullible investors and financial institutions.


title: Embezzlement

text: Internal controls such as separation of duties are common defences against embezzlement. For example, at a movie theatre (cinema), the task of accepting money and admitting customers into the theatre is typically broken up into two jobs. One employee sells the ticket, and another employee takes the ticket and lets the customer into the theatre. Because a ticket cannot be printed without entering the sale into the computer (or, in earlier times, without using up a serial-numbered printed ticket), and the customer cannot enter the theatre without a ticket, both of these employees would have to collude in order for embezzlement to go undetected. This significantly reduces the chance of theft, because of the added difficulty in arranging such a conspiracy and the likely need to split the proceeds between the two employees, which reduces the payoff for each.


title: Embezzlement

text: Another obvious method to deter embezzlement is to regularly and unexpectedly move funds from one advisor or entrusted person to another when the funds are supposed to be available for withdrawal or use, to ensure that the "full amount" of the funds is available and no fraction of the savings has been embezzled by the person to whom the funds or savings have been entrusted.


title: Embezzlement

text: In 2020, 37% of employee fraud happened because of a lack of internal controls or lack of independent checks and audits, 18% by overriding internal controls, 18% from lack of management review, 10% from a poor tone set by top managers, and 17% from other causes.


title: Embezzlement

text: The former offences of embezzlement are replaced by the new offence of theft, contrary to section 1 of the Theft Act 1968.


title: Embezzlement

text: In the United States, embezzlement is a statutory offence that, depending on the circumstances, may be a crime under state law, federal law, or both, with the definition of the crime of embezzlement varying according to the statutes of the jurisdiction in which charges are filed. Typical elements of the crime of embezzlement are the fraudulent conversion of the property of another person by the person who has lawful possession of the property.


title: Embezzlement

text: In 2005–2009 the United States had 18,000 to 22,000 arrests for embezzlement per year, and 13,500 arrests in 2019. A 2009 journal article reported estimates that three quarters of medical professionals would suffer from embezzlement at least once in their career.


title: Embezzlement

text: In 2018 the average embezzlement stole $360,000. The estimated losses in 2005–2009 (including the many with no arrest) were $400 billion per year. In 2018 companies brought charges in 45% of cases.


title: Embezzlement

text: 85% of incidents involved an embezzler who was a manager or higher. The average incident involved three embezzlers, and 79% of incidents involved more than one embezzler. 70% of cases went undetected for over a year, and 31% lasted over three years. The average embezzler had worked at the company for eight years. 39% of financial professionals who experienced embezzlements had experienced a prior incident of it. After the embezzlement, only 26% of companies added security and audit requirements, 27% increased spending on audits, and 29% reviewed their anti-fraud controls frequently. However 97% of companies which had experienced embezzlement were "confident the anti-fraud controls in place ... would prevent future embezzlement".


title: Anasuya Bharadwaj

text: Anasuya Bharadwaj (born 15 May 1985) is an Indian television presenter and actress who works in Telugu films and television. She has received two South Indian International Movie Awards, an IIFA Utsavam Award and South filmfare Awards for her performances in the films "Kshanam" (2016) and "Rangasthalam" (2018).


title: Anasuya Bharadwaj

text: Bharadwaj received her MBA from Badruka College in 2008, after which she worked as an HR executive. Refusing a lot of early movie offers, she worked as a TV anchor for Sakshi TV.


title: Anasuya Bharadwaj

text: After working as a news presenter for Sakshi TV, Bharadwaj worked as an anchor on Maa music. She worked as a dubbing artist for the films "Vedam" and "Paisa". She, later on, appeared as a TV anchor on "Jabardasth", a comedy show. The show elevated her career. In 2016, She acted in film "Soggade Chinni Nayana" opposite to Nagarjuna. Later, in the same year, she made her debut with "Kshanam" in which she portrayed a negative lead role. As a known anchor, Bharadwaj has hosted many awards shows, like Zee Kutumbam Awards and Star Parivaar Awards, and she has hosted Okarikokaru Awards on Zee Telugu three times. She has performed at the Apsara awards function and GAMA Awards Dubai. She hosted Devi Sri Prasad's US concert. She acted as Rangamatta in "Rangasthalam" that was well acclaimed. In "", she acted as Dakshayini that pushed her career further up.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: In computer science, a tree is a widely used abstract data type that represents a hierarchical tree structure with a set of connected nodes. Each node in the tree can be connected to many children (depending on the type of tree), but must be connected to exactly one parent, except for the "root" node, which has no parent. These constraints mean there are no cycles or "loops" (no node can be its own ancestor), and also that each child can be treated like the root node of its own subtree, making recursion a useful technique for tree traversal. In contrast to linear data structures, many trees cannot be represented by relationships between neighboring nodes in a single straight line.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Binary trees are a commonly used type, which constrain the number of children for each parent to exactly two. When the order of the children is specified, this data structure corresponds to an ordered tree in graph theory. A value or pointer to other data may be associated with every node in the tree, or sometimes only with the "leaf nodes", which have no children.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: The abstract data type can be represented in a number of ways, including a list of parents with pointers to children, a list of children with pointers to parents, or a list of nodes and a separate list of parent-child relations (a specific type of adjacency list). Representations might also be more complicated, for example using indexes or ancestor lists for performance.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Trees as used in computing are similar to but can be different from mathematical constructs of trees in graph theory, trees in set theory, and trees in descriptive set theory.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: JSON and YAML documents can be thought of as trees, but are typically represented by nested lists and dictionaries.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: A node is a structure which may contain data and connections to other nodes, sometimes called edges or links. Each node in a tree has zero or more child nodes, which are below it in the tree (by convention, trees are drawn with "descendants" going downwards). A node that has a child is called the child's parent node (or superior). All nodes have exactly one parent, except the topmost root node, which has none. A node might have many ancestor nodes, such as the parent's parent. Child nodes with the same parent are sibling nodes. Typically siblings have an order, with the first one conventionally drawn on the left. Some definitions allow a tree to have no nodes at all, in which case it is called "empty".


title: Tree (data structure)

text: An internal node (also known as an inner node, inode for short, or branch node) is any node of a tree that has child nodes. Similarly, an external node (also known as an outer node, leaf node, or terminal node) is any node that does not have child nodes.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: The height of a node is the length of the longest downward path to a leaf from that node. The height of the root is the height of the tree. The depth of a node is the length of the path to its root (i.e., its "root path"). When using zero-based counting, the root node has depth zero, leaf nodes have height zero, and a tree with only a single node (hence both a root and leaf) has depth and height zero. Conventionally, an empty tree (tree with no nodes, if such are allowed) has height −1.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Each non-root node can be treated as the root node of its own subtree, which includes that node and all its descendants.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Stepping through the items of a tree, by means of the connections between parents and children, is called walking the tree, and the action is a "walk" of the tree. Often, an operation might be performed when a pointer arrives at a particular node. A walk in which each parent node is traversed before its children is called a pre-order walk; a walk in which the children are traversed before their respective parents are traversed is called a post-order walk; a walk in which a node's left subtree, then the node itself, and finally its right subtree are traversed is called an in-order traversal. (This last scenario, referring to exactly two subtrees, a left subtree and a right subtree, assumes specifically a binary tree.) A level-order walk effectively performs a breadth-first search over the entirety of a tree; nodes are traversed level by level, where the root node is visited first, followed by its direct child nodes and their siblings, followed by its grandchild nodes and their siblings, etc., until all nodes in the tree have been traversed.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: There are many different ways to represent trees. In working memory, nodes are typically dynamically allocated records with pointers to their children, their parents, or both, as well as any associated data. If of a fixed size, the nodes might be stored in a list. Nodes and relationships between nodes might be stored in a separate special type of adjacency list. In relational databases, nodes are typically represented as table rows, with indexed row IDs facilitating pointers between parents and children.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Nodes can also be stored as items in an array, with relationships between them determined by their positions in the array (as in a binary heap).


title: Tree (data structure)

text: A binary tree can be implemented as a list of lists: the head of a list (the value of the first term) is the left child (subtree), while the tail (the list of second and subsequent terms) is the right child (subtree). This can be modified to allow values as well, as in Lisp S-expressions, where the head (value of first term) is the value of the node, the head of the tail (value of second term) is the left child, and the tail of the tail (list of third and subsequent terms) is the right child.


title: Tree (data structure)

text: As an abstract data type, the abstract tree type with values of some type is defined, using the abstract forest type (list of trees), by the functions:


title: Tree (data structure)

text: In terms of type theory, a tree is an inductive type defined by the constructors (empty forest) and (tree with root node with given value and children).


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Viewed as a whole, a tree data structure is an ordered tree, generally with values attached to each node. Concretely, it is (if required to be non-empty):


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Often trees have a fixed (more properly, bounded) branching factor (outdegree), particularly always having two child nodes (possibly empty, hence "at most" two "non-empty" child nodes), hence a "binary tree".


title: Tree (data structure)

text: Allowing empty trees makes some definitions simpler, some more complicated: a rooted tree must be non-empty, hence if empty trees are allowed the above definition instead becomes "an empty tree or a rooted tree such that ...". On the other hand, empty trees simplify defining fixed branching factor: with empty trees allowed, a binary tree is a tree such that every node has exactly two children, each of which is a tree (possibly empty). The complete sets of operations on the tree must include the fork operation.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: Sichuan pepper (), also known as Szechuan pepper, Szechwan pepper, Chinese prickly ash, Chinese pepper, Timut pepper and mala pepper, is a spice commonly used in Sichuan cuisine. Despite its name, Sichuan pepper is not closely related to black pepper or chili peppers. It is made from plants of the genus "Zanthoxylum" in the family Rutaceae, which includes citrus and rue.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: When eaten, Sichuan pepper produces a tingling, numbing effect due to the presence of hydroxy-alpha sanshool. The spice has the effect of transforming other flavors tasted together or shortly after. It is used in Sichuan dishes such as "mapo doufu" and Chongqing hot pot, and is often added together with chili peppers to create a flavor known as "málà" (; "numb-spiciness").


title: Sichuan pepper

text: Sichuan peppers have been used for culinary and medicinal purposes in China for centuries with numerous "Zanthoxylum" species are called "huājiāo" (lit. "flower pepper"). Commonly used sichuan peppers in China include "hónghuājiāo" (), or red Sichuan peppercorns, which are harvested from "Zanthoxylum bungeanum", and "qīnghuājiāo" () or "májiāo" (), green Sichuan peppercorns, harvested from "Zanthoxylum armatum". Fresh green Sichuan peppercorns are also known as "téngjiāo" (). Red Sichuan pepper is typically characterized as stronger-tasting, while green Sichuan pepper is milder but fragrant and has a stronger numbing effect. Over the years Chinese farmers have cultivated multiple strains of these two varieties. "Zanthoxylum simulans", known as Chinese-pepper or flatspine prickly-ash, is the source of another red Sichuan peppercorn.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: "Zanthoxylum armatum", is found throughout the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Bhutan, as well as in Taiwan, Nepal, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, and Pakistan, and is known by a variety of regional names including "timur" () in Nepali and Hindko, "yer ma" () in Tibetan and "thingye" in Bhutan.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: "Zanthoxylum" species are harvested for spice and season production in a number of cultures and culinary traditions. These spices include andaliman, chopi, sancho, sanshō, teppal and tirphal.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: Sichuan pepper is an important spice in Chinese, Nepali, Kashmiri, Tibetan, and Bhutanese cookery of the Himalayas. Sichuan pepper has a citrus-like flavor and induces a tingling numbness, akin to a 50-hertz vibration, in the mouth due to the presence of hydroxy-alpha sanshool. Food historian Harold McGee describes the effect of sanshools thus:


title: Sichuan pepper

text: While whole, green, freshly picked Sichuan pepper may be used in cooking, the dried Sichuan pepper is more commonly used. Once dried, the shiny black seeds inside the husk are discarded (they are hard and tasteless), along with any stems; the husk is what we know as Sichuan pepper or peppercorn.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: The peppercorn may be used whole or finely ground, as it is in five-spice powder. "Ma la" sauce (; literally "numbing and spicy"), common in Sichuan cooking, is a combination of Sichuan pepper and chili pepper, and it is a key ingredient in Chongqing hot pot. Sichuan pepper is also occasionally used in pastries such as Jiāo Yán Bǐng.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: Sichuan pepper is also available as an oil (, marketed as either "Sichuan pepper oil", "Bunge prickly ash oil", or "huajiao oil"). Sichuan pepper infused oil can be used in dressing, dipping sauces, or any dish in which the flavor of the peppercorn is desired without the texture of the peppercorns themselves.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: "Hua jiao yan" () is a mixture of salt and Sichuan pepper, toasted and browned in a wok, and served as a condiment to accompany chicken, duck, and pork dishes.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: One Himalayan specialty is the "momo", a dumpling stuffed with vegetables, cottage cheese, or minced yak or beef, and flavored with Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger, and onion. In Nepal, the "mala" flavor is known as "timur" (टिमुर).


title: Sichuan pepper

text: In Traditional Chinese Medicine, "Zanthoxylum bungeanum" has been used as a herbal remedy, listed in the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China and prescribed for ailments as various as abdominal pain, toothache, and eczema. However, Szechuan pepper has no indications or accepted case for use in evidence-based medicine. Research has revealed that "Z. bungeanum" can have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antioxidant effects in model animals and cell cultures. In rabbits, "Z. armatum" was experimentally investigated for its potential use in treating gastrointestinal, respiratory and cardiovascular disorders.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: From 1968 to 2005, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned the importation of Sichuan peppercorns because they were found to be capable of carrying citrus canker (as the tree is in the same family, Rutaceae, as the genus "Citrus"). This bacterial disease, which is very difficult to control, could potentially harm the foliage and fruit of citrus crops in the U.S. The import ban was only loosely enforced until 2002.


title: Sichuan pepper

text: In 2005, the USDA and FDA allowed import, provided the peppercorns were heated for ten minutes to approximately to kill any canker bacteria. Starting in 2007, the USDA no longer required peppercorns to be heated, fully ending the import ban on peppercorns.


title: Donna Dixon

text: Donna Lynn Dixon is an American film and television actress, best known for playing Sonny Lumet in the TV series "Bosom Buddies" (1980-1982).


title: Donna Dixon

text: Dixon was born in Alexandria, Virginia, to Earl Dixon. Her father owned a nightclub in Lorton, Virginia, on U.S. 1 called Hillbilly Heaven.


title: Donna Dixon

text: Dixon began her career as a model and was named Miss Virginia USA in 1976 and Miss District of Columbia World in 1977. She competed in both Miss USA 1976 and Miss World USA 1977.


title: Donna Dixon

text: On television, Dixon portrayed Allison Hayes in the NBC drama "Berringer's". She co-starred with Tom Hanks in the early 1980s situation comedy "Bosom Buddies", playing the role of Sonny Lumet.


title: Donna Dixon

text: Months after they worked together in the film "Doctor Detroit" (1983), Dixon and actor Dan Aykroyd married. They later starred together in the films "" (1983) (though they did not share any scenes), "Spies Like Us" (1985) and "The Couch Trip" (1988). Dixon and Aykroyd have three daughters, including Danielle, known by her stage name Vera Sola. The couple announced in April 2022 that they were separating after 39 years of marriage, but would remain legally married.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Robert Lyle Knepper (born July 8, 1959) is an American actor best known for his role as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox drama series "Prison Break" (2005–2009, 2017), Samuel Sullivan in the final season of the NBC series "Heroes" (2009–2010), Angus McDonough in The CW series "iZombie" (2015–2018) and Rodney Mitchum in Showtime's revival of "Twin Peaks" (2017). He has also appeared in films such as "Hitman" (2007), "Transporter 3" (2008) and "" (2016).


title: Robert Knepper

text: Knepper was born in Fremont, Ohio, and raised in Maumee, Ohio, the son of Pat Deck and Donald Knepper, a veterinarian. He was interested in acting from an early age, due to his mother's involvement as a props-handler at a community theater. After graduating from Maumee High School in 1977, he attended Northwestern University; during this time, Knepper also obtained professional roles in plays in Chicago. Nearing the completion of his degree, Knepper quit Northwestern and went to New York City, where he continued to work in theater.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Although Knepper never intended to work in film and television projects, he began his television and film career in 1986 with "The Paper Chase" and "That's Life!". Knepper went on to have larger roles in such films as "Wild Thing", "Young Guns II", "When the Bough Breaks" and "Everyone Says I Love You". He made appearances on such television series as "The Twilight Zone", "", "ER" and "Law & Order". In 2005, after a recurring role on the HBO series "Carnivàle", Knepper was cast in his best-known role, as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in "Prison Break". The series received positive reviews upon release, and "T-Bag" is often considered to be one of the greatest television villains of all time. During his time on "Prison Break", Knepper also starred in a number of films; "Good Night, and Good Luck", "Hitman", "Transporter 3" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still".


title: Robert Knepper

text: After "Prison Break" ended in 2009, Knepper was cast as villain Samuel Sullivan in the fourth and final season of "Heroes". After this, he went on to have a recurring role in "Stargate Universe" in 2010. He guest-starred on season six of "Criminal Minds" as Rhett Walden, a serial killer. The same year he played the titular character in the film adaptation of "Burning Daylight".


title: Robert Knepper

text: In addition, Knepper appeared as Honolulu Police Internal Affairs detective Rex Coughlin in two episodes of "Hawaii Five-0".


title: Robert Knepper

text: In 2011, he reprised his role of T-Bag in one episode of the A&E series "Breakout Kings". The next year, he played Frank Sinatra in "My Way", a biopic of Claude François, a French pop singer who wrote the song "Comme d'habitude", the original version of Sinatra's song "My Way".


title: Robert Knepper

text: Knepper was cast in the 2013 television series "Cult" as Roger Reeves, an actor playing Billy Grimm on a show called Cult. The show was canceled after only one season. The same year, he appeared in "R.I.P.D.", "" and guest starred on the television series "The Blacklist" (episode: "The Courier"). At the end of 2013, the TNT series "Mob City" premiered, in which Knepper played gangster Sid Rothman. In 2014, Knepper guest starred in episodes of "Arrow" and "The Flash" as master hacker and time-and-motion study expert William Tockman / Clock King.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Since 2015, Knepper has had a recurring role on "iZombie" as Angus McDonough, the estranged and abusive father of Blaine DeBeers (David Anders). It was announced in July 2017 that Knepper would be promoted to the show's main cast for season 4.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Knepper was cast in the reboot of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" as gangster Rodney Mitchum. He later voiced the audiobook adaptation for the tie-in epistolary novel of the show called "The Secret History of Twin Peaks".


title: Robert Knepper

text: Knepper has a son, Benjamin Peter (born 2002), with his first wife, Tory Herald. He married his second wife, Nadine Kary, in 2013.


title: Robert Knepper

text: On November 8, 2017, costume designer Susan Bertram accused Knepper of sexual assault on the set of the film "Gas Food Lodging" in 1991. Knepper denied the allegations in a since-deleted Instagram post. On February 28, 2018, Bertram's lawyers announced she was filing a defamation lawsuit against Knepper in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the wake of his denials, seeking damages in a jury trial. Knepper's lawyers denied that he defamed Bertram. On June 1, 2021, Bertram's attorney announced that the lawsuit had been settled; the terms have not been publicized.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Four additional allegations taking place between 1983 and 2013 were made by women against Knepper on December 5, 2017, including an accusation of rape in Vancouver in 2010. All of the allegations were denied by Knepper.


title: Robert Knepper

text: Late in 2017, in the wake of these accusations, The CW conducted an internal inquiry. Finding no evidence of misconduct transpiring on the set, it was announced he would be remaining on "iZombie". On January 12, 2018, it was announced that the studio had conducted a second investigation. CW president Mark Pedowitz stated, "Again, the investigation related to the set and his behavior on the set. They found no wrongdoing on the set." Pedowitz elaborated that Knepper had signed on for a single season and that his exit from the series had already been planned.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Jonathan Taylor (born January 19, 1999) is an American football running back for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). Taylor played high school football at Salem High School, where he set the New Jersey state rushing yards record. He played college football at Wisconsin, finishing his college career as the sixth all-time rusher in the NCAA and the first player in history to rush for more than 6,000 yards in any three-year span. Taylor finished in the top ten of Heisman Trophy voting three times. Following each of the 2018 and 2019 seasons, he was named a unanimous first-team All-American and recipient of the Doak Walker Award, the award for the top running back in college football. Taylor was selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft with the 41st pick by the Colts. With the Colts, Taylor led the NFL in both rushing yards and touchdowns in 2021, becoming a unanimous All-Pro and Pro Bowler in the same season.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was born in Salem, New Jersey to Elizabeth Taylor and Jonathan James. His father played basketball for San Francisco State from 1982 to 1986. Taylor attended Salem High School. During his high-school football career, he amassed 4,642 rushing yards and 51 touchdowns. As a senior, he set the New Jersey record with 2,815 rushing yards, which had been held by former Wisconsin Badgers running back Corey Clement. In his senior season, Taylor averaged 234.6 yards a game, rushing for 35 touchdowns and scoring 37 total touchdowns. During his senior year, he was honored with the Jim Henry Award as the high-school area player of the year for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Taylor was also an accomplished performer in track and field, and he won two state titles in the 100-meter dash, his best time being 10.49 seconds.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: 247Sports rated Taylor as a three-star prospect and the 24th-highest ranked running back in the class of 2017. He committed to play college football at Rutgers University but later changed it to the University of Wisconsin–Madison on November 1, 2016.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: After fall camp, Taylor opened his freshman year at Wisconsin in 2017 as one of the team's starting running backs alongside Shaw and James. In his first career game against Utah State, he rushed for 87 yards over nine carries and a touchdown. In his second game, against Florida Atlantic, he rushed for 223 yards and three touchdowns. After Taylor ran for 249 yards against Nebraska in the fifth game of the season, he entered the Heisman Trophy conversation and was routinely listed among the top-five Heisman candidates. In the following game, Taylor had 30 carries for 219 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown against Purdue in a 17–9 victory.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: On October 21, 2017, Taylor reached the 1,000-yard rushing mark in his seventh game, matching the FBS freshman record for fewest games to reach 1,000 yards; the previous backs to accomplish this feat were Florida's Emmitt Smith (1987), San Diego State's Marshall Faulk (1991), Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson (2004), North Texas' Jamario Thomas (2004) and Wisconsin's P. J. Hill (2006). Taylor rushed for 183 yards on 29 carries with a touchdown in Wisconsin's 45–17 win over Indiana on November 4, winning his fifth Big Ten Freshman of the Week award.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: On October 30, Taylor was named a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award. On November 17, he was named a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award given to the top running back in the country. Just three days later, he was named one of three Doak Walker Award finalists, along with Penn State's Saquon Barkley and Stanford's Bryce Love. Following the final game of the season against Wisconsin's rival Minnesota, Taylor won his eighth Big Ten Freshman of the Week award. He set a new Big Ten record as he surpassed Ohio State quarterback J. T. Barrett's record of seven Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards set in 2013. Taylor was listed as a consensus first-team All-Big Ten pick by the Big Ten coaches and media on November 27, 2017, and was named the conference's freshman of the year. He finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor finished his freshman season with 1,977 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, finishing second all-time in rushing yards among FBS freshmen, behind fellow Wisconsin running back Ron Dayne (2,109 yards in 1996). The NCAA does not include bowl-game stats for the period Dayne played, so Taylor is the official record holder for freshman rushing yards. Taylor led the Big Ten in rushing yards, while finishing third in the FBS in rushing yards and second in the Big Ten in rushing touchdowns behind Barkley. He helped the Badgers to a school-record-setting 13 wins, an appearance in the 2017 Big Ten Championship Game, and a victory over Miami (FL) in the Orange Bowl.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor entered the 2018 season as a consensus preseason All-American and was featured on watch lists for the Maxwell Award, the Doak Walker Award, and the Walter Camp Award. Taylor's return, as well as those of many other key members of the 2017 Orange Bowl-winning Wisconsin team, led the Badgers to become ranked fourth in the preseason AP Poll, tied for the highest start in school history. He was the seventh-ranked college football player by ESPN during the preseason.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor started off the season with 18 carries for 145 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in a 34–3 victory over Western Kentucky. In the second game, Taylor set a career-high with 253 rushing yards, to go along with three touchdowns, in a 45–14 win over New Mexico. He was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for his performance. Taylor again eclipsed the 200-yard mark when he put up 221 yards and three touchdowns on 24 attempts (9.1 yards per attempt) against Nebraska on October 6. However, the Badgers faltered, losing five regular-season games and soon falling out of the rankings. On November 3, Taylor had 27 carries for 208 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns in a 31–17 victory over Rutgers. In a triple-overtime win over Purdue on November 17, he put up a career-high 321 yards and three touchdowns. The game earned him his fourth career Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors (shared that week with Dwayne Haskins). Wisconsin, 7–5 in the regular season, earned an invitation to the Pinstripe Bowl against Miami (FL) in a rematch of the previous year's Orange Bowl. Taylor put up 205 rushing yards and a touchdown in the game, helping the Badgers to a 35–3 win and earning game MVP honors.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: During the 2018 season, Taylor led the FBS in rushing yards (2,194) and attempts (307), finishing in the top ten for yards per attempt (7.1) and rushing touchdowns (16). He finished ninth in Heisman Trophy voting. He received the Doak Walker Award, given annually to college football's top running back. Taylor was named a unanimous first-team All-American, first-team All-Big Ten, and Big Ten Running Back of the Year. He became the third Badger running back to eclipse the 2,000-yard mark, following Ron Dayne and Melvin Gordon.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was a unanimous preseason All-American heading into the 2019 season and was widely considered a preseason Heisman Trophy candidate. In Wisconsin's opening game against South Florida, Taylor rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns and added two touchdown receptions through the air. He became the first Big Ten player to record two rushing and receiving touchdowns in the same game since 2010, and was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week. In a Week 4 victory over No. 11 Michigan, Taylor rushed for 203 yards and two touchdowns, becoming the first Wisconsin player to rush for 200 yards against the Wolverines. He earned his sixth career Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors for the performance. On November 9, against Iowa, he had 31 carries for 250 rushing yards in the 24–22 victory. In a November 16 game against Nebraska, Taylor rushed for 204 yards and two touchdowns, and in the process broke Herschel Walker’s record for the most rushing yards through a junior season. He was named Big Ten Co-Offensive Player of the Week (along with Shea Patterson), his fourth Player of the Week honors of the season. The next week, against Purdue, Taylor accomplished his FBS-record-setting 12th career 200-yard game.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor and the Badgers represented the West Division in the Big Ten Championship Game, but fell to Ohio State 34–21. The team was invited to the Rose Bowl to play Pac-12 champion Oregon, losing 28–27, to end the year at 10–4. Taylor finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2019. During the Rose Bowl, Taylor eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark for the season and became the second FBS player with two 2,000-yard seasons (following Troy Davis). Taylor finished the season tied atop the Big Ten and tied for third nationally with Ohio State's J. K. Dobbins in both rushing yards and rushing touchdowns; each had 2,003 yards and 21 touchdowns. For the second consecutive year, Taylor was named a unanimous first-team All-American, first-team All-Big Ten, and the Big Ten Running Back of the Year. He was again the recipient of the Doak Walker Award, becoming the first player to win the award twice since Darren McFadden did so in 2006 and 2007.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: On January 3, 2020, it was announced that Taylor would skip his senior season, and enlist in the that years draft. Taylor ended his college career at fourth on the all-time FBS rushing-yards list, sixth all time when bowl games are included, with 6,174 yards.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft with the 41st pick by the Indianapolis Colts, who had acquired the pick from the Cleveland Browns in a trade. Michael Renner of Pro Football Focus ranked Taylor as being in the best situation to succeed with the Colts.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was named the Colts backup running back to starter Marlon Mack at the start of the season. Taylor made his NFL debut in Week 1 of the 2020 season against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He had nine rushing attempts for 22 rushing yards and six receptions for 67 receiving yards in the 27–20 loss. The day after the game, it was revealed that Mack had suffered a torn achilles tendon, leaving Taylor in the starting position at running back for the remainder of the season. The following week against the Minnesota Vikings, he had 26 attempts for 101 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown in the 28–11 victory. In Week 6 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Taylor recorded 115 yards from scrimmage during the 31–27 win. He was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list by the team on November 28, 2020, and activated on December 2. In Week 13 against the Houston Texans, Taylor recorded 135 yards from scrimmage and a receiving touchdown during the 26–20 win. In Week 14 against the Las Vegas Raiders, Taylor rushed for 150 yards, a then career-long 62-yard rush and two touchdowns during the 44–27 win. In Week 16, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he recorded two rushing touchdowns in the 28–24 loss. Taylor had a career game in Week 17, picking up 253 yards and two touchdowns, which tied for ninth all time rushing yards in a game, and surpassing Edgerrin James for the Colts franchise record in a game, as he surpassed 1,000 yards on the season and the Colts defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 28–14. Taylor won FedEx Ground Player of the Week in that game, with more yards and yards per carry than Derrick Henry that week. He finished the regular season with 232 rushing attempts for 1,169 yards, 11 touchdowns, with only one fumble. He finished third in the league in rushing yards behind Dalvin Cook and Derrick Henry. Taylor was named the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month for his performance in December. For his season, Taylor was also named to the PFWA All-Rookie Team for that year.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was named the starting running back for the Colts to start the 2021 season. He had 103 yards and a rushing touchdown on 16 rushing attempts in Week 4 victory against the Miami Dolphins. The following week, Taylor had 169 total scrimmage yards: 53 yards rushing with a touchdown, and 116 yards receiving with a 76-yard receiving touchdown in the 31–25 overtime loss against the Baltimore Ravens. Against the Houston Texans in Week 6, Taylor had 14 attempts for 145 yards and two touchdowns; his rushing total included a career best 83-yard rush. The Colts would win the game 31–3. Taylor won AFC Offensive Player of the Month for October. On a Thursday-night game against the New York Jets in Week 9, Taylor had 200 total scrimmage yards, including 172 rushing yards and two touchdowns in the 45–30 victory. In Week 10 at home against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Taylor had 21 attempts for 116 yards and a touchdown in the 23–17 victory. At this point in the season, Taylor was tied for the rushing title with Derrick Henry, who was out for the season with an injury, with 937 rushing yards.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: In Week 11 against the Buffalo Bills, Taylor had 204 total yards, including 185 rushing yards on 32 attempts, and five total touchdowns (four rushing, one receiving), in the Colts' 41–15 win. In doing so, he broke the Colts franchise record for rushing touchdowns in a game, as well as total touchdowns in a game. Taylor was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week for his performance. Taylor won AFC Offensive Player of the Month for November. He had 32 carries for 143 yards and two touchdowns in a 31–0 shutout victory against the Houston Texans in Week 13. Against the New England Patriots in Week 15, Taylor had 29 attempts for 170 yards and a 67-yard touchdown in the 27–17 victory. Despite having several offensive linemen out with injuries and COVID-19, Taylor had 27 attempts for 108 yards in the 22–16 victory against the Arizona Cardinals. The following week against the Las Vegas Raiders, Taylor had 20 attempts for 108 yards in the 23–20 loss. In the final game of the season, Taylor had 15 attempts for 75 yards as the Colts were upset by the Jacksonville Jaguars 26–11, missing the postseason as a result.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: Taylor was selected to the 2022 Pro Bowl, after receiving the most votes in fan Pro Bowl voting. With him finishing the season with 1,811 rushing yards and 18 rushing touchdowns, Taylor was both the rushing yards leader and rushing touchdown leader for 2021. He ended the season with more than 500 yards ahead of the second-place rushing yards leader Nick Chubb. He was unanimously selected First-team 2021 All-Pro Team. Taylor started all 17 games. He finished tied for first in total touchdowns (20), and ranked second in the league in total points (120) by non-kickers.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: From Weeks 4–11, Taylor compiled 100-plus scrimmage yards and at least one rushing touchdown in eight consecutive games, which tied for the longest streak in NFL history. After the season, the Maxwell Football Club announced that Taylor was the winner of the 2021 Bert Bell Award. He was the runner-up for AP Offensive Player of the Year. He was ranked fifth by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2022.


title: Jonathan Taylor (American football)

text: In Week 1, against the Houston Texans, Taylor had 31 carries for 161 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in the 20–20 tie. In Week 10, against the Las Vegas Raiders, he had 22 carries for 147 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown in the 25–20 victory. For his game against Las Vegas, he won AFC Offensive Player of the Week. He suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 15 and was placed on injured reserve on December 20, 2022, ending his season. He finished the season with 861 rushing yards and four touchdowns through 11 games, missing three games with an ankle injury.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: Astroworld is the third studio album by American rapper Travis Scott. It was released on August 3, 2018, through Cactus Jack Records and Grand Hustle Records, and distributed by Epic Records. The album follows his second studio album "Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight" (2016), and his collaborative album "Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho" (2017) with Quavo.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: The album features guest vocals from The Weeknd, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean, Drake, James Blake, Philip Bailey, 21 Savage, Swae Lee, Gunna, Nav, Quavo, Takeoff, Juice Wrld, Sheck Wes, and Don Toliver, among others. Production was handled by multiple producers, including Scott himself, Mike Dean, Allen Ritter, Hit-Boy, WondaGurl, Tay Keith, Tame Impala, Frank Dukes, Sonny Digital, Murda Beatz, and Thundercat.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: The album title is named after the defunct theme park Six Flags AstroWorld, which was located in Houston, Texas prior to its closure. Scott, a Houston native, aimed for the album to sound like "taking an amusement park away from kids". He also described the album as a continuation of his debut album "Rodeo" (2015). "Astroworld" is a hip hop and psychedelic rap album, incorporating elements of trap and psychedelic music. The album was supported by four singles, "Butterfly Effect", "Sicko Mode", "Yosemite", and "Wake Up".


title: Astroworld (album)

text: "Astroworld" received widespread acclaim and performed well commercially, debuting atop the US "Billboard" 200 with 537,000 album-equivalent units, of which 270,000 were pure sales. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It won Album of the Year at the 2019 BET Hip Hop Awards. The album was named one of the best albums of 2018 and the decade by several publications.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: The title of the album was announced in May 2016, and initially teased for a 2017 release. The album title is named after the defunct theme park Six Flags AstroWorld, which was located in Houston, Texas prior to its closure in 2005. In a 2017 interview with "GQ", Scott spoke on the title of the album: "They tore down AstroWorld to build more apartment space. That's what it's going to sound like, like taking an amusement park away from kids. We want it back. We want the building back. That's why I'm doing it. It took the fun out of the city." Scott described the album as a continuation of his debut album, "Rodeo" (2015), stating: "My whole idea was, if you locked into "Rodeo", you definitely locked into "Astroworld". I'm just finishing the saga I started on my first album. This is supposed to be my second album. I had to go quick, because like I said, I had all these ideas, I just had to get off real quick, but now I'm finally back home with "Astroworld"."


title: Astroworld (album)

text: Recording for the album took place between 2016 and 2018, with Travis Scott posting updates through social media. In July 2018, it was reported that Scott was completing the album in Hawaii with a variety of recording artists and producers, such as Mike Dean, Nav, Frank Dukes, Sonny Digital, WondaGurl, Sheck Wes, Gunna, Wheezy, Don Toliver, Allen Ritter and Amir "Cash" Esmailian.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: "Astroworld" is a hip hop and psychedelic rap album, incorporating elements of trap and psychedelic music. "Stargazing" has been described as a "psychedelic trap" song, while "Coffee Bean" is said to inhabit "old school hip hop territory with a blissed-out funk guitar". The song "Skeletons" has been labelled as "kaleidoscope-pop" by "Pitchfork" that draws lyrical influences from Kanye West.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: The cover was shot by American photographer David LaChapelle, and features a giant golden inflatable of Scott's head as the entrance to an amusement park, with children, parents, and park employees in front of it. A second cover features the same amusement park entrance at nighttime, replacing the family-friendly features with adult-themed content. On August 1, 2018, transgender model Amanda Lepore, who is a known collaborator with LaChapelle, questioned why she had been excluded on the final version of the second cover. LaChapelle later responded, stating that it was due to Lepore upstaging the other models on the cover. Travis Scott would also respond via Twitter, explaining he had "nothing but respect for the LGBTQ community".


title: Astroworld (album)

text: In September 2018, TMZ reported that featured artist Frank Ocean filed a cease and desist against Scott to have his verse on "Carousel" removed due to disagreements over the song's sound. Ocean soon issued a clarification, stating: "I think the song sounds cool [...] I also approved it before it came out so the cease and desist wasn't about 🔊 it was about 🏳🌈. Me and Travis resolved it amongst ourselves weeks ago. 💖" Ocean's use of the pride flag was seen to be a reference to the controversial removal of Lepore from the cover.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: In May 2017, Scott uploaded three songs to SoundCloud—"A Man", "Green and Purple" featuring Playboi Carti, and "Butterfly Effect". "Butterfly Effect" was released on May 15, 2017, for streaming and digital download as the album's lead single. It peaked at number 50 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. The single, "Watch" featuring Kanye West and Lil Uzi Vert, was released on May 4, 2018. The song peaked at number 16 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: On July 27, 2018, a giant sculpture of Scott's head appeared on top of an Amoeba Music store in Los Angeles. Multiple copies of the sculpture appeared in various other locations, including Scott's hometown of Houston, Texas. After significant internet speculation, the release date for "Astroworld" was announced on July 30, 2018, through social media, alongside an album trailer, which featured the track "Stargazing".


title: Astroworld (album)

text: The release was followed by an episode of "Wav Radio" on Beats 1 with Chase B. Three songs were premiered that did not make the final track listing: "Houdini" featuring Playboi Carti, "Zoom" featuring Gunna, and "Part Time". A music video for the song "Stop Trying to Be God" was released on August 6, 2018, directed by Dave Meyers. Scott performed a medley of three songs at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: "Sicko Mode" was sent to rhythmic and urban contemporary radio on August 21, 2018, as the album's second single. It peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Yosemite" was sent to urban contemporary radio on November 20, 2018, as the album's third single. The album's fourth single, "Wake Up", was sent to rhythmic contemporary radio on March 26, 2019.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: "Astroworld" was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 85, based on 19 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.1 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: Jordan Bassett of "NME" gave "Astroworld" a perfect rating, praising the album's guest appearances and noting "Stop Trying to Be God" as "a record of extraordinary prowess", while describing "Coffee Bean" as "a moment that encapsulates the scope and ambition of "Astroworld"". Bassett concluded: "This is the sound of a musician who has worked to forge an entire world, an empire, around himself – we can peer in, but from afar, guessing at his motives and life behind the velvet rope." With similar acclaim, Kassandra Guagliardi of "Exclaim!" concluded that "Astroworld" "shows the evolution of Travis Scott as an artist and is his most refined, imaginative, and rage-worthy project yet". Roisin O'Connor of "The Independent" described "Astroworld" as "a futuristic record with virtually flawless production, that lingers on the mind long after the final track" and labelled it Scott's "most career-defining work to date". For "Consequence", Wren Graves wrote that "Astroworld" is "an album full of infectious flows and atmospheric beats". Thomas Hobbs of "Highsnobiety" stated that "Astroworld" "will be remembered as the moment Travis Scott produced a piece of music worthy of the riots he is capable of inducing. It's a wildly entertaining circus ride. Travis Scott desperately needed a great album to justify the hype, and with "Astroworld", he just might have a classic". Grant Rindner of "The Line of Best Fit" saying "Scott could have easily made another distorted, debaucherous project like his previous two albums, but by emphasizing his vocal performances and finding the best middle ground he ever has with his bevy of superstar collaborators, he's made "Astroworld" a theme park worth revisiting whether you came in as a stan or a skeptic".


title: Astroworld (album)

text: Larry Fitzmaurice of "Pitchfork" labelled "Astroworld" as Scott's strongest album to date, stating that "his skill as a curator helps sculpt a sticky, humid, psychedelic world with dazzling production and odd pleasures at every turn", although considered Scott to "play ringmaster to his neon-decayed circus of sound rather than become the main attraction". Andrew Barker of "Variety" said, "At 17 tracks, "Astroworld" is not without filler—the 21 Savage feature "NC-17" is tiresomely sophomoric, while "Can't Say" and "Houstonfornication" never really take shape—but rarely does the album feel lazy or uninspired". For "Rolling Stone", Christopher R. Weingarten complimented the first half of the album, though considered the second half to be weaker in comparison: "Unfortunately, Scott doesn't keep the envelope pushing up for the whole album: a seven-song stretch in the back end is vintage Travis with its zoned-out, hypnotic throb. However, the rest marks the most interesting music of his career, Scott no longer just looking the part of a brilliant artist, but sounding like it too."


title: Astroworld (album)

text: In Travis Scott's home country of the United States, "Astroworld" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 with 537,000 album-equivalent units, which included 270,000 pure album sales. The album scored the second-largest first week of the year, behind "Scorpion" by Drake, and second-largest pure album sales week of the year, behind Dave Matthews Band's "Come Tomorrow". The album earned 349.43 million streams in the first week, marking the fifth largest streaming week ever. It serves as Scott's second number-one album in the United States. Following the release, all 17 tracks on the album entered the US "Billboard" Hot 100, including "Sicko Mode" (at 4) and "Stargazing" (8), which made Scott the fourth act to have debuted multiple songs in the chart's top 10 simultaneously. The album earned 205,000 album-equivalent units in the second week, staying at number one. On December 3, 2018, "Astroworld" returned to the number-one spot on the "Billboard" 200, earning 71,000 album-equivalent units, almost four months after its initial release. By the end of 2018, the album has earned over 1,985,000 album-equivalent units in the US, with over 464,000 being pure sales, marking the second best-selling hip hop in pure album sales of the year, behind only Eminem's "Kamikaze". On November 25, 2019, "Astroworld" was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) with three million album-equivalent units in the United States.


title: Astroworld (album)

text: In Australia, "Astroworld" opened atop the ARIA Albums Chart, becoming Travis Scott's first number-one on the chart. Two tracks "Sicko Mode" (at 7) and "Stargazing" (10) charted in the top ten of the ARIA Singles Chart, marking the rapper's first top ten songs in the country. In Canada, "Astroworld" moved 27,000 album-equivalent units in its opening week. It serves as Scott's first number-one album in the country. In the second week, the album earned 13,000 album-equivalent units, marking the second straight week at the top of the "Billboard" Canadian Albums. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number three on the UK Albums Chart, becoming the rapper's first top ten album on the chart. As well as the album, the three tracks "Sicko Mode" (at 9), "Stargazing" (15), and "Carousel" (29) charted in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart, while the lead single "Butterfly Effect" previously reached number 57 on the chart.


title: Casus belli

text: A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A "casus belli" involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a "" involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bound by a mutual defense pact. Either may be considered an A declaration of war usually contains a description of the "casus belli" that has led the party in question to declare war on another party.


title: Casus belli

text: The term "casus belli" came into widespread use in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the writings of Hugo Grotius (1653), Cornelius van Bynkershoek (1707), and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (1732), among others, and due to the rise of the political doctrine of "jus ad bellum" or "just war theory". The term is also used informally to refer to any "just cause" a nation may claim for entering into a conflict. It is used retrospectively to describe situations that arose before the term came into wide use, as well as present-day situations, including those in which war has not been formally declared.


title: Casus belli

text: In formally articulating a "casus belli", a government typically lays out its reasons for going to war, its intended means of prosecuting the war, and the steps that others might take to dissuade it from going to war. It attempts to demonstrate that it is going to war only as a last resort ("ultima ratio") and that it has "just cause" for doing so. Modern international law recognizes at least three lawful justifications for waging war: self-defense, defense of an ally required by the terms of a treaty, and approval by the United Nations.


title: Casus belli

text: "Proschema" (plural "proschemata") is the equivalent Greek term, first popularized by Thucydides in his "History of the Peloponnesian War". The proschemata are the stated reasons for waging war, which may or may not be the same as the real reasons, which Thucydides called prophasis (). Thucydides argued that the three primary real reasons for waging war are reasonable fear, honor, and interest, while the stated reasons involve appeals to nationalism or fearmongering (as opposed to descriptions of reasonable, empirical causes for fear).


title: Casus belli

text: Countries need a public justification for attacking another country, both to galvanize internal support for the war and to gain the support of potential allies.


title: Casus belli

text: In the post–World War II era, the UN Charter prohibits signatory countries from engaging in war except: 1) as a means of defending themselves—or an ally where treaty obligations require it—against aggression; 2) unless the UN as a body has given prior approval to the operation. The UN also reserves the right to ask member nations to intervene against non-signatory countries that embark on wars of aggression.


title: Casus belli

text: Braumoeller (2019) stated: "However idiosyncratic the "casus belli" may seem, however, there generally is one ... The issues that prompt most wars fit fairly well into one of a fairly manageable number of categories." He broadly summarised classical issues as territory, the creation or dissolution of countries, the defence of the integrity of countries, dynastic succession, and the defence of co-religionists or co-nationals. He pointed out that in the modern field of peace and conflict studies, scholars also frequently list causes such as "struggle for power, arms races and conflict spirals, ethnicity and nationalism, domestic political regime type and leadership change, economic interdependence and trade, territory, climate change-induced scarcity, and so on".


title: Casus belli

text: In "The Causes of War" (1972), Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey mentioned general causes such as miscalculation, as well as specific causes such as "Death Watch and Scapegoat Wars", and emphasised the importance of mundane factors such as weather.


title: Casus belli

text: Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg explored the roots of major conflicts as a mixture of factors on the international, domestic and individual level in "The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars" (1989).


title: Casus belli

text: Kalevi Holsti catalogued and categorised wars from 1648 to 1989 according to 24 categories of "issues that generated wars".


title: Casus belli

text: This section outlines a number of the more famous and/or controversial cases of "casus belli" which have occurred in modern times.


title: Casus belli

text: Europeans had access to Chinese ports as outlined in the Treaty of Nanking from the First Opium War. France used the execution of Auguste Chapdelaine as a "casus belli" for the Second Opium War. On February 29, 1856, Chapdelaine, a French missionary, was killed in the province of Guangxi, which was not open to foreigners. In response, British and French forces quickly took control of Guangzhou (Canton).


title: Casus belli

text: While long-term conflict between the Northern and Southern States (mainly due to moral questions caused by slavery, as well as socio-economic disparities) was the cause of the American Civil War, the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter (April 12–14, 1861) served as "casus belli" for the Union. Historian David Herbert Donald (1996) concluded that President Abraham Lincoln's "repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that." Confederate veteran William Watson opined in 1887 that up until that point, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward had not been able to find 'a just cause to declare war against the seceded States', but Sumter gave him 'the "casus belli" he had sought'. Watson lamented how Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were 'vainglorious[ly]' celebrating the victory at Sumter, while forgetting that making the first move had given the Confederacy the immediate internationally negative reputation of being the aggressor, and had granted Seward 'the undivided sympathy of the North'.


title: Casus belli

text: While the destruction of the "Maine" did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain, it did create an atmosphere that precluded a peaceful solution. The Spanish investigation found that the explosion had been caused by spontaneous combustion of the coal bunkers, but the US Sampson Board's Court of Inquiry ruled that the explosion had been caused by an external explosion from a torpedo. The McKinley administration did not cite the explosion as a "casus belli", but others were already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba. Advocates of war used the rallying cry, "Remember the "Maine!" To hell with Spain!"


title: Casus belli

text: Austria-Hungary's casus belli against Serbia in July 1914 was based upon Serbia's refusal to investigate the involvement of Serbian government officials in the equipping, training and paying the assassins who murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo. The Serbian government refused the Austrian Démarche, and Austria-Hungary declared war.


title: Casus belli

text: For Britain, the direct cause of entering the war was the German invasion and occupation of Belgium, violating Belgian neutrality which Britain was bound by treaty to uphold.


title: Casus belli

text: In 1917, the German Empire sent the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, in which they tried to persuade Mexico to join the war and fight against the United States, for which they would be rewarded Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all former Mexican territories. This telegram was intercepted by the British, then relayed to the U.S., which led to President Woodrow Wilson then using it to convince Congress to join World War I alongside the Allies. The Mexican president at the time, Venustiano Carranza, had a military commission assess the feasibility, which concluded that this would not be feasible for a number of reasons.


title: Casus belli

text: In his autobiography "Mein Kampf", Adolf Hitler had in the 1920s advocated a policy of "Lebensraum" ("living space") for the German people, which in practical terms meant German territorial expansion into Eastern Europe.


title: Casus belli

text: In August 1939, to implement the first phase of this policy, Germany's Nazi government under Hitler's leadership staged the Gleiwitz incident, which was used as a "" for the invasion of Poland the following September. Nazi forces used concentration camp prisoners posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, to attack the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II. Poland's allies, the UK and France, subsequently declared war on Germany in accordance with their alliance.


title: Casus belli

text: In 1941, acting once again in accordance with the policy of Lebensraum, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, using the "casus belli" of preemptive war to justify the act of aggression.


title: Casus belli

text: Many historians have suggested that the Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a manufactured pretext for the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese Naval officials have publicly stated that during the second incident the was never fired on by North Vietnamese naval forces. In the documentary film ""The Fog of War"", then-US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara concedes the attack during the second incident did not happen, though he says that he and President Johnson believed it did so at the time.


title: Casus belli

text: The first Gulf of Tonkin Incident (the 2nd of August) should not be confused with the second Gulf of Tonkin Incident (4 August). The North Vietnamese claimed that on August 2, US destroyer USS "Maddox" was hit by one torpedo and that one of the American aircraft had been shot down in North Vietnamese territorial waters. The PAVN Museum in Hanoi displays "Part of a torpedo boat ... which successfully chased away the USS Maddox August 2nd, 1964".


title: Casus belli

text: The "casus belli" for the Vietnam War was the second incident. On August 4, USS "Maddox" was launched to the North Vietnamese coast to "show the flag" after the first incident. The US authorities claimed that two Vietnamese boats tried to attack USS "Maddox" and were sunk. The government of North Vietnam denied the second incident completely. Deniability played favorably into the propaganda efforts of North Vietnam throughout the war, and for some years to follow.


title: Casus belli

text: A "casus belli" played a prominent role during the Six-Day War of 1967. The Israeli government had a short list of "", acts that it would consider provocations justifying armed retaliation. The most important was a blockade of the Straits of Tiran leading into Eilat, Israel's only port to the Red Sea, through which Israel received much of its oil. After several border incidents between Israel and Egypt's allies Syria and Jordan, Egypt expelled UNEF peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula, established a military presence at Sharm el-Sheikh, and announced a blockade of the straits, prompting Israel to cite its "casus belli" in opening hostilities against Egypt.


title: Casus belli

text: During the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, China's leader Deng Xiaoping told the United States that its plan to fight the Vietnamese was revenge for Vietnam's toppling of the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia, an ally of China. However Chinese nationalists have argued that the real "casus belli" was Vietnam's , as well as suspicion of Vietnam trying to consolidate Cambodia with Soviet backing.


title: Casus belli

text: When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, it cited Iraq's non-compliance with the terms of cease-fire agreement for the 1990–1991 Gulf War, as well as planning in the 1993 attempted assassination of former President George H. W. Bush and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones as its stated "".


title: Casus belli

text: Cited by the George W. Bush administration was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. The administration claimed that Iraq had not conformed with its obligation to disarm under past UN Resolutions, and that Saddam Hussein was actively attempting to acquire a nuclear weapons capability as well as enhance an existing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, citing these reasons as justification for military action. Since-declassified National Intelligence Estimates (NIE's) indicate that any certainty may have been overstated in justification of armed intervention; the extent, origin and intent of these overstatements cannot be conclusively determined from the NIE.


title: Neo soul

text: Neo soul (sometimes called progressive soul) is a genre of popular music. As a term, it was coined by music industry entrepreneur Kedar Massenburg during the late 1990s to market and describe a style of music that emerged from soul and contemporary R&B. Heavily based in soul music, neo soul is distinguished by a less conventional sound than its contemporary R&B counterpart, with incorporated elements ranging from funk, jazz fusion, hip hop, and African music to pop, rock, and electronic music. It has been noted by music writers for its traditional R&B influences, conscious-driven lyrics, and strong female presence.


title: Neo soul

text: Neo soul developed during the 1980s and early 1990s, in the United States and United Kingdom, as a soul revival movement. It earned mainstream success during the 1990s, with the commercial and critical breakthroughs of several artists, including D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell. Their music was marketed as an alternative to the producer-driven, digitally approached R&B of the time, although many of them were ambivalent about the term.


title: Neo soul

text: Since its initial mainstream popularity and impact on the sound of contemporary R&B, neo soul has been expanded and diversified musically through the works of both American and international artists. Its mainstream presence declined during the 2000s, although newer artists emerged through more independent means of marketing their music. In his book "The Essential Neo Soul" (2010), music journalist and culture critic Chris Campbell writes that, while the genre has been "woefully misunderstood and its artists mis-marketed", there is "a historical and social relevance that validates its designation as the current face of alternative progressive soul music (in both underground and overground circles), complete with a distinct origin and developmental evolution". According to Mark Anthony Neal, "neo-soul and its various incarnations has helped to redefine the boundaries and contours of black pop."


title: Neo soul

text: As a term, "neo soul" was coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s as a marketing category following the commercial breakthroughs of artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell. The success of D'Angelo's 1995 debut album "Brown Sugar" has been regarded by several writers and music critics as inspiration behind the term's origin. While some artists have ignored the label, others have received the designation with controversy because it may seem contrived to music audiences and imply that soul music had ended at some point in time. In a 2002 interview for "Billboard", Massenburg said that genre classifications are often unpopular because they may be suggestive of a short-lived trend. However, although he said neo soul is still essentially soul music, Massenburg felt there was a need to market artists of the genre for listeners to have an understanding of what they were buying.


title: Neo soul

text: In a 2010 article for PopMatters, music writer Tyler Lewis said that neo soul has been received with much controversy: "Given the way black music has been named by (usually) outsiders ever since the blues, the reaction to the name by artists who ostensibly fit into the 'neo-soul' category represents a wonderful example of black self-determination in an industry that is still defiantly wedded to narrow definitions and images of black folks." Jason Anderson of CBC News compares the etymology of neo soul to that of "new wave" and comments: "As imperfect as the term may be, neo-soul is still an effective tag to describe the mix of chic modernity and time-honoured tradition that distinguished the genre's best examples. Neo-soul artists tried to look both backward and forward, acting in the belief that a continuum might exist."


title: Neo soul

text: Despite some ambivalence from artists, the term received widespread use by music critics and writers who wrote about artists and albums associated with the musical style. African American studies professor Mark Anthony Neal has described neo soul as "everything from avant-garde R&B to organic soul ... a product of trying to develop something outside of the norm in R&B". According to music writers, the genre's works are mostly album-oriented and distinguished by its musicianship and production, incorporating "organic" elements of classic soul music with the use of live instrumentation, in contrast to the more single-oriented, hip hop-based, and producer-driven sampling approach of contemporary R&B. Neo soul also incorporates elements of electronic music, jazz fusion, funk, rap, gospel, rock, reggae, and African music. In her book "Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction", music author Anne Danielsen wrote that neo soul toward the end of the 1990s exhibited a musical development that was part of "a remarkable increase in musicians' experimentation with and manipulation of grooves at the microrhythmic level – that is, the level in played music that is usually understood in terms of phrasing and timing."


title: Neo soul

text: Noting that most of the genre's artists are singer-songwriters, writers have viewed their lyrical content as more "conscious-driven" and having a broader range than most other R&B artists. AllMusic calls it "roughly analogous to contemporary R&B". Dimitri Ehrlich of "Vibe" said that they "emphasize a mix of elegant, jazz-tinged R&B and subdued hip hop, with a highly idiosyncratic, deeply personal approach to love and politics". Music writers have noted that neo soul artists are predominantly female, which contrasts the marginalized presence of women in mainstream hip hop and R&B. Jason Anderson of CBC News called neo soul a "sinuous, sly yet unabashedly earnest" alternative and "kind of haven for listeners turned off by the hedonism of mainstream hip-hop and club jams." Neo soul artists are often associated with alternative lifestyles and fashions, including organic food, incense, and knit caps.


title: Neo soul

text: According to music writer Peter Shapiro, the term itself refers to a musical style that obtains its influence from older R&B styles, and bohemian musicians seeking a soul revival, while setting themselves apart from the more contemporary sounds of their mainstream R&B counterparts. In a 1998 article on neo soul, "Time" journalist Christopher John Farley wrote that singers such as Hill, D'Angelo, and Maxwell "share a willingness to challenge musical orthodoxy". Miles Marshall Lewis commented that 1990s neo soul "owed its raison d'être to '70s soul superstars like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder", adding that "in concert, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo regularly covered Chaka Khan, the Ohio Players, and Al Green, to make the lineage crystal clear." In citing Tony! Toni! Tone! as progenitors of the genre, Tony Green of "Vibe" viewed that the group pioneered the "digital-analog hybrid sound" of neo soul and "dramatically refreshed the digitalized wasteland that was R&B in the late '80s". Neo soul artists during the 1990s were heavily inspired by the eclectic sound and mellow instrumentation of Gil Scott-Heron's and Brian Jackson's collaborative work in the 1970s. "All About Jazz" cited Jackson as "one of the early architects" of the sound and his early work with Scott-Heron as "an inspirational and musical Rosetta stone for the neo-soul movement".


title: Neo soul

text: Neo soul originated in the 1980s and early 1990s, with the work of musical acts such as Prince, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Terence Trent D'Arby, Joi, and Mint Condition, whose music deviated from the conventions of most contemporary R&B at the time. Tony! Toni! Toné!-member Raphael Saadiq later embarked on a solo career and produced various works of other neo soul artists. Influential to neo soul, UK act Sade achieved success in the 1980s with music that featured a smooth jazzy style of pop rock called sophisti-pop. The band was part of a new wave of British R&B-oriented artists during the late-1980s and early 1990s that also included Soul II Soul, Caron Wheeler, The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, and Lisa Stansfield. AllMusic's Alex Henderson writes that, "Many of the British artists who emerged during that period had a neo-soul outlook and were able to blend influences from different eras". Other British progenitors of the neo soul movement at the time included Young Disciples and Omar Lye-Fook, the latter of whom has been cited as "the father of British neo-soul" and an influence on many future artists.


title: Neo soul

text: According to Christopher John Farley, Prince had been "carrying a torch for neo soul for decades, refusing to make R&B that played by the rules or fit into comfortable formats. In the mid-'90s, he was suddenly joined by a host of other soul artists who also wanted to break boundaries". American artists during the early 1990s included Zhané, Groove Theory, Joi, Tony Rich, and Me'Shell NdegéOcello.


title: Neo soul

text: NdegéOcello's 1993 debut album "Plantation Lullabies" was later credited as the beginning of neo soul; according to Renee Graham of "The Boston Globe", it was "arguably the first shot in the so-called 'neo-soul' movement". The success of Tony! Toni! Toné!'s 1993 album "Sons of Soul" was also viewed as a precursor to the soul music revival in the mid-1990s. Cheo Hodari Coker said in 1997 that the album "largely sparked the soul music revival that has opened the door for a new generation of singers who build on the tradition of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder". Allmusic editor Leo Stanley wrote that by the release of Tony! Toni! Toné!'s follow-up album "House of Music" in 1996, "their influence was beginning to be apparent, as younger soul singer-songwriters like Tony Rich and Maxwell began reaching the R&B charts. Like Tony! Toni! Toné!, Rich and Maxwell relied on traditional soul and R&B values of songwriting and live performances, discarding the synth-heavy productions of the late '80s and early '90s".


title: Neo soul

text: A few hip hop groups are cited as well. Malcolm Venable of "Vibe" highlights the early work of hip hop band The Roots, who used live instrumentation, as a precursor to neo soul's commercial breakthrough in the mid-1990s. Kierna Mayo, former editor-in-chief of "Ebony", said that alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest's early 1990s albums "The Low End Theory" and "Midnight Marauders" "gave birth to neo-everything  ... That entire class of D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Maxwell, and Lauryn Hill".


title: Neo soul

text: In 1995, former corporate marketer turned artist manager Kedar Massenburg established the record label Kedar Entertainment Inc., through which he released the breakthrough neo soul recordings of artists such as Badu, D'Angelo, and Chico DeBarge. Music journalists have specifically credited the successes of D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" (1995), Maxwell's "Urban Hang Suite" (1996), Badu's "Baduizm" (1997), and Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" (1998) with shaping and raising the neo soul movement to commercial visibility into the late 1990s. According to Farley, D'Angelo's album "gives a nod to the past, ... mints his own sound, with golden humming keyboards and sensual vocals and unhurried melodies ... His songs were polished without being slick and smart without being pretentious", while Badu "brought an iconoclastic spirit to soul music, with her towering Afrocentric headwraps, incense candles, and quirky lyrics". "Baduizm" sold nearly three million copies and won Badu two Grammy Awards. Hill's "Miseducation" album featured her singing and rapping, with deeply personal lyrics, and was one of neo soul's primary successes, achieving massive sales, critical acclaim, and five Grammy Awards. The 1997 film "Love Jones" capitalized on neo soul's success at the time with its soundtrack album, which impacted the "Billboard" charts and featured artists such as Hill, Maxwell, The Brand New Heavies, Me'Shell NdegéOcello, Groove Theory, and Dionne Farris.


title: Neo soul

text: After a brief marketing downturn, neo soul gained more mainstream popularity in 1999 with commercial successes by Hill, Maxwell, Eric Benét, Saadiq, and Les Nubians. It impacted mainstream radio while influencing contemporary R&B acts, such as R. Kelly and Aaliyah, to incorporate some of its textural and lyrical elements. In Kelly's song "When a Woman's Fed Up" (1998), the singer incorporated a more soul-based sound and referenced Badu's 1997 song "Tyrone" in the lyrics. Other female artists broke through with their debut albums, including Macy Gray, Angie Stone, and Jill Scott. Although Scott's album "Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1" would not see release until 2000, she co-wrote and sang on "You Got Me" (the 1999 hit single by hip hop band The Roots) and received further exposure as a supporting performer on the band's tour that year. "Thanks to her stint on 'You Got Me' and subsequent live shows", Joel McIver wrote, "Scott can be credited as the first female artist to emerge in Erykah Badu's wake who could seriously claim to have challenged her superiority at the top of the neo-soul tree".


title: Neo soul

text: During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the musical collective Soulquarians—consisting of such artists as D'Angelo, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Mos Def, Common, James Poyser, J Dilla and Q-Tip—contributed significantly to the neo soul movement with what Greg Kot described as its members' "organic soul, natural R&B, boho-rap". The collective developed through the production work of The Roots' drummer and producer Questlove.


title: Neo soul

text: In 2000, D'Angelo released his second album "Voodoo", serving as a further alternative to the mainstream of late 1990s R&B and hip hop, as neo soul reached its apex in the new decade. A production of the Soulquarians, it was an exemplary creative milestone of neo soul. Ben Ratliff of "The New York Times" called the album "the succes d'estime that proves the force of this new music: it is a largely unslick, stubbornly idiosyncratic and genuinely great album that has already produced two hit singles". The year also saw Badu's second album "Mama's Gun", by which time the singer had been dubbed by writers as "the queen of neo-soul", although she said of the honorific title, "I hated that because what if I don't do that anymore? What if I change? Then that puts me in a penitentiary." Scott's first album "Who Is Jill Scott?" sold millions worldwide and proved one of the genre's significant releases.


title: Neo soul

text: Other successful performers marketed as neo soul at this time included Bilal, Musiq Soulchild, India.Arie, and Alicia Keys, who broke through to broader popularity with her debut album "Songs in A Minor" (2001). According to AllMusic biographer Andy Kellman, although Bilal may have been the "one R&B artist for whom the neo-soul categorization seemed limiting", his 2001 debut album "1st Born Second" was an "exemplary" release for the genre and a top-10 R&B chart success. Hip hop acts such as The Roots and Common, also associated with the Soulquarians, released albums that incorporated neo soul: "Phrenology" (2002) and "Electric Circus" (2003). Commenting on neo soul's hype, Daphne Brooks wrote in 2004, "The increasing attention paid to heavily hyped 'neo-soul' artists such as Jill Scott and Indie.arie ... suggest[s] that cultural memory is now recognized as a marketable aesthetic strategy of expression in contemporary pop."


title: Neo soul

text: The 2000s later featured a decline in output by neo soul artists, with many of them failing to make a commercial impact after previous successes or not releasing a follow-up album. Badu's commercial viability decreased as each of her releases following her debut "Baduizm" departed further from that album's music. Hill followed-up her 1998 debut—considered the best-selling neo soul album—with a combative, confessional live album (2002's "MTV Unplugged No. 2.0") in which she expresses her misgivings about fame, and her recording career diminished soon after. Melena Ryzik of "The New York Times" wrote in a retrospective piece on that "era of left-of-center black singer-songwriters", stating "many of them struggled to keep their creative momentum, conflicted about their early mainstream success." Producer and Soulquarians member Questlove elaborated on the artists' regression from the mainstream, saying "I think most of us went through our psychosomatic, quasi-self-saboteur stage. Once we got that first taste of success, I think just the pressure of reacting got to all of us. Some of us released some of the craziest records of our career." Other artists such as D'Angelo and Hill went on indefinite hiatus from the music scene. Tyler Lewis from "PopMatters" attributed the decline to "the downside of [the] rejection of the term ['neo soul']", going on to say: