Tony Rich

Antonio Jeffries Jr. (born November 19, 1971), better known as Tony Rich and The Tony Rich Project, is a contemporary R&B singer-songwriter best known for his single "Nobody Knows".

Biography

Early career

Rich first attracted attention through the production team of Tim & Bob. The duo convinced Perri "Pebbles" Reid (then the wife of L.A. Reid, co-founder of LaFace Records) to listen to Rich over the phone. Rich was hired as a house songwriter for LaFace Records. As incoming Vice President of A&R, Eddie F then convinced Reid to sign him as an artist. Later, Rich mixed elements of jazz, rock and soul music into his own tracks.

The Tony Rich Project

In January 1996 Rich released the hit single, "Nobody Knows", which made it to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Under the moniker "The Tony Rich Project", he released his debut album Words in early 1996. Both the album and single went platinum and in 1997, Rich won a Grammy Award for the Best R&B Album. The song was covered by country music artist Kevin Sharp in 1997, also as his debut single. The song "Like a Woman" was also nominated for a Grammy Award.

Cosmic Girl

Cosmic Girl may refer to:

See also

Cosmic Girl (song)

"Cosmic Girl" is the second single from British funk/acid jazz band Jamiroquai's third studio album, Travelling Without Moving, released on 11 November 1996 on Sony Soho Square in the United Kingdom and 14 January 1997 on Sony Music/Work Group in the United States. It achieved great chart success, peaking at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song appeared in MTV animated series Daria in the episode "This Year's Model".

Composition

"Cosmic Girl" is an acid jazz song, a dance music song based on rhythmic "looped beats" "to give it an off-center, otherworldly" sound. The syncopated rhythm contains 10 pulses which occur inside a 32-beat pattern, with pulses on beats 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 22, 23 and 26. Coincidentally, the first four beats of this pattern are the same as the George Gershwin song "I Got Rhythm". Jamiroquai's psychedelic lyric evokes a spacey environment, using terms such as "zero gravity", "hyperspace", "galaxy" and "quasar". A disco-era aura is achieved by incorporating early electronic synthesizers along with disco-style string parts also produced by synthesizers.

Cosmic Girl (airplane)

Cosmic Girl is a Virgin Galactic owned Boeing 747-41R which is intended to be used as the first stage launch platform, (or mothership), for the air launch of smallsat orbital launch vehicle LauncherOne, planned for first launch in 2017.

History

Cosmic Girl was built in 2001 by Boeing as a 44/32/310 B747-41R (c/n. 32745) and delivered to Virgin Atlantic registered as G-VWOW.

On 3 November 2005, on approach to Runway 27R at Heathrow Airport, a crosswind caused a roll leftwards of the airplane while touching down, leading to a groundstrike by engine No.1 (leftmost engine).

The jetliner was in-service with the airline until October 2015. The airliner, previously leased from Boeing by Virgin Atlantic, was purchased from Boeing outright by Virgin Group for Virgin Galactic, and registered as N744VG, in November 2015. A 747 was selected due to its carrying capacity. The acquisition of the 747 allowed dedicated carrying aircraft for both SpaceShipTwo and LauncherOne.

The air launch to orbit LauncherOne rocket was originally envisioned to operate from the smaller airplane WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) launch platform, used for the suborbital Tier 1b system of WK2 and SpaceShipTwo (SS2). However, as the size of LauncherOne expanded to better encompass the marketplace and acquire marketshare of small launches, the rocket outgrew WK2, leading to the evaluation of bigger launch aircraft, and the acquisition of Cosmic Girl for LauncherOne operations. The use of a larger airplane allows doubling of LauncherOne payload capacity to 200 kg (440 lb), though with the selection of a 747, ultimately, 400 kg (880 lb) may be supported. 747s have previously been used to air launch other craft, including the Space Shuttle Enterprise. The use of Cosmic Girl marks the first use of a 747 as a space launch platform.