Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 February 20

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Tricky

Maxinquaye is the debut album by English rapper and producer Tricky (pictured), released on 20 February 1995. By the time he recorded the album, Tricky had grown frustrated with his limited role in the group Massive Attack and had discovered vocalist Martina Topley-Bird, who he felt would offer another dimension to his lyrics. He signed a solo contract with 4th & B'way Records in 1993 and recorded Maxinquaye the following year primarily at his home studio in London with Topley-Bird as the predominant vocalist. The record's groove-oriented and low-tempo sound incorporates elements from hip hop, soul, rock, ambient techno, reggae, and experimental music. The songs explore themes of cultural decline, dysfunctional sexual relationships, fear of intimacy, and recreational drug use. In writing them, Tricky drew on his experiences in the British drug culture and the influence of his late mother Maxine Quaye, after whom the album is titled. The album has sold 500,000 copies worldwide and has ranked frequently on greatest-album lists, being viewed as a significant influence on electronica, underground, and British hip hop. (Full article...)

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On this day...

February 20

Parícutin volcano erupting, 1943

1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville was hissed at by the audience during its debut at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1846 – Polish insurgents led an uprising in the Free City of Kraków to incite a fight for national independence that was put down by the Austrian Empire nine days later.
1864 – American Civil War: The Union suffered one of its bloodiest losses at the Battle of Olustee near Lake City, Florida.
1943 – A fissure opened in a cornfield in the Mexican state of Michoacán and turned into the cinder cone volcano Parícutin (pictured), which continued to erupt for nine years, growing 424 m (1,391 ft).
1988 – The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Alfred Escher (b. 1819) · P. G. T. Beauregard (d. 1893) · Gail Kim (b. 1977)

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Today's featured picture

A short-spined crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster brevispinus) photographed at Malapascuas Island, Philippines. One of the two members of the starfish genus Acanthaster, this species was first described by the American zoologist Walter Kenrick Fisher from a specimen collected off Sirun Island. A. brevispinus is thought to be widely distributed, with specimens collected in the Philippines, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Seychelles.

Photograph: Matt Kieffer

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