IN: Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born in Long Beach, California, the second of three sons. He was named after his stepfather, Calvin Cordozar Broadus Sr. His mother is Beverly Broadus (nee Tate). His father, Vernell Varnado, was a Vietnam veteran, singer, and mail carrier who was said to be frequently absent from his life.

Snoop signed with Master P's No Limit Records (distributed by Priority/EMI Records) in 1998 and debuted on the label with Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told that year. His other albums from No Limit were No Limit Top Dogg in 1999 (selling over 1,503,865 copies) and Tha Last Meal in 2000 (selling over 2,000,000). In 1999, his autobiography, Tha Doggfather, was published.  In 2002, he released the album Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$, on Priority/Capitol/EMI, with it selling over 1,300,000 copies. The album featured the hit singles "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace" and "Beautiful", featuring guest vocals by Pharrell. By this stage in his career, Snoop Dogg had left behind his "gangster" image and embraced a "pimp" image.  In 2004, Snoop signed to Geffen Records/Star Trak Entertainment both of which were distributed through Interscope Records; Star Trak is headed by producer duo the Neptunes, which produced several tracks for Snoop's 2004 release R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece. "Drop It Like It's Hot" (featuring Pharrell), the first single released from the album, was a hit and became Snoop Dogg's first single to reach number one. His third release was "Signs", featuring Justin Timberlake and Charlie Wilson, which entered the UK chart at No. 2. This was his highest entry ever in the UK chart. The album sold 1,724,000 copies in the U.S. alone, and most of its singles were heavily played on radio and television. Snoop Dogg joined Warren G and Nate Dogg to form the group 213 and released album The Hard Way in 2004. Debuting at No.4 on the Billboard 200 and No.1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, it included single "Groupie Luv". Snoop Dogg appeared in the music video for Korn's "Twisted Transistor", along with fellow rappers Lil Jon, Xzibit, and David Banner,  Snoop Dogg's appeared on two tracks from Ice Cube's 2006 album Laugh Now, Cry Later, including the single "Go to Church", and on several tracks on Tha Dogg Pound's Cali Iz Active the same year. Also, his latest song, "Real Talk", was leaked over the Internet in the summer of 2006 and a video was later released on the Internet. "Real Talk" was a dedication to former Crips leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams and a diss to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California. Two other singles on which Snoop made a guest performance were "Keep Bouncing" by Too $hort (also with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas) and "Gangsta Walk" by Coolio.  Snoop's 2006 album, Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, debuted on the Billboard 200 at No.5 and has sold over 850,000 copies. The album and the second single "That's That Shit" featuring R. Kelly were well received by critics. In the album, he collaborated in a video with E-40 and other West Coast rappers for his single "Candy (Drippin' Like Water)".
QUESTION: What did he do in 1998 ?
IN: Jean-Philippe Rameau (French: [Zafilip Ramo]; (1683-09-25)25 September 1683 - (1764-09-12)12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside Francois Couperin. Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe.

Along with Francois Couperin, Rameau is one of the two masters of the French school of harpsichord music in the 18th century. Both composers made a decisive break with the style of the first generation of harpsichordists, who confined their compositions to the relatively fixed mould of the classical suite. This reached its apogee in the first decade of the 18th century with successive collections of pieces by Louis Marchand, Gaspard Le Roux, Louis-Nicolas Clerambault, Jean-Francois Dandrieu, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Charles Dieupart, and Nicolas Siret.  Rameau and Couperin have different styles. They seem not to have known one another (Couperin was one of the official court musicians while Rameau was still an unknown; fame would only come to him after Couperin's death). Rameau published his first book of harpsichord pieces in 1706 while Couperin (who was fifteen years his senior) waited until 1713 before publishing his first "ordres." Rameau's music includes pieces in the pure tradition of the French suite: imitative ("Le rappel des oiseaux," "La poule") and character ("Les tendres plaintes", "L'entretien des Muses") pieces and works of pure virtuosity that resemble Scarlatti ("Les tourbillons," "Les trois mains") as well as pieces that reveal the experiments of a theorist and musical innovator ("L'Enharmonique", "Les Cyclopes"), which had a marked influence on Daquin, Royer, and Jacques Duphly. The suites are grouped in the traditional way, by key.  Rameau's three collections appeared in 1706, 1724 and 1726 or 1727, respectively. After this, he only composed a single piece for the harpsichord: "La Dauphine" (1747). Other works, such as "Les petits marteaux," have been doubtfully attributed to him.  During his semiretirement in the years 1740 to 1744, he wrote the Pieces de clavecin en concert (1741), which some musicologists consider the pinnacle of French Baroque chamber music. Adopting a formula successfully employed by Mondonville a few years earlier, these pieces differ from trio sonatas in that the harpsichord is not simply there as basso continuo to accompany other instruments (the violin, flute or viol) playing the melody but has an equal part in the "concert" with them. Rameau also claimed that the pieces would be equally satisfying as solo harpsichord works--although this statement is far from convincing, since the composer took the trouble to transcribe five of them himself--those where the lack of other instruments would show the least.
QUESTION:
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