Visa

Visa or VISA may refer to:

Government

Financial services

Geography

Motor vehicle

Film and TV

Music

Other uses

See also

Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (/ˈviːzə/ or /ˈviːsə/) is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards and debit cards. Visa does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash-access programs to their customers. In 2008, according to The Nilson Report, Visa held a 38.3% market share of the credit card marketplace and 60.7% of the debit card marketplace in the United States. In 2009, Visa’s global network (known as VisaNet) processed 62 billion transactions with a total volume of $4.4 trillion.

Visa has operations across India, Australia, Oceania, Asia-Pacific, North America, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa and Middle East. Visa Europe is a separate membership entity that is an exclusive licensee of Visa Inc.'s trademarks and technology in the European region, issuing cards such as Visa Debit and Visa Credit.

The Female Boss

The Female Boss is the debut studio album by British singer and former N-Dubz member Tulisa. It was released on 3 December 2012 via All Around the World and Island Records. The album's artwork was revealed on 6 October 2012 via Tulisa's official Facebook page. The Female Boss originally was to be released on 26 November but was pushed back by one week. It incorporates hip hop, dance and R&B styles while enlisting a variety of producers; The-Dream, Fazer, Stereotypes, Rico Love, Diane Warren and Ed White, among others. The album features guests appearances from British rapper Wiley, American rapper Tyga and Nines. Three singles preceded the album's release; the lead single "Young" peaked at number 1 while "Live It Up" and "Sight of You" peaked within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart.

Upon its release, The Female Boss has received generally negative reviews from most music critics, with many critics panning the themes, intro of the album, production and some lyrical content, while some critics felt the dance songs were highlights. Commercially, the album opened with poor sales, debuting at number 35 on the UK Albums Chart and number 55 in Ireland.

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid- to late 1960s when African American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord, distinguishing them from R&B and soul songs, which are built on complex chord progressions. Funk uses the same extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths.

Like much African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands sometimes have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and in some cases, a trombone, which plays rhythmic "hits". Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, funky bass lines, drum patterns, and syncopated guitar riffs. Other musical groups, including Sly & the Family Stone and Parliament-Funkadelic, soon began to adopt and develop Brown's innovations. While much of the written history of funk focuses on men, there have been notable funk women, including Chaka Khan, Labelle, Brides of Funkenstein, Klymaxx, Mother's Finest, and Betty Davis.

As If (album)

As If is the sixth studio album by American dance-punk group !!!, released on October 16, 2015 on Warp Records.

Singles

Three official singles have been released from As If: "All U Writers", a 5 1/2 minute (5 minutes on the album) long song featuring vocals from Teresa Eggers, released 28 April 2015. "Freedom '15", a groovy leviathan of a disco track, released 30 July 2015, and features vocals from Yolanda Harris Dancy and Taletha Manor. A lyric video for "Freedom '15" was uploaded 20 August 2015. The third single from the album, "Bam City", was released 30 September 2015, with an accompanying music video. "Ooo", a grooving love song, was released with an accompanying music video on November 16, 2015.

Promotional singles

One promotional single has been released from the As If: "Sick Ass Moon", an "R&B-tinted house track", released with "Freedom '15" on 30 July 2015.

Critical Reception

In a positive review for Exclaim!, Daniel Sylvester called the album "one of the most enjoyable, if schizophrenic, dance albums of the year."

Funk (surname)

Funk is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Going-to future

The going-to future is a grammatical construction used in English to refer to various types of future occurrences. It is made using appropriate forms of the expression to be going to. It is an alternative to other ways of referring to the future in English, such as the future construction formed with will (or shall) – in some contexts the different constructions are interchangeable, while in others they carry somewhat different implications.

Constructions analogous to the English going-to future are found in some other languages, including French and Spanish.

Origin

The going-to future originated by the extension of the spatial sense of the verb go to a temporal sense (a common change, the same phenomenon can be seen in the preposition before). The original construction involved physical movement with an intention, such as "I am going [outside] to harvest the crop." The location later became unnecessary, and the expression was reinterpreted to represent a near future.

The colloquial form gonna and the other variations of it as mentioned in the following section result from a relaxed pronunciation of going to. They can provide a distinction between the spatial and temporal senses of the expression: "I'm gonna swim" clearly carries the temporal meaning of futurity, as opposed to the spatial meaning of "I'm going [in order] to swim".