Natanel Moshe Arnson Ashley Spriggs | en

Moshe (Marc Shepard) unearthed his calling as a teen in the early 90s playing underground rap and downtempo within the dank subterranean confines of the remotest dark discos on the dreary Northeastern US seaboard. This would portend his delving ever-deeper and darker places outside the increasingly insipid and unimaginative confines of the mainstream hip hop world in order to show off what he had exhumed, resplendent in its fresh-streaked filth and grotesqueness. A terse exclamation of "Wicked daahk!" in his Northern coastal drawl was all one needed to hear to know that said tune passed murky muster. With his recondite...

Monroe was born on September 10, 1986 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Growing up, her parents played songs by the Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd, so her country rock roots started early, and she was already taking piano lesson before she turned seven. At age 11, she won a talent contest in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (home of Dolly Parton's resort "Dollywood"), singing "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." She subsequently found steady work performing in a theater in Pigeon Forge. A couple year later, her father gave Monroe her first guitar, and she began writing her own songs. But tragedy struck when...

"There is a woman in the room," Ashley Cleveland announces on "Queen of Soul," the rousing lead-off track from her latest release, Before the Daylight’s Shot. Though she may be singing about Aretha Franklin, that simple declaration could double as Cleveland’s own motto as an artist. In a music scene overpopulated by breathy girls and melismatic vamps, Cleveland is that rare thing - a woman who sings like a woman. A woman with grit and passion. A woman who’s not afraid to follow her longings into places both light and dark. Yes, she can roar and wail with maximum soul...

Ashley Leitao was considered one of the most shocking idol eliminations ever - recieving 9th [of 10] on 2005's Canadian Idol 3. Leitao, 19 from Burnaby, British Columbia, states her musical background is pop, but showed on Idol that she was able to do more than pop. Her Top 32 performance - "Colours of the Wind" - hailed her as "money in the pot" by judge Zack Werner for a career, and her Top 10 Canadian Hits performance of Amanda Marshall's "Let It Rain" gave her even more praise. After what many gave the title of "a championship performance," Leitao...