title: Succotash

text: Because of the relatively inexpensive and more readily available ingredients, the dish was popular during the Great Depression in the United States. It was sometimes cooked in a casserole form, often with a light pie crust on top as in a traditional pot pie.


title: Succotash

text: Sweet corn (a form of maize), American beans, tomatoes, and peppers (all New World foods) are the usual ingredients.


title: Succotash

text: Catherine Beecher's 19th-century recipe includes beans boiled with corn cobs from which the kernels have been removed. The kernels are added later, after the beans have boiled for several hours. The corn cobs are removed and the finished stew, in proportions of 2 parts corn to 1 part beans, is thickened with flour.


title: Succotash

text: Henry Ward Beecher's recipe, published in an 1846 issue of "Western Farmer and Gardner", adds salt pork, which he says is "an essential part of the affair."


title: Succotash

text: In some parts of the American South, any mixture of vegetables prepared with lima beans and topped with lard or butter is considered succotash.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series was the 26th season of the IndyCar Series and the 110th official championship season of American open wheel racing. The premier event was the 2021 Indianapolis 500, won by Hélio Castroneves (Meyer Shank Racing). It was the second year under Penske management after they took over in late 2019. Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) entered his 21st season competing for a National Championship as the defending champion, but ultimately finished the campaign in fourth place.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: Second-year driver Álex Palou became the first Spanish driver to win the series championship, winning a joint-most three races during the campaign for Chip Ganassi Racing. He finished 38 points clear of Team Penske's Josef Newgarden, who won two races, and finished second in points for the second year in succession. Third place in the championship went to Pato O'Ward for Arrow McLaren SP, who like Newgarden, won two races during the season. A total of nine drivers won races during the season, with Colton Herta (Andretti Autosport) also winning three races. The Manufacturers' Cup was won by Honda for the fourth consecutive season, while Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske) won Rookie of the Year honors.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: 2021 was to be the final season that the and Dallara DW12 chassis package (which debuted in 2012 and 2018 respectively) was to be used in competition. It was also scheduled to be the final season for the 2.2-litre V6 twin-turbocharged engine package that debuted in 2012; in October 2020, this was delayed for an additional season, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: The following teams, entries, and drivers have been announced to compete in the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season. All teams will use a spec Dallara DW12 chassis with and Firestone tires.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: On October 1, 2020, a seventeen-race calendar was announced. Iowa Speedway did not return from the 2020 IndyCar Series calendar, while all tracks that were unable to host races in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic returned to the calendar with the exception of Circuit of the Americas and Richmond Raceway. A second road course race at Indianapolis was held once again, as part of a doubleheader on Brickyard weekend in August.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: On December 17, 2020, it was announced that in order to provide "the best opportunity to provide our guests with a fun and exciting experience in a safe and unrestricted environment", the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach would be rescheduled from April 18 to September 26, becoming the season finale. Combined with the Portland and Laguna Seca events, this formed a three-race west coast swing to conclude the season, while for the second consecutive year the season would conclude with a street course race.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: On January 6, 2021, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was rescheduled to April 25 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the season opener being moved to Barber Motorsports Park.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: On January 22, 2021, the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama was rescheduled to April 18 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and was now on NBC network television.


title: 2021 IndyCar Series

text: On May 14, 2021, the Honda Indy Toronto was cancelled for a second successive season, due to the restrictions imposed in Ontario because of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: The Champawat Tiger was a Bengal Tigress responsible for an estimated 436 deaths in Nepal and the Kumaon division of India, during the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. Her attacks have been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest number of fatalities from a tiger (as well as any animal). She was shot and killed in 1907 by a then 31-year-old Jim Corbett.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: According to Peter Byrne, professional hunter and author from Nepal, the tiger began her attacks in a Rupal village in western Nepal, Himalayas. Hunters were sent in to kill the tiger, but she managed to evade them. Eventually, the Nepalese Army was called in. Despite failing to capture or kill the tiger, soldiers organised a massive beat and managed to force the tiger to abandon her territory and drive her across the border (river Sarda) into India, where she continued her killing activities in the Kumaon District.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: The tiger would adjust her hunting strategy so as to best hunt and evade humans—travelling great distances between villages (as much as in a day, undertaken at night) in her new territory both to claim new victims and evade pursuers. Her behaviour became more like a Siberian tiger in her habits and she created a larger territory to encompass multiple villages in the Kumaon area, with Champawat being close to the centre of her territory. Most of her victims were young women and children, who often went into the forest to collect firewood, feed livestock, and gather resources for craft work.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: All her kills happened in daylight (Corbett said he was not aware of a single case of a tiger killing a human during the night). Life across the region was paralysed, with men often refusing to leave their huts for work after hearing the tiger's roars from the forest.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: In 1907, the tiger was killed by British hunter Jim Corbett. The tiger had killed a 16-year-old girl, Premka Devi, in the village of Fungar, near to the town of Champawat, and left a trail of blood, which Corbett followed. After nearly getting ambushed by the tiger while investigating the remains of its victim and scaring her off with two shots from his rifle, Corbett had to abandon the hunt, deciding to use villagers and to organise a beat the next day in the Champa River gorge.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: With the help of the tehsildar of Champawat, the beat was organised with about 300 villagers, and the next day, about noon, Corbett shot the tigress dead. Corbett's first shots hit the tigress in the chest and shoulder, and his last shot, made with the tehsildar's rifle to keep it from charging him after he ran out of bullets, hit her in the foot, causing it to collapse from him.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: A postmortem on the tigress showed the upper and lower canine teeth on the right side of her mouth were broken, the upper one in half, the lower one right down to the bone. This injury, a result of an old gunshot, according to Corbett, probably prevented her from hunting her natural prey, and hence, she started to hunt humans. Further examinations made by Corbett during his hunt for the tiger indicated that she was in healthy condition physically (other than her teeth) and was between 10 and 12 years old.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: "After bringing down the Champawat Tiger, Jim Corbett acquired a reputation as the leading hunter of man-eaters. This ability served him well, at a time when deforestation and diminishing prey were driving more and more tigers and leopards to hunt humans for food."


title: Champawat Tiger

text: In Champawat, near the Chataar Bridge and on the way to Lohaghat, there is a "cement board" marking the place where the tigress was finally brought down. The details about the Champawat Tigress and how she was brought down can be found in the book "Maneaters of Kumaon" (1944), written by Corbett himself.


title: Champawat Tiger

text: The video game "Guild Wars 2", features a tiger-themed legendary weapon and accompanying quest series named "Chuka and Champawat".


title: Degloving

text: A degloving injury is a type of avulsion in which an extensive section of skin is completely torn off the underlying tissue, severing its blood supply. It is named by analogy to the process of removing a glove.


title: Degloving

text: The causes of degloving can vary, but they often occur when someone's hand or arm gets stuck in a machine or when they're involved in a car accident. Treatment for degloving injuries can vary depending on the severity of the injury, but often includes surgery and skin grafts.


title: Degloving

text: All sorts of things can lead to this type of injury. Car accidents, falls, or getting caught in machinery are all common causes. But there are also less obvious things that can cause degloving injuries, like contact with chemicals or extreme weather conditions.


title: Degloving

text: Typically, degloving injuries affect the extremities and limbs; in these cases, they are frequently associated with underlying fractures. Any injury which would induce degloving of the head or torso is likely to be lethal. However, controlled facial degloving is often featured in plastic surgery.


title: Degloving

text: Degloving injuries invariably require major surgical interventions. Treatment options include replantation or revascularization of the degloved skins, or when these are not possible, skin grafts or skin flaps. While the preservation of the extremities and limbs is normally preferred, in some cases amputations may be advised or required. Post-operative physiotherapy is of particular importance for degloving injuries involving the hand.


title: Degloving

text: Many small mammals are able to induce degloving of their tails to escape capture; this is comparable to tail autotomy in reptiles.


title: Prunus

text: Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes (among many others) the fruits plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds.


title: Prunus

text: Native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and the paleotropics of Asia and Africa, 430 different species are classified under "Prunus". Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their fruit and for decorative purposes. "Prunus" fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena ("stone" or "pit"). This shell encloses the seed (or "kernel") which is edible in many species (such as almonds) but poisonous in others (such as apricots). Besides being eaten off the hand, most "Prunus" fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and seeds for roasting.


title: Prunus

text: Members of the genus can be deciduous or evergreen. A few species have spiny stems. The leaves are simple, alternate, usually lanceolate, unlobed, and often with nectaries on the leaf stalk along with stipules. The flowers are usually white to pink, sometimes red, with five petals and five sepals. Numerous stamens are present. Flowers are borne singly, or in umbels of two to six or sometimes more on racemes. The fruit is a fleshy drupe (a "prune") with a single relatively large, hard-coated seed (a "stone").


title: Prunus

text: Within the rose family Rosaceae, it was traditionally placed as a subfamily, the Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Prunoideae"), but was sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae (or Amygdalaceae). More recently, "Prunus" is thought to have evolved from within a much larger clade now called subfamily Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Spiraeoideae").


title: Prunus

text: The oldest fossils confirmed to belonging to "Prunus" date to the Eocene, which are found across the Northern Hemisphere, older potential Late Cretaceous records are unconfirmed.


title: Prunus

text: In 1737, Carl Linnaeus used four genera to include the species of modern "Prunus"—"Amygdalus, Cerasus, Prunus", and "Padus"—but simplified it to "Amygdalus" and "Prunus" in 1758. Since then, the various genera of Linnaeus and others have become subgenera and sections, as all the species clearly are more closely related. Liberty Hyde Bailey says: "The numerous forms grade into each other so imperceptibly and inextricably that the genus cannot be readily broken up into species."


title: Prunus

text: Historical treatments break the genus into several different genera, but this segregation is not currently widely recognised other than at the subgeneric rank. The ITIS recognises just the single genus "Prunus", with an open list of species, all of which are given at List of Prunus species.


title: Prunus

text: One treatment of the subgenera derives from the work of Alfred Rehder in 1940. Rehder hypothesized five subgenera: "Amygdalus, Prunus, Cerasus, Padus", and "Laurocerasus". To them C. Ingram added "Lithocerasus". The six subgenera are described as follows:


title: Prunus

text: An extensive phylogenetic study based on different chloroplast and nuclear sequences divides "Prunus" into three subgenera:


title: Prunus

text: The genus "Prunus" includes the almond, the nectarine and peach, several species of apricots, cherries, and plums, all of which have cultivars developed for commercial fruit and nut production. The almond is not a true nut; the edible part is the seed. Other species are occasionally cultivated or used for their seed and fruit.


title: Prunus

text: A number of species, hybrids, and cultivars are grown as ornamental plants, usually for their profusion of flowers, sometimes for ornamental foliage and shape, and occasionally for their bark.


title: Prunus

text: Because of their considerable value as both food and ornamental plants, many "Prunus" species have been introduced to parts of the world to which they are not native, some becoming naturalised.


title: Prunus

text: Species such as blackthorn ("Prunus spinosa"), are grown for hedging, game cover, and other utilitarian purposes.


title: Prunus

text: The wood of some species (notably black cherry) is prized as a furniture and cabinetry timber, especially in North America.


title: Prunus

text: Many species produce an aromatic gum from wounds in the trunk; this is sometimes used medicinally. Other minor uses include dye production.


title: Prunus

text: Pygeum, a herbal remedy containing extracts from the bark of "Prunus africana", is used as to alleviate some of the discomfort caused by inflammation in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia.


title: Prunus

text: "Prunus" species are food plants for the larvae of many Lepidoptera species (butterflies and moths); see List of Lepidoptera which feed on "Prunus".


title: Prunus

text: "Prunus" species are included in the Tasmanian Fire Service's list of low flammability plants, indicating that it is suitable for growing within a building protection zone.


title: Prunus

text: Ornamentals include the group that may be collectively called "flowering cherries" (including "sakura", the Japanese flowering cherries).


title: Prunus

text: Many species are cyanogenic; that is, they contain compounds called cyanogenic glucosides, notably amygdalin, which, on hydrolysis, yield hydrogen cyanide. Although the fruits of some may be edible by humans and livestock (in addition to the ubiquitous fructivore of birds), seeds, leaves and other parts may be toxic, some highly so. The plants contain no more than trace amounts of hydrogen cyanide, but on decomposition after crushing and exposure to air or on digestion, poisonous amounts may be generated. The trace amounts may give a characteristic taste ("bitter almond") with increasing bitterness in larger quantities, less tolerable to people than to birds, which habitually feed on specific fruits.


title: Prunus

text: People are often encouraged to consume many fruits because they are rich in a variety of nutrients and phytochemicals that are supposedly beneficial to human health. The fruits of "Prunus" often contain many phytochemicals and antioxidants. These compounds have properties that have been linked to preventing different diseases and disorders. Research suggests that the consumption of these fruits reduces the risk of developing diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and other age-related declines. Many factors can affect the levels of bioactive compounds in the different fruits of the genus "Prunus", including the environment, season, processing methods, orchard operations, and postharvest management.


title: Prunus

text: Cherries contain many different phenolic compounds and anthocyanins, which are indicators of being rich in antioxidants. Recent research has linked the phenolic compounds of the sweet cherry ("Prunus avium") with antitumor properties.


title: Prunus

text: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) include superoxide radicals, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radicals, and singlet oxygen; they are the byproducts of metabolism. High levels of ROS lead to oxidative stress, which causes damage to lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. The oxidative damage results in cell death, which ultimately leads to numerous diseases and disorders. Antioxidants act as a defense mechanism against the oxidative stress. They are used to remove the free radicals in a living system that are generated as ROS. Some of those antioxidants include gutathione S-transferase, glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase. The antioxidants present in cherry extracts act as inhibitors of the free radicals. However, the DNA and proteins can be damaged when an imbalance occurs in the level of free radicals and the antioxidants. When not enough antioxidants are available to remove the free radicals, many diseases can occur, such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, Parkinson's disease, etc. Recent studies have shown that using natural antioxidants as a supplement in chemotherapy can decrease the amount of oxidative damage. Some of these natural antioxidants include ascorbic acid, tocopherol, and epigallocatechin gallate; they can be found in certain cherry extracts.


title: Prunus

text: Similar to cherries, strawberries, and raspberries, almonds are also rich in phenolics. Almonds have a high oxygen radical absorbing capacity (ORAC), which is another indicator of being rich in antioxidants. As stated before, high levels of free radicals are harmful, thus having the capacity to absorb those radicals is greatly beneficial. The bioactive compounds, polyphenols and anthocyanins, found in berries and cherries are also present in almonds. Almonds also contain nonflavonoid and flavonoid compounds, which contribute to the antioxidant properties of almonds. Flavonoids are a group of structurally related compounds that are arranged in a specific manner and can be found in all vascular plants on land. They also contribute to the antioxidant properties of almonds. Some of the nonflavonoid compounds present are protocatechuic, vanillic, and p-hydroxybenzoic acids. Flavonoid compounds that can be found in the skin of the almond are flavanols, dihydroflavonols, and flavanones.


title: Prunus

text: Of all of the different species of stone fruits, plums are the richest in antioxidants and phenolic compounds. The total antioxidant capacity (TAC) varies within each fruit, but in plums, TAC is much higher in the skin than in the flesh of the fruit.


title: Prunus

text: Apricots are high in carotenoids, which play a key role in light absorption during development. Carotenoids are the pigments that give the pulp and peel of apricots and other "Prunus" fruits their yellow and orange colors. Moreover, it is an essential precursor for vitamin A, which is especially important for vision and the immune system in humans. Moreover, these fruits are quite rich in phenolic substances, including catechin, epicatechin, p-coumaric acid, caffeic acid, and ferulic acid.


title: Prunus

text: Similar to the plum, peaches and nectarines also have higher TAC in the skin than in the flesh. They also contain moderate levels of carotenoids and ascorbic acid. Peaches and nectarines are orange and yellow in color, which can be attributed to the carotenoids present.


title: Prunus

text: Various "Prunus" species are winter hosts of the Damson-hop aphid, "Phorodon humuli", which is destructive to hops "Humulus lupulus" just at the time of their maturity, so plum trees should not be grown in the vicinity of hop fields.


title: Prunus

text: Corking is the drying or withering of fruit tissue. In stone fruit, it is often caused by a lack of boron and/or calcium.


title: Prunus

text: Gummosis is a nonspecific condition of stone fruits (peach, nectarine, plum, and cherry) in which gum is exuded and deposited on the bark of trees. Gum is produced in response to any type of wound – insect, mechanical injury, or disease.


title: Prunus

text: "Apiosporina morbosa" is a major fungal disease in the Northern Americas, with many urban centres running black knot fungus management programs. This disease is best managed by physical removal of knot-bearing branches to prevent spore spread and immediate disposal of infected tissue. Chemical treatment is not largely effective, as trees can easily be re-infected by neighbouring knots.


title: Prunus

text: The earliest known fossil "Prunus" specimens are wood, drupe, seed, and a leaf from the middle Eocene of the Princeton Chert of British Columbia, Canada. Using the known age as calibration data, a partial phylogeny of some of the Rosaceae from a number of nucleotide sequences was reconstructed. "Prunus" and its sister clade Maloideae (apple subfamily) has been suggested to have diverged which is within the Lutetian, or older middle Eocene. Stockey and Wehr report: "The Eocene was a time of rapid evolution and diversification in Angiosperm families such as the Rosaceae ..."


title: Prunus

text: The Princeton finds are among a large number of angiosperm fossils from the Okanagan Highlands dating to the late early and middle Eocene. "Crataegus" is found at three locations: the McAbee Fossil Beds, British Columbia; the Klondike Mountain Formation around Republic, Washington, and the Allenby Formation around Princeton, British Columbia, while "Prunus" is found at those locations plus the Coldwater Beds of Quilchena, British Columbia and Chu Chua Formation around Chu Chua, British Columbia. A review of research on the Eocene Okanagan Highlands reported that the Rosaceae were more diverse at higher altitudes. The Okanagan highlands formations date to as early as 52 mya, but the 44.3 mya date, which is approximate, depending on assumptions, might still apply. The authors state: "... the McAbee flora records a diverse early middle Eocene angiosperm-dominated forest."


title: Prunus

text: The "Online Etymology Dictionary" presents the customary derivations of plum and prune from Latin "prūnum", the plum fruit. The tree is "prūnus"; and Pliny uses "prūnus silvestris" to mean the blackthorn. The word is not native Latin, but is a loan from Greek προῦνον (), which is a variant of προῦμνον (), origin unknown. The tree is προύμνη (). Most dictionaries follow Hoffman, "Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen", in making some form of the word a loan from a pre-Greek language of Asia Minor, related to Phrygian.


title: Prunus

text: The first use of "Prunus" as a genus name was by Carl Linnaeus in "Hortus Cliffortianus" of 1737, which went on to become "Species Plantarum". In the latter, Linnaeus attributes the word to "Varr.", who it is assumed must be Marcus Terentius Varro.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: The game was very well received by critics, who praised its music, story, animation, and gameplay, though its short length was criticized. It spawned two follow-up titles: a guitar-based spin-off titled "Um Jammer Lammy", released in 1999 for the PlayStation, and a direct sequel, "PaRappa the Rapper 2", released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. Several publications list it as one of the best video games ever made.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper" is a rhythm game in which the main character, PaRappa, must make his way through each of the game's six stages by rapping. As the teacher raps, a bar at the top of the screen will appear, showing symbols that match up to the teacher's lyrics. The player must then make PaRappa rap in response to the teacher by pressing the buttons with the correct timing to match the teacher's line.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: During gameplay, a "U Rappin'" meter determines the player's performance, ranking it as either Awful, Bad, Good, or Cool. By consistently staying on beat, players will stay in the Good ranking area. If the player performs a bad line, a lower ranking will flash, and if the player performs badly twice in a row, they will drop to Bad, followed by Awful. To regain a higher ranking, the player must play well twice in a row to move up a rank. To clear a stage, the player must have a good ranking by the end of the song. If the player ends the song on a Bad or Awful ranking or drops below the Awful ranking at any point in the song, they will fail the song and have to start over. After the game has been cleared once, the player can attempt to achieve a Cool ranking. This is achieved by freestyling in a manner different from the predetermined lyric. If the player performs a successfully impressive freestyle when the Cool rank is flashing, they will enter Cool mode. In this mode, the teacher will leave the stage, allowing the player to rap freely and earn some large points. If the freestyling fails to impress twice in a row, the teacher will return and gameplay will resume in the Good ranking. Ending the stage with a Cool rank results in a special level ending, and clearing all stages on Cool Mode unlocks a bonus mode with characters Katy Kat and Sunny Funny.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: Rank-changing aspects of a level are only apparent during the first of every two lines. If the player successfully times the first line of a pair but fails on the second, the rank meter will not blink Bad or Awful. Likewise, once the game has been cleared, a Good play is only necessary on the first of every two lines to be able to get Cool mode on the second line.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: The player takes on the role of PaRappa, a paper-thin rapping dog, determined to procure the heart of a flower-like girl he has a crush on named Sunny Funny. However, he is intimidated by the presence of Joe Chin, a rich, narcissistic dog going overboard making efforts to obtain Sunny's attention. In order to win Sunny, PaRappa learns to do karate at a dojo, and earns a driver's education course to get a license. However, when he crashes his father's vehicle, he has to earn money at a flea market to pay for this. When Sunny's birthday comes up, PaRappa has to get her a cake but ends up ruining it after an encounter with Joe. He makes a new one by watching a cooking show and proceeds to eat a lot of it on the day. When spending some time alone with Sunny, he is suddenly overcome with the need to go to the bathroom and has to rap against his former teachers to get to the front of the queue. Then one night, PaRappa is invited to Club Fun, and asks Sunny to go with him, to which she agrees. PaRappa then raps on stage with everyone, rapping solo at the end of the song showing that he's showing interest in Sunny.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: The game was designed by Masaya Matsuura, who at the time was a musician in the band "PSY.S". Matsuura hated appearing in music videos and began working on interactive software as an alternative outlet. Game development started in 1994, before the release of the PlayStation. At the time Sony Computer Entertainment was attempting to produce as many games as they could, which were worked on in two divisions. One division worked on popular genres and the other, internally known as "Division Zero", according to artist Rodney Greenblat, "just did whatever". PaRappa was a product of Division Zero. Japan Studio assisted on development.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: Greenblat got involved with the project after an SCE producer suggested that he and Matsuura work together, having both expressed interest in working with the PlayStation console. Greenblat had already worked with other divisions within Sony and was fairly popular in Japan, particularly for his CD-Rom "Dazzeloids". Similar to the "Paper Mario" series, all of the characters appear to be two-dimensional beings cut from paper while the surroundings are primarily three-dimensional. On his website, Greenblat remembers that making the characters flat was Matsuura's idea, after creating a mock-up with characters from Greenblat's Dazzeloids CD-ROM. The game's title is a wordplay referencing the flat characters; "PaRappa" is a variant of the Japanese word for "paper thin".


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: After deciding on designing a music game Matsuura went through multiple ideas such as having a game centered around singing or playing the guitar. Matsuura was particularly inspired by the musical practice of sampling and claimed "the most interesting thing about sampling was people’s voices", and thus wanted to create a music game using actual voices and by extension one based around rap. By the time Greenblat began working on the game, the basic structure of the game had formed. Greenblat would create characters based on outlines created by Matsuura. Several of the main characters were already designed and owned by Greenblat, including PJ Berri and Katy Kat. One of the first designs Greenblat created specifically for the game was that of the main character, PaRappa, who initially took the form of a shrimp. Occasionally Greenblat's designs would cause the game's story to change. Greenblat noted that he ended up having more input because the other team members felt that some of his characters exceeded their expectations, which prompted the writers to adapt to his characters by changing the story itself. For instance, after Greenblat came up with the idea of an onion for the Karate teacher character, the idea was changed to make him an onion master. The game's soundtrack was made using samplers rather than MIDI synthesizers, which were common at the time. Initially all of the teachers' songs used sampled vocals. These could, however, not be used in the final game and were redone "while maintaining the concept of each tune". The lyrics were written in Japanese by Matsuura and then translated by rapper Ryu Watabe while he was freestyling. All of the music was recorded at a studio in New York. The game also is one of the first PlayStation games to use in-game motion capture in order to portray more realistic character movement.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: Promotion for the game proved to be somewhat of a problem. Before this, there had been no similar games, and the team struggled with what genre to market the game as. Many staff members at Sony felt that PaRappa did not qualify as a game and Matsuura himself recalls initially being unsure as well. The game, however, became massively successful, which prompted SCEA, despite having a strict policy against 2D games, to release the game in North America. According to Greenblat, SCEA did not know how to market the game and aimed its marketing primarily at children, a demographic he noted would have trouble completing the game.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper" sold 761,621 copies in Japan during 1997, making it the 7th best-selling video game of 1997 in that region. In May 1998, Sony awarded the game a "Platinum Prize" for sales above 1 million units in Japan alone. , the game has sold copies in Japan and 214,398 copies in the United States, for a combined copies sold in Japan and the United States.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: The game received near-universal acclaim from critics, who hailed "PaRappa the Rapper" as a unique game with irresistibly catchy songs. Dan Hsu of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" commented, "Several of the tunes are so catchy, you'll be singing them for days." Hsu also made it his pick for "Sleeper Hit of the Holidays". "IGN" wrote that "while the words may seem a little strange ... this just adds to the quirky nature of the game. The music is top-notch as well." "GamePro" concurred: "The melodies are funk phenomenons, and the raps are so silly, they'll make you laugh in spite of yourself." The graphics and animation were also widely praised. "GameSpot" remarked, "All of PaRappa's characters are comically animated paper dolls moving against colorful 3D backdrops, a simplistic and charming visual design that never would have worked but for the game's theme and some brilliant camera motion." Multiple critics also commented on the well-crafted story and charming title character. "Next Generation" summarized that "The game is so well-produced and carried out that you won't even notice that the gameplay itself is based on the most primitive of concepts. Simply put, style over substance has never been better done than in "PaRappa"." The one common criticism was that the game is too short.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: At the first annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards) in 1998, "PaRappa the Rapper" won the awards for "Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design" and "Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music", and was nominated for "Interactive Title of the Year". "Electronic Gaming Monthly" awarded it "Most Original Game of the Year" and "Best Music", and the character PaRappa "Best Mascot" (beating out Lara Croft and Crash Bandicoot, both of whom had critically acclaimed games released that year), at their 1997 Editors' Choice Awards. In the final issue of the "Official UK PlayStation Magazine", the game was chosen as the 3rd best game of all time.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper Remastered" received mixed or average reviews. It was praised for keeping the charm of the original game while improving on the graphical quality but was criticized for only improving the graphics of the gameplay and not the cutscenes. Caitlin Cooke of "Destructoid" wrote that "The remastered version does not include a calibration setting. This works very much against "PaRappa"'s favor as there’s an extremely noticeable lag throughout each of the levels, causing havoc when trying to hit the notes on time." Stuart Andrews of Trusted Reviews wrote: "I love PaRappa and his 'I gotta believe' attitude, but this early rhythm action game no longer holds up."


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: In 1999, "Next Generation" listed "PaRappa the Rapper" as number 36 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that ""PaRappa" has to be played to truly understand how wonderful it is, and it appeals to both young and old, men and women, hardcore gamers and people who have never held a controller before in their lives."


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper" was followed by a spin-off titled "Um Jammer Lammy", which was released on 18 March 1999 in Japan. The game featured a new cast of characters, multiplayer modes and focused on guitar play, but very similar gameplay. A bonus mode was included in which the entire game could be replayed with PaRappa as the protagonist, complete with his own versions of the game's stages. An arcade version of the game produced by Namco was also released. A direct sequel, "PaRappa the Rapper 2", was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 in Japan and 2002 in North America and Europe. Several media adaptations outside of the video game industry were also developed, including an eponymous anime television series which aired in Japan between April 2001 and January 2002, which served as a tie-in to "PaRappa the Rapper 2".


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper" was released for PlayStation Portable in Japan in December 2006 and in North America and Europe in July 2007 for the game's tenth anniversary. The port, developed by Japan Studio and epics, features ad hoc multiplayer mode for up to four players and the ability to download remixed versions of the existing songs. In conjunction with the PSP release, Sony, for a limited time, freely released the soundtrack. In a 2008 Famitsu interview, Masaya Matsuura revealed that a brand new song created for the PSP release, "Believe in Yourself", was cut due to development time constraints.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: A remaster of the game by Japan Studio for PlayStation 4 was released on 4 April 2017. The port features graphics of up to 4K resolution, and includes all the downloadable songs from the PSP version. A playable demo was released on 3 December 2016, celebrating the game's 20th anniversary. Homebrew developers found that the PS4 port was actually the PlayStation Portable version running inside an emulator and with high resolution textures.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: In 2016, Sony's mobile studio ForwardWorks announced they were working on a smartphone version of the game; no further details have been released since then.


title: PaRappa the Rapper

text: "PaRappa the Rapper" was featured as a challenge on the video game-based show "GamesMaster" in 1998. The game was also referenced in the web series "Video Game High School", where the character Jenny Matrix is pressured into playing a level of "PAROPERA THE OPERA" during a talk show.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and originally in the House as the INVEST in America Act (H.R. 3684), is a United States federal statute enacted by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 15, 2021.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The act was initially a infrastructure package that included provisions related to federal-aid highway, transit, highway safety, motor carrier, research, hazardous materials and rail programs of the Department of Transportation. After congressional negotiations, it was amended and renamed to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to include funding for broadband access, clean water and electric grid renewal in addition to the transportation and road proposals of the original House bill. This amended version included approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, with $550 billion being newly authorized spending on top of what Congress was planning to authorize regularly.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The amended bill was passed 69–30 by the Senate on August 10, 2021. On November 5, it was passed 228–206 by the House, and ten days later was signed into law by President Biden.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On March 31, 2021, President Joe Biden unveiled his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan (which, when combined with the American Families Plan, amounted to $4 trillion in infrastructure spending), pitched by him as "a transformative effort to overhaul the nation's economy". The detailed plan aimed to create millions of jobs, bolster labor unions, expand labor protections, and address climate change.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: In mid-April 2021, Republican lawmakers offered a $568 billion counterproposal to the American Jobs Plan. On May 9, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said it should cost no more than $800 billion. On May 21, the administration reduced the price tag to $1.7 trillion, which was quickly rejected by Republicans. A day later, a bipartisan group within the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced that they had reached a deal for $304 billion in funding for U.S. highway funding. This was approved unanimously by the committee on May 26. On June 4, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio announced a $547 billion plan, called the INVEST in America Act, which would address parts of the American Jobs Plan. On July 1, the House passed an amended $715 billion infrastructure bill focused on land transportation and water.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On May 27, Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito presented a $928 billion plan, and on June 4, increased it by about $50 billion; this was quickly rejected by the Biden administration. On June 8, the administration shifted its focus to a bipartisan group of 20 senators, which had been working on a package tentatively priced around $900 billion. On June 10, a bipartisan group of 10 senators reached a deal costing $974 billion over five years; or about $1.2 trillion if stretched over eight years. On June 16, the plan was endorsed by a bipartisan group of 21 senators. On June 24, the bipartisan group met with the president and reached a compromise deal costing $1.2 trillion over eight years, which focuses on physical infrastructure (notably roads, bridges, railways, water, sewage, broadband, electric vehicles). This was planned to be paid for through reinforced Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection, unspent COVID-19 relief funds, and other sources. By July 2021, the IRS portion of the funding had reportedly been scrapped. Biden stipulated that a separate "human infrastructure" bill (notably child care, home care, and climate change)later known as the Build Back Better Actmust also pass, whether through bipartisanship or reconciliation, but later walked back this position. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi similarly stated that the House would not vote on the physical infrastructure bill until the larger bill passes in the Senate, despite the fact that reconciliation overrides much of the obstructive power of the filibuster.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: White House officials stated on July 7 that legislative text was nearing completion. On July 14, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced an energy bill expected to be included in the bipartisan package. On July 21, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer put forward a "shell bill" for a vote to kick off debate in the Senate, intending to add the bipartisan text via an amendment. On July 25, Republican senator Rob Portman stated that an agreement was "about 90%" complete, with mass transit being one remaining point of contention. On July 30, Portman stated that this had been resolved. On July 28, Senator Kyrsten Sinema stated that she did not support a reconciliation bill costing $3.5 trillion, breaking the stalemate and allowing the bipartisan bill to move forward. That day, the Senate voted 67–32 to advance the bill, and on July 30, voted 66–28 to proceed to its consideration. The legislation text was completed and substituted into the bill on August 1. On August 5, Schumer moved to truncate debate on the legislation, setting up a procedural vote on August 7, which passed 67–27. Fifteen or more amendments were expected to receive votes through the weekend. On August 10, the bill was passed by the Senate 69–30. It sets aside $550 billion in new spending.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: A procedural vote on a House rule concerning passing both bills passed along party lines on August 24.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: In early August, nine moderate Democrats called for an immediate House vote on the bill, citing a desire not to lose the momentum from the Senate passage of the bill. They committed to voting against taking up the reconciliation resolution until there was a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. While both Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have reversed earlier positions to support passing the bipartisan bill separately, progressives including Congressional Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal and Senator Bernie Sanders maintained that it be utilized as leverage to pass the most expensive reconciliation bill possible. The lack of a deal caused a late September House vote to be postponed. On October 2, Pelosi set a new deadline of October 31. By October 28, Jayapal and other progressive leaders indicated that they were willing to vote on the bill separately, but Sanders and others opposed this. On October 31, a majority of progressives signaled that they would support both bills.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: Votes on both bills were considered on November 5, but the hesitation of several moderates to pass the reconciliation bill before it could be scored by the Congressional Budget Office made passing the bipartisan bill unlikely. Negotiations between centrist and progressive Democrats concluded with the centrists committing to passing the Build Back Better Act. The bill ultimately went to a vote, as did a rule to vote on the larger bill once it was scored, passing 228–206; 13 Republicans joined all but six Democrats (members of "the Squad") in supporting the legislation. The six Democrats who voted 'No' stated that their opposition was because the legislation had been decoupled from the social-safety net provisions of the Build Back Better bill. Biden signed the bill into law at a signing ceremony on November 15.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The following is the bill summary authorized by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) for the INVEST in America Act, the original version which passed the House on July 1, 2021:


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The specific amounts in surface transportation spending were $343 billion for roads, highways, bridges and motor safety, $109 billion for transit, and $95 billion for rail. Provisions of the bill incentivized prioritizing maintenance and repair spending over spending on new infrastructure, collecting data on reductions in vehicle miles traveled through transit-oriented development, and lowering speed limits to increase road safety and encourage building complete streets. The Senate version, and the final bill, de-emphasized these incentives.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: A report written by the REPEAT project, said the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act alone will make only a small reduction in emissions, but as they say: "We lack modeling capabilities to reflect the net effect of surface transportation investments in highways (which tend to increase on-road vehicle and freight miles traveled) and rail and public transit (which tend to reduce on-road vehicle and freight miles traveled). These significant programs are therefore not modeled in this analysis, an important limitation of our assessment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act".


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The bill includes the largest federal investment in public transit in history. The bill includes spending figures of $105 billion dollars in public transport. It also spends $110 billion on fixing roads and bridges and includes measures for climate change mitigation and improving access for cyclists and pedestrians. Increasing use of public transport and related transit-oriented development can reduce transportation emissions in human settlements by 78% and overall US emissions by 15%.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The bill includes spending $21 billion for environmental projects, $50 billion for water storage, and $15 billion for electric vehicles. $73 billion will be spent on power infrastructure including the electrical grid's adjustment to renewable energy. It also gives $1 billion to better connect neighborhoods separated by transport infrastructure as part of environmental justice efforts. This $1 billion will be spent through the Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) discretionary grant program that, among other priorities, promotes: "New or improved, affordable transportation options to increase safe mobility and connectivity for all, including for people with disabilities, through lower-carbon travel like walking, cycling, rolling, and transit that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote active travel.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: Republican senators balked at Biden's tandem plan to pass both a bipartisan plan and a separate Democratic-supported reconciliation bill. McConnell criticized Biden for "caving" to his own party by issuing an "ultimatum" that he would not sign the bipartisan bill without a separate reconciliation package. After Biden walked back his comments, Republican senators restated their confidence in the bipartisan bill. A "Yahoo! News"/YouGov poll conducted in late June found that 60% of Republican voters favored the plan.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On June 28, 2021, Sunrise Movement and several progressive representatives performed a protest at the White House in criticism of the size and scope of Biden's Civilian Climate Corps. Several protesters were arrested for blocking White House entrances.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On July 6, the 58-member bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus stated their support for the bipartisan bill and called for an expeditious and independent House vote. On July 21, a group of 65 former governors and mayors endorsed the plan.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: Ahead of a procedural vote on August 7, former president Donald Trump attacked the bill and said he would support Republican primary challengers of senators who vote for it. He reiterated his criticisms following the bill's passage by Congress.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: Following the bill's passage by Congress in November, Trump criticized it as containing "only 11% for real Infrastructure", calling it "the Elect Democrats in 2022/24 Act", and attacked Republicans who had supported it, saying in particular that McConnell had lended "lifelines to those who are destroying" the country. Various House Republicans also criticized the 13 Republican representatives who voted for the bill. Lauren Boebert described them as "RINOS" (Republican in Name Only). Mary Miller called them "spineless" and said they helped enact a "socialist takeover". Marjorie Taylor Greene called them "traitors" and "American job & energy killers", who "are China-First and America-Last", because they "agree with Globalist Joe [Biden] that America must depend on China to drive" electric vehicles. Gary Palmer was criticized for touting funding for the Birmingham Northern Beltline that he added to the bill, while neglecting to mention that he voted against the final bill. Paul Gosar was also criticized for taking credit for the bill's funding for Kingman Airport despite voting against it. Several Republican governors who condemned the bill, including Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Greg Gianforte of Montana, accepted the funding and directed it to various programs.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On June 22, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and No Labels made a joint statement urging the president to consider a bipartisan bill. The former two groups have lobbied for the plan not to raise corporate taxes, and to instead impose user fees and borrow from other federal funds. Senator Bernie Sanders has stated that he would not support paying for the bill via a proposed gas tax or a surcharge on electric vehicles.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On September 24, leaders from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Urban League, and other Black American advocacy groups signaled their support for the bill.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: On September 25, Peter J. Wallison authored an opinion piece for "The Hill" in which he argued that Republicans should try to pass the bipartisan bill to prevent it from being used as further leverage to pass the reconciliation bill. Subsequently, Republican House leaders formally opposed the bipartisan bill.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: "Historians, economists and engineers interviewed by The Associated Press welcomed Biden's efforts. But they stressed that $1 trillion was not nearly enough to overcome the government's failure for decades to maintain and upgrade the country's infrastructure."


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: The think tank Transportation for America praised the House version of the bill, but heavily criticized the Senate version for its shortcomings on safety, climate resilience, long-term transit and rail funding and transit-oriented development, and maintenance spending, though it later noted that the final version that became law made small steps to address them.


title: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

text: Polling from Third Way and Impact Research released in July 2022 showed that only 24% of voters were aware the bill was signed into law, despite House Democrats holding over 1,000 events to promote it.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: The Boeing Everett Factory is an airplane assembly facility built by Boeing in Everett, Washington, United States. It sits at the northeast corner of Paine Field and includes the largest building in the world by volume at 13,385,378 m (472,370,319 cu ft) and covers . The entire complex spans both sides of State Route 526 (named the Boeing Freeway). The factory was built in 1967 for the Boeing 747 and has since been expanded several times to accommodate new airliners, including the 767, 777, and 787 programs.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: Boeing has had a presence in Everett since 1943. In 1966, plans for a factory in the area for the construction of the 747 were first announced after Boeing was awarded a contract worth US$525 million (equivalent to $ million in ) from Pan American World Airways to build 25 of the aircraft. The company purchased north of the then little-used Paine Field, which was operated by the U.S. Army during World War II. The factory was officially opened on May 1, 1967, four months after the first workers had arrived to start construction of the 747.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: Boeing began offering factory tours with the first rollout of the 747 in 1968. As of 2020 over 150,000 people come each year to visit the factory, which employs over 30,000 people and has its own fire department, security team, daycare center, coffee shop, and fitness center. The factory also houses a Boeing Employees' Credit Union branch and several cafés. Across the airport to the west is The Boeing Store, a theater, and the Future of Flight Aviation Center, which runs the factory tour. The Boeing Everett campus is big enough to contain Disneyland with left over for parking.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: To accommodate the Dreamlifter, a converted 747-400 which delivered 787 sections to the plant, a base was constructed on the western edge of Paine Field's runway. Opening in October 2013, the base, called the Dreamlifter Operations Center, was funded by Snohomish County with $35 million in bonds; it is owned by the county via the airport, with Boeing leasing the site and servicing the bonds.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: The Boeing 767 is a mid- to large-size, long-range wide-body twin-engine jet airliner. The 767-300ER, the last passenger variant in production, is capable of carrying 218 passengers in a typical three-class configuration, has a range of and a cruising speed Mach 0.80 (530 mph, 851 km/h, 470 kn). Production of this plane began in 1979.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: The Boeing 777 is a large-size, long-range wide-body twin-engine jet airliner. The 777-300ER, the current passenger variant in production, is capable of carrying 386 passengers in a typical three-class configuration, has a range of and a cruising speed Mach 0.84 (554 mph, 892 km/h, 482 kn). Production of this plane began in 1993.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: The Boeing 747 is a large-size, long-range wide-body four-engine jet airliner. The 747-8I, the last passenger variant in production, is capable of carrying 467 passengers in a typical three-class configuration, has a range of and a cruising speed Mach 0.855 (570 mph, 918 km/h, 495 kn). The Boeing 747 was one of the first wide-body aircraft to be produced and was the first jet to use a wide-body configuration for carrying passengers. Because of the vast size of the 747, the Boeing Everett Factory was designed and built to accommodate the assembly of these large planes as there was not enough room at the Boeing facilities in Seattle. Production of this aircraft began in 1967 and continued until 2022, with the last 747-8F (N863GT) rolling out in December for customer Atlas Air.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a mid-size, long-range wide-body twin-engine jet airliner. The current passenger variants in production, are capable of carrying 242–290 passengers in a typical two-class configuration, have a range of and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (562 mph, 902 km/h, 487 kn). Production of this plane began in 2006.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: In February 2011, Boeing announced that some 787 work was being moved to a plant in North Charleston, South Carolina in order to relieve overcrowding of 787s at Everett caused by large volumes of 787 orders. In July 2014, Boeing announced that the 787-10 variant, the longest variant of the 787, would be produced exclusively in South Carolina as the fuselage pieces for that variant are too large for the Dreamlifter to fit for transport to Everett.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: Undertaking drastic cost-cutting measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting impact on aviation, Boeing announced in July 2020 that it would consider consolidating all of its 787 assembly in a single location; the company chose to move all production to South Carolina on October 1, causing backlash from the Washington state government. The move was completed in February 2021; it was cemented with Boeing's agreement to transfer its lease of the Dreamlifter Operations Center to package courier FedEx in April 2021. FedEx, which takes over the lease on November 1, plans to use it for its cargo airline operations.


title: Boeing Everett Factory

text: Aircraft are delivered as a whole from the Paine Field Snohomish County Airport, adjacent to and south of the plant.


title: The Off-Season

text: The Off-Season is the sixth studio album by American rapper J. Cole. It was released on May 14, 2021, by Dreamville Records, Roc Nation and Interscope Records. The album was executive produced by Cole, Moss,Ibrahim Hamad, and T-Minus. It also features guest vocals from Morray, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Bas, and 6lack. It became Cole's first album since 2013's "Born Sinner" to contain guest features. Production was handled by multiple producers, including Cole himself, T-Minus, Timbaland, Boi-1da, Frank Dukes, DJ Dahi, Tae Beast, and Jake One, among others.


title: The Off-Season

text: "The Off-Season" was supported by one single, "My Life", and promotional singles, "The Climb Back" and "Interlude". "The Off-Season" was accompanied by a twelve-minute short film upon its release titled, "".


title: The Off-Season

text: "The Off-Season" received positive reviews from critics and topped the US "Billboard" 200. It sold 282,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, earning Cole his sixth consecutive number-one album in the country. At the time of its release, "The Off-Season" achieved the largest streaming week of 2021, accumulating over 325.5 million streams. Four songs from "The Off-Season" debuted in the top ten on the US "Billboard" Hot 100; every song on the album charted in the top forty. The album scored a nomination for Best Rap Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Also, "Pride Is The Devil" was nominated for Best Melodic Rap Performance, while "My Life" was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.


title: The Off-Season

text: On August 7, 2018, Cole released "Album of the Year (Freestyle)", accompanied by a music video. Cole announced "The Off-Season", which will precede the release of what was originally planned to be his sixth studio album, "The Fall Off". In the description to the video, it reads: "The Off Season coming soon... All roads lead to The Fall Off - Cole". In an interview with "Billboard" in September 2018, Cole announced his plans to take off time in 2019 from touring to finish work on "The Off-Season", "The Fall Off", and his Kill Edward project.


title: The Off-Season

text: On December 29, 2020, Cole posted a photo on Instagram where he documented a list titled, "The Fall Off Era". On the list crossed out, was features and "Revenge of the Dreamers III". Also listed, but not crossed out was two projects, "The Off-Season" and "It's a Boy", which he intends to release ahead of "The Fall Off". The caption of the post read: "I still got some goals I gotta check off for' I scram...", alluding to a potential retirement.


title: The Off-Season

text: As one of the executive producers of the album, T-Minus began producing with Cole in 2017, collaborating on "Kevin's Heart", "Middle Child", and "Lion King on Ice". He spoke on producing for Cole in an interview saying, "Cole is very much a producer, so he likes to direct where the music is going as far as arrangement, or the bounce, or the feeling that he wants to have. So he gave me a bunch of ideas and pointers for what he wanted to do." When asked about Cole's creative mindset for the mixtape, he said: "Cole is tapped into every aspect of the creation of the record. He writes all of his own music, writes all of the songs. He produces, he mixes; he's super involved [...] he's just that guy who's very grounded when it comes to the creation of the entire record, which is dope because when I create with him, he's very much directing where he wants the record to go."


title: The Off-Season

text: The cover art was organized by Dreamville's creative director Felton Brown and shot in North Carolina by Justin Francis. The artwork shows Cole standing in front of a basketball hoop on fire, referencing the basketball theme on the covers of his mixtapes "The Warm Up" (2009) and "Friday Night Lights" (2010), and debut album "" (2011). Brown told "Complex" magazine:


title: The Off-Season

text: On May 10, 2021, it was announced that J. Cole signed a contract with the Rwanda Patriots in the Basketball Africa League. Cole was also featured on the cover of the American basketball magazine "Slam" for the May 2021 issue. Cole explained the title of the mixtape, relating it to his basketball career saying:


title: The Off-Season

text: On November 8, 2018, Cole made a playlist on streaming services titled, "Where the fuck is The Off Season", which contains all of his 2018 features. The playlist also includes Jeezy's song "American Dream" (2017), J. Cole's singles "Everybody Dies" (2016), "False Prophets" (2016), "High for Hours" (2017), "Album of the Year (Freestyle)" (2018), and "1985" (2018).


title: The Off-Season

text: On May 4, 2021, J. Cole officially announced the release date of the album on social media, and revealed the artwork. On May 10, 2021, Cole released a documentary titled, "" via YouTube. The short film is divided into four chapters where Cole shares a behind the scenes look in the studio as well as private moments during the album's creating process. The film was executive produced by Cole himself, Ibrahim Hamad, and Tripp Kramer, and directed by Scott Lazer. The film features a cameo from fellow rapper 21 Savage. While describing the inspiration of the mixtape, Cole said in the documentary:


title: The Off-Season

text: On May 13, 2021, hours prior to its release, Cole revealed the album's tracklist and production credits via social media.


title: The Off-Season

text: To further promote the album, Cole announced The Off-Season Tour on June 22, 2021. The tour included 20 North American dates, and began on September 24, 2021 in Miami and concluded on April 3, 2022, in Raleigh at the Dreamville festival. 21 Savage served as the co-headliner and Morray served as their supporting act on the tour.


title: The Off-Season

text: "My Life", with 21 Savage and Morray, impacted rhythmic contemporary radio in the United States on May 25, 2021, as the album's first official radio single. It debuted and peaked at number two on the Hot 100.


title: The Off-Season

text: On July 22, 2020, Cole released "The Climb Back" as a dual single along with, "Lion King on Ice", under the title "Lewis Street". According to Cole, the two songs were originally intended to be the first singles from his upcoming album "The Fall Off". "The Climb Back" is included on the album.


title: The Off-Season

text: On May 7, 2021, Cole released "Interlude", the first promotional single from the album, initially planning on releasing the album all at once with no singles prior to its release, as he had done in the past starting with his third studio album, "2014 Forest Hills Drive". The interlude was produced by T-Minus, Tommy Parker, and Cole himself. In the US, the song debuted with 8.5 million on-demand audio streams in its first day. It also reached number one on US Apple Music in less than a day. "Interlude" debuted and peaked at number eight on the US "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: The Off-Season

text: On May 17, 2021, the music video was released for the song, "Amari", the video was directed by Raleigh-based rapper Mez, who also directed the music video for Cole's 2019 hit and multi-platinum single, "Middle Child". Cole released the music video for the song, "Applying Pressure" on May 25, 2021, and a music video for "Punchin' the Clock" on June 3, 2021. Both videos were directed by Scott Lazer and produced by Tripp Kramer. "Applying Pressure" features an appearance from rapper Dave East, who Cole also made a reference to in the song. All three music videos were filmed in New York City.


title: The Off-Season

text: "The Off-Season" was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 76, based on ten reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.2 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: The Off-Season

text: "Clash" gave the album a positive review saying, Cole "reached astronomical heights. Fortunately for fans, they did not have to wait long, and the North Carolina rapper did not disappoint." The writer continued to say ""The Off-Season" is a solid project with no expiration date and can easily be digested for months and years to come. While some fans may be eager for more, "The Off-Season" is a great appetiser for the main dish and contains just enough for those that have been waiting for three years on The Real." Writing for "Exclaim!", Luke Fox praised the album, calling Cole "refocused and rejuvenated", he continued saying: "If 2018's concept-heavy, dangerously didactic "KOD" was Cole drifting into the player-coach stage of his career, "The Off-Season" is Cole lacing up squeaky high-tops and drilling 100,000 hours of threes".


title: The Off-Season

text: "Variety"'s Brandon Yu wrote the following: "Particularly as hip-hop continues to transform as the new pop, Cole, a steadfast rap traditionalist now a good decade into his career, might appear as a relic (for some fans, the generation-war of his "1985" read as this very truth). On ""The Off-Season"," he is burnishing a reputation as a lingering titan. If ""The Off-Season"" is Cole's first record of The Fall Off Era, he appears far from ready to bow out, nor should he be." Yoh Phillips of "Complex" called the album a "workout session", he wrote, ""The Off-Season" sets Cole up to create the conversation about his place in rap history, and he'll need to deliver a blockbuster finale to fulfill the premonition he made 11 years ago on "Last Call." Craig Jenkins of "Vulture" said: "As the title suggests, "The Off-Season" is sort of a training montage, a blade-sharpening exercise not unlike Drake's "If You're Reading This It's Too Late" in its core objective of showing the work it takes to stay on top while cultivating buzz for a future release (in this case, Cole's forthcoming "The Fall Off") – and maybe notching a few more hit records along the way." Writing for AllMusic, Fred Thomas said, "The album is a varied selection with solid performances and production throughout. Much like the title suggests, "The Off-Season" feels like Cole running through different exercises as he gets in shape for something bigger."


title: The Off-Season

text: On the day of its release, "The Off-Season" broke Spotify's one-day streaming record for 2021 up until that point with 62 million streams. In the United States, the album debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, earning 282,000 album-equivalent units (including 37,000 copies as pure album sales) in its first week. This became Cole's seventh US number one album on the chart. At the time of its release, "The Off-Season" achieved the largest streaming week of 2021, accumulating over 325.5 million on-demand streams of the album's 12 tracks, surpassing Morgan Wallen’s "" which debuted with 240.18 million streams for its 30 songs in its first week. The project also earned the largest week of 2021 for a hip-hop album, until being surpassed by Kanye West’s album "Donda." and Drake's album "Certified Lover Boy". In its second week, the album dropped to number two on the chart, earning an additional 92,000 units. In its third week, the album dropped to number three on the chart, earning 58,000 more units. In its fourth week, the album dropped to number four on the chart, earning 44,000 units. As of December 2021, the album has earned over 1,000,000 album-equivalent units in the United States.


title: The Off-Season

text: Four songs from "The Off-Season" debuted in the top ten on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, with "My Life" (at 2), "Amari" (at 5), "Pride Is the Devil" (at 7), and "95 South" (at 8). Drake, Juice WRLD, Lil Wayne & Lil Uzi Vert are the only other artists to have four songs debut in the top ten. "Interlude" debuted at number eight the previous week giving the album five top ten singles. Every song on the album charted in the top forty on the Hot 100.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: written and directed by Brian Helgeland in his directorial debut, and starring Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, and David Paymer. It is based on the novel "The Hunter" by Donald E. Westlake using the pseudonym Richard Stark, which had earlier been adapted into the 1967 film noir classic "Point Blank", directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: In 2006, Helgeland issued a director's cut that differs substantially from the version released by the studio.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Porter, a career thief and former U.S. Marine, lies facedown on the kitchen table of an unlicensed doctor, after having been shot twice and betrayed for $70,000. As the doctor uses the whiskey he is drinking as a sterilizing agent and digs out the bullets, Porter begins making his plans to get the money back and take revenge.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Broke after five months recuperating, Porter uses a series of petty thefts and short cons to quickly acquire $1,000 cash, a new suit, a revolver, and a few meals. He then begins tracking down his estranged wife Lynn and former partner-in-crime Val Resnick. In flashbacks, Porter recalls that they betrayed him following a $140,000 heist from local Chinese Triad. Resnick had manipulated Lynn into helping him with a picture showing Porter with another woman, a high-priced call girl named Rosie, and implying that the two were having an affair. Lynn shoots Porter, then she and Resnick leave Porter for dead. Val used the cash to buy his way back into "the Outfit," a local organized crime syndicate, by paying off his outstanding debt of $130,000 to them.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Porter first seeks out his wife, Lynn, out of loyalty to their marriage; however, she has been consumed by guilt and become addicted to heroin. Porter attempts to help her sober up by confining her and confiscating her drugs, but the next morning he finds her dead from an overdose using a hidden stash. Believing that Resnick was funding her drug habit, Porter interrogates Lynn's drug connection, who points him towards Resnick's middle-man, Arthur Stegman, a sleazy drug, muscle, and weapons supplier for the bottom rung of the criminal underworld. Porter finds Stegman in the company of two corrupt police detectives, Hicks and Leary, who threaten him for a share of the $70,000, once he acquires it.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Using Stegman's information, Porter enlists the help of Rosie, who is now affiliated with the Outfit. Rosie agrees, revealing that she still cares about Porter from when he was her bodyguard; Porter agrees, and the two lament that they never moved forward with their relationship, as they were each repelled by the others' career and Porter could not abandon Lynn. Rosie tells Porter that he can track Resnick through his employ of specialty prostitutes, as he is barred from soliciting Outfit call girls because his sadistic tendencies nearly killed one of them.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Porter finds Resnick during a session with a Triad-connected dominatrix named Pearl, when Porter ambushes him and demands his money. Fearful, Resnick later begs the Outfit for help but is told to solve his own problems. He then uses Pearl to frame Porter for the $140,000 heist so the Triads will kill him; however, this attempt fails. Resnick follows Porter's trail to Rosie's apartment, beats and threatens to rape her when she fights back. Porter arrives and wounds Resnick, who attempts to bargain for his life by giving him the names of the Outfit bosses Fairfax and Carter; since Resnick does not have the money, Porter kills him. He takes Rosie to a safe house, only to find that it is now compromised and rigged with plastic explosives, connected to the telephone by three of Carter's hitmen. Porter kills them and later confronts Carter in his own office, threatening to kill him unless he pays the $70,000. Carter states he is only an underboss, thus unauthorized to make financial decisions and calls Bronson, the head of the Outfit. During the negotiation, both Carter and Bronson believe that Porter is demanding the full $130,000 that Resnick paid the Outfit, though Porter repeatedly corrects them that all he wants is his share, which Resnick stole. When Bronson refuses over the phone, Porter carries out his threat and kills Carter. Porter then frames Hicks and Leary by planting Leary's fingerprints on the gun used to kill Resnick, as well as stealing Hicks's badge and leaving it with the gun in Resnick's hand.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: With the aid of Rosie, Porter kidnaps Bronson's son, Johnny. He then visits and threatens Fairfax; Hicks and Leary, who are waiting outside Fairfax's house, are promptly arrested by Internal Affairs on account of the false evidence left earlier. A shootout ensues involving Porter, Stegman, his driver, Pearl and the Triads; only Porter and Pearl survive. Porter is later captured by Fairfax's men, taken to a warehouse and beaten for hours. Bronson arrives with his own men and the $130,000 ransom, though he swears that Porter will never lay his hands on it. Porter unsuccessfully tries to reason that all he wanted was the $70,000 that Resnick owed him, but Bronson then authorizes his men to hammer Porter's toes one-by-one, until he reveals Johnny's location; Bronson's men smash two toes before he gives them a location.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Bronson, Fairfax, and their men take Porter with them to investigate the address; however, the address is actually the compromised safe house wired with explosives. While they make their way to the apartment, Porter breaks free through the locked trunk and makes his way to the car's cell phone, and then dials the bomb's trigger just as they enter the room. The explosion kills Bronson, Fairfax, and their men, and Porter flees the scene to contact Rosie. Upon his arrival, Rosie leaves Johnny behind and joins Porter in the car to start new lives together, beginning by "going for breakfast...in Canada."


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: The film was shot from September to November 1997, in Chicago and Los Angeles, though neither city is referred to in the film. Although credited as director, Brian Helgeland's cut of the film was not the theatrical version released to audiences. After the end of principal photography, Helgeland's version was deemed too dark for the mainstream public. Following a script rewrite by Terry Hayes, director Helgeland was replaced. There was initially some uncertainty on who directed the reshoots, with some sources claiming it was the production designer John Myhre. However, Paul Abascal has stated on his website that he in fact directed the new scenes. The new director reshot 30% of the film. The intent was to make the Porter character accessible. The film's tagline became: "Get Ready to Root for the Bad Guy." A potentially controversial scene between Porter and Lynn which arguably involves spousal abuse was excised and more plot elements were added to the third act. After 10 days of reshoots, a new opening scene and voiceover track also were added, and Kris Kristofferson walked on as a new villain.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Helgeland's version, "Straight Up: The Director's Cut", was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD on April 10, 2007, after an October 2006 run at the Austin Film Festival. The Director's Cut version features a female Bronson, that is never seen only heard over the phone voiced by Sally Kellerman, does not include the voice-over by Porter and several Bronson-related scenes. During their scuffle (which is longer than in the theatrical version and was the main source of controversy), Porter earlier tells Lynn that his picture with Rosie was taken before they met, thereby rendering her jealousy unjustified. This version has an entirely different, ambiguous ending where Porter is seriously wounded in a train station shootout and driven off by Rosie.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: A June 4, 2012, look at "movies improved by directors' cuts" by "The A.V. Club" described "Payback: Straight Up" as "a marked improvement on the unrulier original."


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Mel Gibson stated in a short interview released as a DVD extra that it "would've been ideal to shoot in black and white." He noted that "people want a color image" and that the actual film used a bleach bypass process to tint the film. In addition to this, the production design used muted shades of red, brown, and grey for costumes, sets, and cars for further effect.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: "Payback" was well received at the box office. The film made $21,221,526 in its opening weekend in North America. It eventually grossed $81,526,121 in North America and $80,100,000 in other territories, totaling $161,626,121 worldwide.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives "Payback" a score of 54% based on 74 reviews from critics, and a weighted average of 5.9 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states, "Sadistic violence and rote humor saddle a predictable action premise." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Payback (1999 film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film a three-star rating (out of four) in his review, writing, "There is much cleverness and ingenuity in "Payback", but Mel Gibson is the key. The movie wouldn't work with an actor who was heavy on his feet, or was too sincere about the material."


title: Tokischa

text: Tokischa Altagracia Peralta Juárez (born 17 March 1996) known mononymously as Tokischa, is a Dominican rapper, songwriter and sexual content creator.


title: Tokischa

text: After working as a model for the renowned photographer Raymi Paulus, she was offered to enter the music industry. She signed a recording contract with Paulus Music and released his debut single "Pícala" to great regional success. In 2021 she expanded horizons, and was introduced to global artist. After her song "Linda" alongside Rosalía was released great commercial success, she continued collaborating with artists such as J Balvin, Madonna, Anuel AA and Ozuna. Her lyrics mostly refer to sexual activity and the years she worked as a prostitute. Tokischa has often been catalogued as "controversial" by media outlets, with her music sparking controversy and receiving notable media coverage.


title: Tokischa

text: Tokischa was born in 1996 in a humble environment and spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the Los Frailes district in the eastern region of the Santo Domingo province. Her mother moved to the United States when she was very young. Despite this, she was always aware of her. Her father was in jail, from which he escaped several times.


title: Tokischa

text: Tokischa studied fine arts and dramaturgy. At sixteen she dedicated herself to professional modeling and at eighteen she started working in a call center for a year. At that age she dedicated herself to sex work, about which she commented during an interview: "being with a person you don't like and like is frustrating. After I had sex with someone, I would go into the bathroom to take a shower, crying, frustrated". At first she would spent the money on drugs, then on music. At age twenty, while Tokischa was doing a photoshoot for a magazine in her hometown, she met producer and designer Raymi Paulus, who was fascinated by his voice and musical talent, and asked her to record some songs in his studio. She eventually signed a record deal with his label Paulus Music.


title: Tokischa

text: In 2018 Tokischa debuted with the song “Pícala”, with Dominican singer Tivi Gunz. The music video, which reached one million views in the opening week, has scenes that show a psychedelic and hallucinogenic trip caused by the consumption of some substances. In November, she released the song “Que Viva” with Químico Ultra Mega. It was also presented at the Dominican Trap Festival, which takes place annually in different locations around the country.


title: Tokischa

text: In February 2019, Tokischa released the single “Perras Como Tú”, as part of the soundtrack for the Mexican film "Miss Bala: Merciless". In September, she released the extended play "Freestyle #007", featuring DJ Scuff. At the same time she released the single “Empatillada”, with Jamby El Favo. The following month, she released the single “Twerk” with Eladio Carrión. Its music video reached more than five million views on the YouTube platform. The following year, Tokischa premiered the song “Varón”, one of her most controversial songs. In February, she collaborated on the single "Amor & Dinero" by Jinchoo. In October, she released the song "Desacato Escolar" with Yomel El Meloso and Leo RD, which was partly censored on several platforms for a limited time. The following month, she released the single “Hoy Amanecí”, featuring Tivi Gunz. In December, she published “El Rey de la Popola”, with Dominican singer Rochy RD.


title: Tokischa

text: In January 2021, Tokischa published the single “Yo No Me Voy Acostar”, alongside Yailin La Más Viral and La Perversa. That same month she premiered “Bellaca Putona”, with Químico Ultra Mega, which managed to position itself at the top of the charts in her home country. During the year, she continued to release songs in the urbano umbrella genre and collaborations with regional artist. Tokischa made international headlines in the summer of that year after several collaborations with Latin artists J Balvin and Rosalía. Both music videos were filmed in Santo Domingo. Both Tokischa and Rosalía largely teased their song "Linda", which was produced by Leo RD. It was released on September 1. They collaborated again the following year on "La Combi Versace", from the latter's album "Motomami". A week before, "Perra", the Balvin collaboration, was released for digital download. Tokischa, together with her record label Paulus Music, had previously signed a distribution deal with Equity Distribution, Roc Nation's indie distribution company earlier that season.


title: Tokischa

text: In September 2022, Tokischa was featured on "Hung Up on Tokischa", a remix of Madonna's 2005 hit single "Hung Up"; the song utilises dembow.


title: Tokischa

text: Tokischa cultivates various musical styles, where trap, hip hop, rap and urbano stand out. However, she has stated in different occasions that there is no genre that identifies her. Her songs have quite personal and "the most honest possible" lyrics. One artist who inspired her early in her career was DJ Scuff. Tokischa is also a fan of rock music. She has stated that: "I chose to trap because it is the closest thing there is now to rock, which has always been my favorite genre. Trap is modern rock. At that time I was very unleashed, and I expressed myself that way".


title: Tokischa

text: In December 2019, Tokischa signed up on OnlyFans and started to post sexually-explicit content after having previously been censored on Instagram. In 2021, the singer said that "I opened my account because I have always liked explicit content, sexuality, sexiness and morbid. That had always caused trouble to me as a child since my family saw me taking hot pictures. Instagram deleted a couple photos of me some years ago so, when OnlyFans became a thing, I saw the opportunity to do it with no censorship nor explanation. I also met a team of professionals who taught me how to make an economic profit out of it. That helped me quite a lot during the pandemic. All investment I did in my music in the last months has come from this platform".


title: Tokischa

text: In October 2020 she released the track "Desacato Escolar", a collaboration with Yomel El Meloso and Leo RD, on streaming platforms. The track caused controversy for its lyrics referencing prostitution. It was taken down from YouTube. Tokischa talked about it to "RTVE", stating that: "I think that those people who criticize him do not want to accept life as it is. Dembow and urban music in general are the expression of the neighborhood and the underworld, of what is lived. If the rap tells you about crime and weapons, it is because that exists, not because the artist is inventing it. We cannot ignore those realities. Prostitution is the same, it has always existed, and if they talk about it in songs, it is because it is like that. If that person who criticizes feels very neat, then perhaps it is because he does not want to know about these realities or that all that comes to light, but we sing about what we live, and that is inevitable".


title: Tokischa

text: In August 2021, the rapper posed semi-naked at the sanctuary of the Virgin of Altagracia in La Vega. The town's mayor, released a statement in which he condemned that Tokischa "failed to the ethical norms and values that that govern the civilized and exemplary coexistence of our municipality". The rapper later expressed her regrets online and stated that "I didn't do it with the intention of offending, if not more to show that anyone can pray, come from wherever, or whatever it represents". Despite the apology, the La Vega Prosecutor's Office ruled that the performer will not be able to visit the sanctuaries of that province for a year, after Mayor Kelvin Cruz filed a complaint against her.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Daunte Rachard Culpepper (born January 28, 1977) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings. He played college football at UCF and was selected by the Vikings in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: A three-time Pro Bowl selection during his seven seasons with the Vikings, Culpepper's most successful season came in 2004 when he set the single-season record for the most total yardage produced by an NFL quarterback. However, Culpepper suffered a serious knee injury the following season that ended his Vikings career. After his injury, he played sparingly in the NFL for the Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, and Detroit Lions. His professional career concluded after one season with the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League (UFL).


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper was born to a single mother, Barbara Henderson, who is the sister of former NFL linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson. While his mother was pregnant with him, she was serving time for armed robbery. Culpepper was adopted when he was a day old and raised as one of more than 15 children of the late Emma Lewis Culpepper, who worked in the correctional facility where his mother was held. They lived in Ocala, Florida, where Culpepper attended Vanguard High School. He played football, coached by Alex Castaneda, one of five finalists for the 2000 NFL High School Football Coach of the Year Award, as well as basketball and baseball. After his senior season in 1994, he was named Mr. Football in the state of Florida. In 2007, Culpepper was named to the FHSAA's All-Century Team that listed the top 33 football players in the state of Florida's 100-year history of high school football.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Near the end of his high school team's state basketball championship game, the referee called traveling on Culpepper when he was driving for the game-winning lay-up. Later on in his career, Culpepper celebrated his football touchdowns by moving his hands in the motion that a basketball referee makes when calling traveling, also known as "the roll".


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper was drafted in the 26th round (730th overall) by the New York Yankees in the 1995 Major League Baseball Draft but did not sign and chose to attend college.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: He struggled to get into college, because of low SAT scores. Marquee football schools, such as the University of Miami and University of Florida, backed off from recruiting him when it was assumed he would not qualify. The University of Central Florida, however, offered to tutor him and help him achieve the necessary scores, and he was able to qualify. Although the big college programs returned to recruit him, as a show of loyalty, Culpepper enrolled at UCF.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Although he had a love for baseball, Culpepper committed to play football at UCF as a quarterback. He rewrote virtually all of the school's quarterback records, approximately 30 in all, many held by Darin Slack since 1987. He also set an NCAA record for single-season completion percentage at 73.6%, breaking a 15-year-old mark set by Steve Young (71.3%). This record would stand until Colt McCoy (Texas) finished the 2008 season with a completion percentage of 77.6%. Culpepper accomplished a feat equaled by only two others in NCAA history when he topped the 10,000-yard passing mark and the 1,000-yard rushing mark in his career. He finished his career sixth on the NCAA's all-time total offense list for all divisions with 12,459 yards and was responsible for 108 career touchdowns (84 passing).


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: After his junior season, he was being lured out of the collegiate ranks to enter the draft and join the NFL, but instead returned to UCF to play his senior year. UCF posted a 9–2 record, losing only to Purdue and Auburn.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper was drafted 11th overall in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings; he was the fourth quarterback chosen, after Tim Couch (1st overall), Donovan McNabb (2nd) and Akili Smith (3rd). In his first year Culpepper played in one game, rushing three times for six yards and not throwing a pass.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: In 2000 he was named Minnesota's starting quarterback. He led the Vikings to victory in the first seven games of the season, and helped them finish 11–5 and advance to the NFC Championship game, where they were beat by the New York Giants 41–0. During the season, Culpepper passed for 3,937 yards, 33 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He also rushed for 470 yards and seven touchdowns. One of Culpepper's most notable moments was against the Buffalo Bills when he threw a pass across his body and the field to Randy Moss for a 39-yard touchdown pass, although the pass was at least 60 total yards. At the end of the year, he was selected to his first Pro Bowl. Randy Moss, wide receiver for the Vikings, said that Culpepper was one of the most talented quarterbacks he has ever seen following the 2000 season.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper struggled over the next two seasons beginning in 2001 throwing 14 touchdowns to 13 interceptions. The Vikings finished the season 5–11. Culpepper started all 11 games in which he appeared, missing the final five games of the season with a knee injury he suffered in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on December 2. He completed 60 percent of his passes or better in nine of his 11 outings, including twice when he surpassed the 70.0 mark and had a passer rating of 100.0 better in two contests where the Vikings were 1–1 in those games. Culpepper's rushing total ranked third among NFL quarterbackss, trailing only Pittsburgh's Kordell Stewart (537) and Philadelphia’s Donovan McNabb (482). Perhaps his most notable performance during this campaign occurred during the 20–16 comeback win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the run, Culpepper barreled into Derrick Brooks and Shelton Quarles, but was the first player up after the 8-yard score.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper continued to struggle in 2002, throwing 18 touchdowns to 23 interceptions and leading the Vikings to a 6–10 record. He also fumbled an NFL record 23 times, losing 9 of them. Some attribute this to his appearance on the cover of the "Madden NFL 2002" video game, where he subsequently proceeded to have the worst year of his career until 2005, keeping with the superstition of the “Madden Curse”. Culpepper went on to win the EA Sports Madden Bowl title among NFL players during the 2003 offseason.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: His ten rushing scores led all NFL QBs in 2002, and also marked the sixth-highest total by a QB in NFL history trailing only Cam Newton (14 for Carolina in 2011) and (12 for New England in 2020), Steve Grogan (12 for New England in 1976), Johnny Lujack (11 for Chicago in 1950), Tobin Rote (11 for Green Bay in 1956), Kordell Stewart (11 for Pittsburgh in 1997), and Kyler Murray (11 for Arizona in 2020).


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper made a comeback in 2003, leading the Vikings to a 9–7 record, although they missed the playoffs. He passed for 3,479 yards, 25 touchdowns, and only 11 interceptions, and earned his second trip to the Pro Bowl.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper enjoyed his best statistical season as a professional in 2004 and, though they were only 8–8, the Vikings reached the playoffs for the second time under Culpepper. Passing for a league-leading 4,717 yards, a Viking-record 39 touchdowns, and only 11 interceptions, Culpepper was named to his third career Pro Bowl. Culpepper also broke Dan Marino's NFL record for combined passing and rushing yards, amassing 5,123 total yards. His 2,323 rushing yards from 2000–2004 also made him only the fourth quarterback in NFL history to run for more than 2,300 yards in a five-season period. (Michael Vick had 3,570 from 2002–2006; Randall Cunningham had 3,232 from 1986–1990; and Steve McNair had 2,387 from 1997–2001). Culpepper’s career rushing average of 26.1 yards per game is fourth-best among quarterbacks in NFL history. Only Vick (47.3 yds/g), Cunningham (30.6 yds/g), and Bobby Douglass (29.8 yds/g) have averaged more rushing yards per game during their QB careers. After the 2004 season, Culpepper said the game had “slowed down” for him, saying


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: His first two games of the 2005 season were disappointments, as the Vikings went 0–2 while Culpepper threw no touchdown passes, eight interceptions, and fumbled twice. Culpepper rebounded in the third week, throwing for 300 yards and three touchdowns while beating the New Orleans Saints. In 2005, he had six touchdowns, twelve interceptions, and five fumbles before getting injured in the seventh game (only winning two games). On October 30, he suffered a knee injury during a 38–13 loss to the Carolina Panthers. Culpepper sustained damage to three of the four major ligaments in the knee: the ACL, PCL and MCL. He was placed on injured reserve and began rehabilitation treatment near his home in Florida. Backup Brad Johnson took over in the Carolina game and after losing that one, they won the next six straight games and the team ended up with a 9–7 record. Daunte's final career won–loss record as a starter for the Vikings was 37–40 (48.1% winning percentage).


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: On December 14, 2005, Culpepper and three other players were charged with indecent conduct, disorderly conduct and lewd or lascivious conduct for their involvement in the 2005 Minnesota Vikings boat cruise scandal, according to court papers and news reports. The maximum penalty they could have faced was 90 days in jail. His defense contended there was racial discrimination among the prosecution. On April 4, 2006, however, the charges against Culpepper were dropped owing to a lack of probable cause.


title: Daunte Culpepper

text: Culpepper was in negotiations with Zygi Wilf, the new owner of the Vikings, in regard to his contract with the team. Rumors surfaced that Culpepper was unhappy with his status in Minnesota due to the re-emergence of Brad Johnson following his injury. The Vikings wanted him to rehabilitate in Minnesota because they were not satisfied with his level of treatment in Florida. Culpepper refused this request.