257 definition by ♫ Highway to Hell ♫

Reggaeton is characterized by rough, monotone rapping (in Spanish) and driving dancehall riddims, and it's rapidly becoming the dance music of choice for a generation of young Latinos. While only recognized as a style in the 1990s, reggaeton has its roots in the '70s, when Jamaican workers moved to Panama to work on the canal and brought reggae music with them. Reggae's popularity grew in Central America and the Caribbean at the same time that American rap was finding its way south. The landmark development came in 1985, when Vico C released Puerto Rico's first Spanish-language rap album. It was only a matter of time before producers linked Latin rap with Jamaica's hard dancehall sounds. All they needed was to add a few native Puerto Rican touches like the bomba and plena rhythms (better known from salsa), and presto: a new genre. Reggaeton finally spilled over Puerto Rico's borders in the 21st century, as artists like Tego Calderon, Don Omar, Ivy Queen and Hector y Tito gained currency abroad. Even boy bands like Aventura climbed aboard the bandwagon, emulating a defanged reggaeton and signaling the genre's growing appeal.

A monotheistic religion characterized by the acceptance of the doctrine of submission to God and to Muhammad as the chief and last prophet of God. The Arabic word 'Islam' simply means 'submission," and derives from a word meaning "peace." In a religious context it means complete submission to the will of God. 'Allah' is the Arabic name for God, which is used by Arabic-speaking Muslims, Jews and Christians alike as the normal word for God. "Allah" is also used to refer to God by Muslims speaking other languages, including English. A Muslim is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". Islam is not a new religion, but the final culmination and fulfillment of the same basic truth that God revealed through his prophets to every people. A way of life symbolized by peace; peace with God, peace with the creations of God through Submission to God and His guidance. Over a billion people from all races, nationalities, and cultures across the globe are Muslim; from the rice farms of Indonesia to the deserts in the heart of Africa; from the skyscrapers of New York to the Bedouin in Arabia. Muslims believe in the One, Unique, Incomparable, Merciful God; the sole creator and Sustainer of the Universe; in the angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to humankind; in the Day of Judgment of actions; in God's complete authority over destiny, whether it is good or bad; and in life after death.

The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a mystical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna (brow) chakra in certain Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. In New Age spirituality, the third eye may alternately symbolize a state of enlightenment or the evocation of mental images having deeply-personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with visions, clairvoyance (which includes the ability to observe chakras and auras), precognition, and out-of-body experiences, and people who have allegedly developed the capacity to utilize their third eyes are sometimes known as seers.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” He believed that the roots of human misery lay in class conflict, the exploitation of workers by those who own the means of production. Social change, in the form of the overthrow of the capitalists by the workers (proletariat), was inevitable from Marx’s outlook. Although Marx did not consider himself as a sociologist, his ideas have influenced many sociologists today, especially conflict theorists.

Ask any two artists, fans, or other assorted members of the rap/hip-hop community to explain the precise difference between the two terms, and odds are you'll get different answers. Even so, most would probably agree that rap describes a type of music while hip-hop refers to a cultural phenomenon that includes graffiti, breakdancing, and fashion in addition to music -- or as rapper social theorist KRS-One says, "Rap is something you do, hip-hop is something you live." Musically, the only difference between the two is that rap always contains the vocal element of rhythmically spoken rhymes while hip-hop can be purely instrumental in nature. Rap in its earliest stages consisted of DJs mixing records and juggling beats and breaks for block parties while emcees rhymed over the rhythms. This practice of adapting, dissecting, and transforming pre-recorded music to create new songs could be hip-hop's most significant contribution to modern music.

In 20th century U.S. slang, "kimchi" was occasionally used in the phrase "in deep kimchi" (particularly by veterans of the Korean War), a euphemism for "in deep trouble" and was used in a number of awkward situations.

Bat out of Hell was a common rural expression in the southeast US a half century ago. Meatloaf originated the expression in 1976 or thereabouts with the mid-70s Zeitgeist eponymous album "Bat Out of Hell." The expression 'like a bat out of hell' has been in common UK-English usage for decades meaning to fly, usually figuratively. Bats have been associated with witches and the occult, and therefore thought to originate in the bowels of hell, as they fly quickly as if in panic, to make the comparison with a bat flying out of hell for anything going recklessly fast would seem quite natural and likely to be a country idiom prior to being recorded in print.