title: Nelly

text: Nelly has won multiple accolades throughout his career including three Grammy Awards and nine Billboard Music Awards. In 2005, he starred in the remake film "The Longest Yard," alongside Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He has two clothing lines, Vokal and Apple Bottoms. He has been referred to by Peter Shapiro as "one of the biggest stars of the new millennium", and as of 2014, Nelly was ranked as the fourth-best-selling rap artist in American music history, according to the RIAA, with 21 million albums sold in the United States. In December 2009, "Billboard" ranked Nelly the number three Top Artist of the Decade (2000s).


title: Nelly

text: Nelly was born Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. in Austin, Texas, the only son of Cornell Haynes and Rhonda Mack. His father served in the Air Force for much of his childhood and, when he was seven, his parents divorced. As a teenager, Haynes moved with his mother from St. Louis to University City, a St. Louis County suburb. While in high school, Nelly formed the St. Lunatics with his friends Ali, Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, Slo Down, and his half brother City Spud. The group enjoyed moderate local popularity with their single "Gimme What Ya Got" in 1996. Despite being popular in Missouri and the surrounding areas, the group struggled to achieve success outside of St. Louis. The rest of the group agreed to let Nelly go solo after a major record deal failed to appear. Later in 1999, Nelly was signed to Universal Music Group by A&R Kevin Law. Law told HitQuarters that Nelly was largely disliked by the label when he first signed, with the feedback he received from his colleagues on the rapper's music being "extraordinarily negative". Nelly was unusual for being a rapper from the Midwest at a time when hip-hop was dominated by the East Coast, West Coast and the South. The label used this to their advantage by branding Nelly as a star of the Midwest, hoping to inspire pride in the people of St Louis and the surrounding regions. Despite the negative feedback he received from the label, Nelly's debut single, Country Grammar (Hot Shit), was a success, peaking at number 7 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK singles chart. Recognizing Nelly's potential, the label began to change their mind and allowed work to begin on his debut album. The label decided to do a solo record with Nelly first and then reunite him with the St. Lunatics the following year.


title: Nelly

text: The label released his debut album, "Country Grammar", in 2000. The success of its title track as a single (number 7 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 Hot Rap Tracks) led to the album debuting at number three in the "Billboard" 200 in the U.S. Other singles from the album included "E.I."; "Ride wit Me", featuring City Spud; and "Batter Up", featuring the St. Lunatics. The album was certified 9× platinum by the RIAA on April 27, 2004. Nelly performed as a special guest in the Super Bowl XXXV halftime show.


title: Nelly

text: In 2002, Nelly's second album, "Nellyville", was released, debuting at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Music Albums; its lead single "Hot in Herre" was a number-one hit. Other singles included "Dilemma", which featured Kelly Rowland and sold over 7.6 million records worldwide, "Work It" featuring Justin Timberlake, "Air Force Ones" featuring Murphy Lee and the St. Lunatics, "Pimp Juice", and "#1". This album was highly successful and was certified 6x multi-platinum on June 27, 2003. "Hot in Herre" won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rap Solo Performance in 2003. In 2003, Nelly released "", which featured the hit single "Iz U" from the soundtrack to Walt Disney's The Haunted Mansion. The music video of a Tip Drill Remix became a source of controversy due to perceptions of misogynistic depictions of women. The controversy forced Nelly to cancel an appearance at a bone marrow drive at Spelman College, a historically black college in Atlanta. Similar claims of misogyny also surrounded Nelly's single "Pimp Juice". RIAA have certified the album Platinum. For the "Bad Boys II" soundtrack album, Nelly contributed the single "Shake Ya Tailfeather" featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee. Another number-one hit, "Shake Ya Tailfeather", won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.


title: Nelly

text: Nelly performed in the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, his second time performing in a Super Bowl halftime show.


title: Nelly

text: On September 14, 2004, Nelly released two albums, "Sweat" and "Suit". "Suit", an R&B-oriented album, debuted at number one on the "Billboard" albums chart, and "Sweat", a rap-oriented album, debuted at number two. From "Suit", the slow ballad "Over and Over", an unlikely duet with country music star Tim McGraw, became a crossover hit. On the 2004 NBC television concert special "Tim McGraw: Here and Now", McGraw and Nelly performed the song. A feud with another St. Louis-based rapper, Chingy, came up near the end of the year. "Tsunami Aid: A Concert for Hope", a 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake benefit concert special produced by NBC, featured Nelly. In the winter of 2005 came "Sweatsuit", a compilation of tracks from "Sweat" and "Suit" with three new tracks. "Grillz", produced by Jermaine Dupri, was a number-one hit. To date both albums have sold over 5 million units in the United States.


title: Nelly

text: "Brass Knuckles" was released on September 16, 2008, after several delays. Initial release dates for the album targeted October 16 and November 13. Its original lead single was "Wadsyaname", a ballad-oriented track produced by Ron "NEFF-U" Feemstar and sampling the piano riff from "All My Life" by K-Ci & JoJo. Nelly later confirmed that "Wadsyaname" was never going to be on "Brass Knuckles". Nelly recorded "Party People", featuring Fergie and produced by Polow da Don, which turned out to be his first official single off the album. "Stepped on My J'z" was the next single, produced by Jermaine Dupri and featuring Dupri and Ciara; following that was "Body on Me", produced by Akon and featuring Akon and Ashanti. Nelly appeared on Rick Ross's third single, "Here I Am", which also featured label mate Avery Storm.


title: Nelly

text: In the summer of 2009, Nelly made a public announcement in Las Vegas about the yet-to-be-titled album. In October 2009, Nelly did an interview with SOHH.com and said that the album was going to be released sometime in 2010. In an interview with Semtex TV, Nelly told reporters that he planned to release the album under the name "Nelly". In April 2010, Nelly's cousin Michael Johnson was murdered in Missouri, Nelly said that he delayed releasing the album because of this. Guests featured on the album were, T-Pain, Chris Brown, Akon, Plies, T.I., Kelly Rowland, Birdman, DJ Khaled, Avery Storm and Diddy-Dirty Money. In May 2010, Nelly confirmed that the title of the album was "5.0". The album was released on November 16, 2010. The album's lead single "Just a Dream" was released on August 17, 2010, through iTunes along with the promotional single "Tippin' in da Club". The two songs were released to Mainstream and Rhythm/Crossover radio on August 10, 2010. "Just a Dream" made its first chart appearance debuting on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 12 and peaking at number 3 in its fourth week. The song also debuted at number 3 on the "Billboard" Digital Songs chart, selling 888,000 downloads in its first week. "Just a Dream" is Nelly's highest-charting song since his 2005 single "Grillz" and debuted at number 7 on the "Billboard" Rap Songs. The song entered the Canadian Hot 100 in August 2010, at number 32 It debuted in Australia (ARIA Charts) on the Singles Chart at number 3, in New Zealand Singles Charts at number 29, and in Switzerland (Media Control AG) at number 52. The second single "Move That Body", which features T-Pain and Akon, was released on October 12, 2010. The song made its first chart appearance debuting on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 54 and has reached a current peak at number 29 in Australia. Nelly is featured on the second single by singer Mohombi entitled "Miss Me", produced by RedOne. On November 13, 2010, Nelly appeared on the Pacquiao vs. Margarito pay-per-view, at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. "Gone" is the sequel to Nelly's 2002 worldwide number-one single "Dilemma", also with Rowland, and serves as third single from Nelly's album.


title: Nelly

text: In June 2011, Pitbull released a song off the deluxe version of the album "Planet Pit" featuring Nelly titled "My Kinda Girl".


title: Nelly

text: In December 2011, Nelly released his first ever official solo mixtape, entitled "O.E.MO", which stands for "On Everything MO". The mixtape features guest appearances from T.I., 2 Chainz, Bei Maejor, St. Lunatics and more.


title: Nelly

text: In August 2012, Nelly became a coach on The CW's "" along with Gloria Estefan, John Rich and Joe Jonas. Nelly released his second mixtape, entitled "Scorpio Season", on November 2, 2012.


title: Nelly

text: In February 2013, Nelly released "Hey Porsche", the lead single from his seventh studio album "M.O." The song peaked at number 42 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and hit the top ten in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In April 2013, a remix of "Cruise", the breakthrough single of country music duo Florida Georgia Line, featuring Nelly, was released. Nelly's next single "Get Like Me" featuring Nicki Minaj and Pharrell was released on iTunes on July 2, 2013.


title: Nelly

text: From 2014 to 2015, Nelly starred in the reality TV show "Nellyville", which ran for two seasons. The series aired on BET and is about Nelly's music and acting career and raising his four children.


title: Nelly

text: On August 6, 2015, Nelly premiered the single "The Fix", which was released on his own label, "RECORDS". In an interview with Big Boy, Nelly stated that there may or may not be a new album following his new music.


title: Nelly

text: In 2020, he released the song "Lil Bit", a collaboration with Florida Georgia Line from his "country-influenced" album titled "Heartland". He also joined country singers Kane Brown and Brett Kissel for remixes of their songs, "Cool Again" and "She Drives Me Crazy".


title: Nelly

text: Nelly's film debut came in 2001 in the independent film "Snipes" playing a famous rapper named Prolifik. He starred in the 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard" with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. The movie's soundtrack includes his songs "Errtime" and "Fly Away". In June 2008, in an interview with "Kiwibox", Nelly revealed that he is reluctant to continue his acting career, noting that he does not want to "take away from the culture of acting." In 2008 and 2009, Nelly appeared in episodes of the CBS crime drama "". In 2011, he made a cameo appearance on "90210". From 2014 to 2015, he appeared in his own reality TV show, "Nellyville", based on the title of his second studio album, which is about his career and raising his four kids. The show ran for two seasons. From 2013 to 2016, Nelly was in the main cast of the mockumentary series "Real Husbands of Hollywood".


title: Nelly

text: On September 2, 2020, Nelly was announced as one of the celebrities competing on the 29th season of "Dancing with the Stars". He and partner Daniella Karagach would end up finishing in third place.


title: Nelly

text: Nelly's rapping style has been described by Peter Shapiro as using "unforgettable hooks based on schoolyard songs, double-dutch chants, and nonsense rhymes" and has a "Missouri twang". AllMusic suggests Nelly's style is based largely on where he comes from: "Nelly's locale certainly informs his rapping style, which is as much country as urban, and his dialect as well, which is as much Southern drawl as Midwestern twang". Nelly explains his method of writing in the book "How to Rap", describing how he freestyles most of the lyrics before going back over them to "make it a little tighter", he generally writes in the studio rather than at home, he normally comes up with a chorus for a song before writing the verses, and he likes to write to the music he will be rapping over. AllMusic also notes his "tongue-twisting" hooks, which are also often sung rather than rapped.


title: Nelly

text: Nike and Nelly agreed on a one-year deal in 2003 to release a limited-edition sneaker called the "Air Derrty", which was a retro remake of Charles Barkley's signature sneaker. Nelly later signed a shoe deal with Reebok. Nelly has done ads for Got Milk? and the Ford Motor Company. His energy drink Pimp Juice sold one million cans during the first two months after its introduction in August 2003, and was criticized for its name by black consumer activists. Nelly owns Apple Bottoms, a female clothing line, and Vokal, which caters to men. He was one of the owners of the Charlotte Bobcats, along with Robert L. Johnson and Michael Jordan until Jordan became the new owner in March 2010.


title: Nelly

text: Nelly has played the Main Event at the 2007 World Series of Poker. He has also played The PokerStars European Poker Tour and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. In August 2010, Nelly started a temporary stint as the afternoon host on WHHL HOT 104.1 in St. Louis. He is taking the place of regular PM drive personality, Stacy Static, who is on pregnancy leave.


title: Nelly

text: In September 2010, Nelly released a fitness DVD entitled "Celebrity Sweat", walking viewers through various exercises and weight training techniques.


title: Nelly

text: In 2011, he and Vatterott College worked together to found the Ex'treme Institute By Nelly, which is a music production school in the heart of St. Louis.


title: Nelly

text: In 2015, Nelly teamed up with Mike and Ike candy after a halt in collaborating a year earlier. He and the owners of Mike and Ike released a movie trailer the same day titled "The Return of Mike and Ike" describing the split and reunion.


title: Nelly

text: Nelly runs the non-profit organization 4Sho4Kids Foundation. The Jes Us 4 Jackie campaign began in March 2003 by Nelly and his sister Jackie Donahue after Donahue was diagnosed with leukemia. The campaign attempts to educate African Americans and other minorities about the need for bone marrow transplants, and to register more donors. Donahue died of leukemia on March 24, 2005, almost two years after the campaign began.


title: Nelly

text: In 2006, Nelly started hosting a “White and Black Ball” in his hometown of St. Louis as a fundraiser to collect funds for scholarships. He has sent two students to college every year for over a decade, and set up a scholarship fund named after Michael Brown was shot and killed.


title: Nelly

text: In 2010, Nelly endorsed Do Something's Tackle Hunger campaign. In a public service announcement he filmed for the cause, Nelly challenged teens to fight hunger by collecting one million pounds of food for the holiday season.


title: Nelly

text: In April 2015, the Tennessee Highway Patrol conducted a traffic stop of Nelly's Prevost tour bus because of non-conforming U.S. Department of Transportation and International Fuel Tax Association stickers. Nelly was one of six people on board. After a state trooper said that he smelled marijuana, the troopers searched the bus and said that they found drug paraphernalia and marijuana, as well as a substance that they initially believed to be methamphetamine and several handguns. Nelly was initially booked into the Putnam County Jail and was released on bail.


title: Nelly

text: Nelly was initially charged with felony drug possession, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. However, after further testing proved that the seized substance was not methamphetamine, the felony charge was dropped. In December 2015, the case was resolved when Nelly pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and was sentenced to one year of probation. Nelly entered a diversion program, in which the misdemeanor convictions were cleared from his record after 11 months.


title: Nelly

text: In 2016, it was reported that there was a $2.4 million tax lien against Nelly due to unpaid taxes owed to the IRS.


title: Nelly

text: On October 7, 2017, Nelly was arrested in Auburn, Washington, outside Seattle, on suspicion of second-degree rape after a woman alleged that he invited her onto his tour bus earlier that morning and raped her. Nelly was booked into a Des Moines, Washington, jail, and released from custody without charge. Nelly denied wrongdoing; his attorney said that the accusation was "clearly false".


title: Nelly

text: On December 14, it was revealed Nelly would not be charged in the case because the alleged victim declined to cooperate. By the end of January 2018, Nelly was again accused of sexual assault after a gig at the Cliffs Pavilion at the end of 2017. Police said they were making an attempt to get in touch with the woman claiming she was sexually assaulted by the rapper.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Dzhokhar "Jahar" Anzorovich Tsarnaev born July 22, 1993) is a Kyrgyz-American man of Chechen descent, convicted of terrorism. Tsarnaev was convicted of perpetrating the Boston Marathon bombing by planting pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the race on April 15, 2013, along with his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The bombings killed three people and injured approximately 280 others.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev and his family had traveled to the United States on a tourist visa and subsequently claimed asylum during their stay in 2002. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012. At the time of the bombings, Tsarnaev was a student at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Previously, Tsarnaev had attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Following the bombings, on April 18, the Tsarnaev brothers shot and killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier in a failed attempt to steal his firearm. Later that night, they engaged in a shootout with the police. Tamerlan was killed and a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police officer was critically injured in the course of the escape in an SUV. Dzhokhar was injured but escaped, and a manhunt ensued, with thousands of police searching a 20-block area of Watertown, Massachusetts.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On the evening of April 19, Tsarnaev was found seriously wounded and unarmed hiding in a boat on a trailer in Watertown just outside the police perimeter. After the police opened fire at the boat, they arrested him and took him to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Tsarnaev was charged on April 22 with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and with malicious destruction of property resulting in death. Tsarnaev later said during questioning that the brothers next intended to detonate explosives in Times Square in New York City. Tsarnaev reportedly also told authorities that he and his brother were inspired, at least in part, by watching lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki. He was convicted on April 8, 2015 and sentenced to death on June 24, 2015. His death sentence was vacated on appeal in July 2020, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed this decision in March 2022.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: The Tsarnaev family was forcibly moved from Chechnya by the Soviet Union to the Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan in the years following World War II. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is a Chechen, and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, is an Avar. The couple had two sons, Tamerlan, born in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1986, and Dzhokhar, born in Kyrgyzstan in 1993. The parents also have two daughters. Anzor is a Muslim who shuns extremism and raised his children as Muslims.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: As children, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar lived in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan. In 2001, the family moved to Makhachkala, Dagestan, in the Russian Federation. In April 2002, the Tsarnaev parents and Dzhokhar went to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa. Anzor Tsarnaev applied for asylum, citing fears of deadly persecution due to his ties to Chechnya.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tamerlan was left in the care of his uncle Ruslan in Kyrgyzstan and arrived in the U.S. about two years later. In the U.S. the parents received asylum and then filed for their four children, who received "derivative asylum status". They settled on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tamerlan lived there until his death.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: The family "was in constant transition" for the next decade. Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva both received welfare benefits. The father worked as a backyard mechanic and the mother worked as a cosmetologist until she lost her job for refusing to work in a business that served men. In March 2007, the family was granted legal permanent residence.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev was born in Kyrgyzstan on July 22, 1993. As a child, he emigrated with his family to Russia and then, when he was eight years old, to the United States under political asylum. The family settled in Cambridge and became U.S. permanent residents in March 2007. Dzhokhar became a U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012, while in college. His mother, Zubeidat, also became a U.S. citizen, but it is not clear if his father, Anzor, ever did. Tamerlan, his brother, was unable to naturalize expeditiously due to an investigation against him, which held up the citizenship process. Dzhokhar attended Cambridgeport Elementary School and Cambridge Community Charter School's middle school program. At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school, he was an avid wrestler and a Greater Boston League winter all-star. He sometimes worked as a lifeguard at Harvard University.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: In 2011, he contacted a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who taught a class about Chechen history, expressing his interest in the topic. He graduated from high school in 2011 and the city of Cambridge awarded him a $2,500 scholarship that year. His brother's boxing coach, who had not seen them in a few years at the time of the bombings, said that "the young brother was like a puppy dog, following his older brother."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in September 2011. He started with a marine biology major with the intent on becoming a director but later changed to nursing.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev was described as "normal" and popular among fellow students. His friends said he sometimes smoked marijuana, liked hip hop, and did not talk to them about politics. Many friends and other acquaintances found it inconceivable that he could be one of the two bombers at first, calling it "completely out of his character". He was not perceived as foreign, spoke English without a [foreign] accent, was sociable, and was described by peers as "[not] 'them'. He was 'us'. He was Cambridge."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On the Russian-language social-networking site VK, Tsarnaev described his "world view" as "Islam" and his personal priorities as "career and money". He posted links to Islamic websites, links to videos of fighters in the Syrian civil war, and links to pages advocating independence for Chechnya. Dzhokhar was also active on Twitter. According to "The Economist", he seemed "to have been much more concerned with sport and cheeseburgers than with religion, at least judging by his Twitter feed"; however, according to "The Boston Globe", on the day of the 2012 Boston Marathon, a year before the bombings, a post on Tsarnaev's Twitter feed mentioned a Quran verse often used by radical Muslim clerics and propagandists.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: In 2012, Arlington Police ran a warrant check on Tsarnaev and checked his green Honda when they were investigating a report of underage drinking at a party in Arlington Heights.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: At the time of the bombing, Tsarnaev was a sophomore living in the UMass Dartmouth's Pine Dale Hall dorm. He was struggling academically, having a 1.09 GPA and receiving seven failing grades over three semesters, including "F"s in Principles of Modern Chemistry, Introduction to American Politics, and Chemistry and the Environment and had an unpaid bill of $20,000 to the university. He was known to be selling marijuana to make money.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: A triple homicide was committed in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the evening of September 11, 2011. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the case was re-examined and authorities said that the Tsarnaev brothers might have been responsible for the murders, that forensic evidence connected them to the scene of the killings, and that their cell phone records placed them in the area at the time of the killings. A crucial event happened in May 2013 when Ibragim Todashev, a 27-year-old Chechen native and former mixed martial arts fighter who knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was shot and killed in Orlando, Florida, by law enforcement officers who had been interviewing him about the bombings and the Waltham murders. The FBI alleged that just before he was killed, Todashev made statements implicating both himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the Waltham murders—saying that the initial crime was a drug-related robbery and that the murders were committed to prevent being identified by the victims.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of participating, along with his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in the Boston Marathon Bombing on April 15, 2013. He reportedly "told the FBI that he and his brother were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the killing of Muslims there."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: That day, images of Dzhokhar were captured on CCTV near the finish line pushing his way through spectators towards the front carrying a duffel bag that was later determined to contain one of two pressure cooker bombs that would detonate. Tsarnaev appeared to place the bag down without causing any suspicion amongst spectators and then appeared to watch some marathon runners cross the finish line before hurrying away moments before the bomb exploded. The explosion caused mass panic among spectators and marathon runners. Shortly after the second bomb exploded, CCTV cameras recorded video of both Tsarnaev brothers running away from the scene along with the crowd.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev continued to tweet after the bombings, and sent a tweet telling the people of Boston to "stay safe". He returned to his university after the April 15 bombing and remained there until April 18, when the FBI released pictures of him and Tamerlan at the marathon. During that time, he used the college gym and slept in his dorm; his friends said that he partied with them after the attacks and looked "relaxed".


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev and his brother murdered MIT police officer Sean Collier on April 18, 2013, at the MIT campus in a failed attempt to steal his gun, before traveling to the Boston neighborhood of Allston. There, the brothers carjacked an SUV and robbed the owner. However, the owner of the car said he managed to escape when the Tsarnaevs became momentarily distracted in the process of refueling the car at a cash-only gas station. Dun Meng, who originally did not give his name to the media but said he goes by the name "Danny", said he fled to another nearby gas station and contacted the police. Police were then able to track the location of the car through the man's cellphone and the SUV's anti-theft tracking device.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: When police found the stolen SUV and a Honda being driven by the brothers in the early hours of April 19, the suspects engaged in a shootout with police in Watertown. During the gunfight, in which bombs were thrown at responding officers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded while Tamerlan was shot a number of times before being apprehended. Police say that Dzhokhar escaped by driving the stolen SUV toward the officers who were arresting his brother. Although the officers managed to avoid being hit, Tsarnaev drove over Tamerlan, dragging him under the SUV about in the process (Tamerlan later died at a nearby hospital). Tsarnaev reportedly sped off, but abandoned the car about away and then fled on foot. An unprecedented manhunt ensued involving thousands of police officers from several nearby towns as well as state police, FBI, and SWAT teams, who searched numerous homes and property inside a 10-block perimeter. Warrants were not issued, but residents reported they were told they must allow the searches to go forward. Many reported being instructed to leave their homes as well. Images of squad cars and large black armored vehicles crowding the side streets, and videos of residents being led out of their homes at gunpoint soon flooded social media. The Boston metro area was effectively shut down all day on April 19.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: After Tsarnaev's name was published in connection with the bombings, his uncle Ruslan Tsarni, who lives in Montgomery Village, Maryland, pleaded with Tsarnaev through television to turn himself in "and ask for forgiveness", and said that he had shamed the family and the Chechen ethnicity.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: During the manhunt for him on the evening of April 19, Tsarnaev was discovered wounded in a boat in a Watertown backyard, less than from where he abandoned the SUV. David Henneberry, the owner of the boat, had noticed that the cover on the boat was loose and when the "shelter in place" order was lifted, went outside to investigate. He lifted the tarpaulin, saw a bloodied man, retreated into his house and called 911. Three Boston police officers responded and were soon joined by Waltham police. Tsarnaev's presence and movement were later verified through a forward looking infrared thermal imaging device in a State Police helicopter. The suspect was observed pushing up at the tarp on the boat and Boston police began directing a large volume of gunfire at the suspect, stopping only after calls from the superintendent on the scene. After initial reports of a shootout between police and Tsarnaev, two U.S. officials said on April 24 that Dzhokhar was unarmed when captured.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev, who had been shot and was bleeding badly from wounds to his left ear, neck and thigh, was taken into federal custody after the standoff. Initial reports that the neck wound was from a self-inflicted gunshot due to a possible suicide attempt were later contradicted by the revelation that he was unarmed at the time of capture and a description of the neck wound by SWAT team members that identified it as a slicing injury, possibly caused by shrapnel from an explosion.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: In an image broadcast on the night of his arrest, he was shown stepping out of the boat in which he had been hiding. Other sources described him "lying on his stomach, straddling the side of the boat (…) His left arm and left leg hung over the boat's side. He appeared to struggle for consciousness." Then he was "hauled down to the grassy ground" by SWAT officer Jeff Campbell and handcuffed by SWAT officer Saro Thompson. In a photograph he can be seen lying on the ground on his back with his hands cuffed behind him, being helped by medical staff.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: He was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he was treated for severe injuries in the intensive-care unit. He was in serious but stable condition (updated to "fair" on April 23), and unable to speak because of the wound to his throat. According to one of the nurses, he had cried for two days straight after waking up. He responded to authorities in writing and by nodding his head, although he did manage to say the word "no" when asked if he could afford a lawyer. Court documents released in August 2013, show that Tsarnaev had a skull fracture and gunshot wounds prior to being taken into custody. According to a doctor that treated him, Tsarnaev had a skull-base fracture, with injuries to the middle ear, the skull base, the lateral portion of his C1 vertebra, with a significant soft tissue injury, as well as injury to the pharynx, the mouth, and a small vascular injury.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev had written a message on the inside of the boat; according to Ray McGovern in Consortium News he said "The [Boston] bombings were in retribution for the U.S. crimes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan [and] that the victims of the Boston bombing were collateral damage, in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On April 26, Tsarnaev was transported by U.S. Marshals to the Federal Medical Center, Devens, a United States federal prison near Boston for male inmates requiring specialized or long-term medical or mental health care. He was held in solitary confinement in a segregated housing unit with 23-hour-per-day lockdown.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev was the subject of a cover story for an August 2013 issue of "Rolling Stone" entitled "The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell into Radical Islam and Became a Monster." The magazine drew heavy criticism for the flattering photo of Tsarnaev on the issue's cover. Boston Mayor Tom Menino wrote that the cover "rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment." Massachusetts State Police sergeant Sean Murphy said that "glamorizing the face of terror is not just insulting to the family members of those killed in the line of duty; it also could be an incentive to those who may be unstable to do something to get their face on the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine". "The New York Times" used the same photo on their front page in May 2013, but did not draw criticism. "Rolling Stone" columnist Matt Taibbi criticized those who took offense at the cover, arguing that they associated "Rolling Stone" with glamour instead of news, stating that "The New York Times" did not draw the criticism that "Rolling Stone" did, "because everyone knows the "Times" is a news organization. Not everyone knows that about "Rolling Stone"… because many people out there understandably do not know that "Rolling Stone" is also a hard-news publication."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Retailers such as CVS Pharmacy, BJ's Wholesale Club (which additionally announced it would no longer carry "Rolling Stone") and others, announced that they would no longer sell the issue.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: "Adweek" magazine ranked the cover the "hottest" of the year after it doubled newsstand sales to 120,000. The cover photo was taken by Tsarnaev himself, not a professional photographer.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Initially, Tsarnaev was questioned without being read his "Miranda" rights, because the Justice Department invoked "Miranda's" public safety exception. He was to be questioned by a federal High-Value Interrogation Group, a special counterterrorism group composed of members of the FBI, CIA and Department of Defense that was created to question high-value detainees. Later, after being read his "Miranda" rights, Tsarnaev stopped talking and declined to continue to cooperate with the investigation.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Prosecutors initially argued for the public safety exception to be applied to the statements obtained before the "Miranda" rights were read. However, the exception was not considered by the court because the prosecutors later decided not to use any of that evidence in their case against Tsarnaev.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On April 22, Tsarnaev was charged with "using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death" and with "malicious destruction of properties resulting in death", both in connection with the Boston Marathon attacks. He was read his "Miranda" rights at his bedside by a federal magistrate judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, nodded his head to answer the judge's questions, and answered "no" when asked whether he could afford a lawyer.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Once convicted, he was eligible to face the death penalty. He was prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys William Weinreb and Aloke Chakravarty, of the Anti-Terrorism and National Security Unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston. His defense team included federal public defender Miriam Conrad, William Fick, and Judy Clarke.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Middlesex County prosecutors also brought criminal charges against Tsarnaev for the murder of Sean Collier. A surveillance camera at MIT captured the brothers approaching Collier's car from behind.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: After initial interrogations, officials announced that it was clear the attack was religiously motivated, but that so far there was no evidence that the brothers had any ties to Islamic terror organizations. Officials also said that Dzhokhar acknowledged his role in the bombings and told interrogators that he and Tamerlan were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs and the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to carry out the bombing. Dzhokhar admitted during questioning that he and his brother were planning to detonate explosives in New York City's Times Square next. The brothers formed the plan spontaneously during the April 18 carjacking, but things went awry after the vehicle ran low on gas and they forced the driver to stop at a gas station, where he escaped. Dzhokhar says he was inspired by online videos from Anwar al-Awlaki, who also inspired Faisal Shahzad, the perpetrator of the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Investigators found no evidence that Tsarnaev was involved in any jihadist activities, and, according to "The Wall Street Journal", came to believe that unlike his brother Tamerlan, Dzhokhar "was never truly radicalized". Examinations of his computers did not reveal frequent visits to jihad websites, expressions of violent Islamist rhetoric or other suspicious activities. Some law enforcement officials told the "WSJ" that Tsarnaev "better fit[s] the psychological profile of an ordinary criminal than a committed terrorist".


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On May 16, 2013, during "CBS This Morning", CBS News senior correspondent John Miller said he had been told that Tsarnaev, while hiding in the boat, wrote a note claiming responsibility for the April 15 attack during the marathon. The note was scribbled with a pen on one of the inside walls of the cabin and said the bombings were payback for the U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and referred to the Boston victims as collateral damage, the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. He continued, "When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims." He also said he did not mourn his brother's death because now Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise and that he (Dzhokhar) expected to join him in paradise. Miller's sources said the wall the note was written on had multiple bullet holes in it from the shots that were fired into the boat by police. According to Miller during the interview he gave on the morning show, he said that the note will be a significant piece of evidence in any Dzhokhar trial and that it is "certainly admissible", and paints a clear picture of the brothers' motive "consistent with what he told investigators while he was in custody".


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev's arraignment for 30 charges, including four counts of murder, occurred on July 10, 2013, in federal court in Boston before U.S. magistrate judge Marianne Bowler. It was his first public court appearance. He pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts against him, which included using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. Tsarnaev was represented by Miriam Conrad, David Bruck, William Fick, Timothy G. Watkins and Judy Clarke.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On January 30, 2014, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev. A plea deal failed when the government refused to rule out the possibility of the death penalty.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: The trial began on January 5, 2015; Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all thirty charges laid against him. The proceedings were led by Judge George O'Toole. Tsarnaev's attorney Judy Clarke admitted in her opening statement that Tsarnaev committed the acts in question, but sought to avert the death penalty by showing that his brother Tamerlan was the mastermind behind the acts. Counter-terrorism expert Matthew Levitt also gave testimony.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On April 8, 2015, Tsarnaev was found guilty on all thirty counts of the indictment. The charges of usage of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, in addition to aiding and abetting, made Tsarnaev eligible for the death penalty.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Bill and Denise Richard, parents of Martin Richard (the youngest of the three killed in the bombings and 1 of the 2 people killed by Dzhokhar's bomb, the other person being Chinese-exchange student Lingzi Lu), urged against a death sentence for Tsarnaev. They stated that the lengthy appeals period would force them to continually relive that day, and would rather see Tsarnaev spend life in prison without parole (possibility of release), and waive his right to appeal.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev, who had displayed little emotion throughout his trial, appeared to weep when his relatives testified on May 4, 2015. On May 15, 2015, the jury recommended that Tsarnaev be sentenced to death by lethal injection on six of 17 capital counts.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: According to the verdict forms completed by the jurors, three of 12 believed that Tsarnaev had taken part in the attack under his brother's influence; two believed that he had been remorseful for his actions; two believed that Tamerlan, not Dzhokhar, had shot and killed Officer Collier; three believed that his friends still care about him; one believed that Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, was to be blamed for the brothers' actions; one believed that Tsarnaev would never be violent again in prison.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Massachusetts ended the death penalty for state crimes in 1984. However, because Tsarnaev was tried on federal charges, he was eligible for execution.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On June 24, 2015, Tsarnaev faced his living victims in court as his death sentence was formally delivered. Victims and their families were able to present impact statements to the court, and Tsarnaev, who had been silent throughout his month-long trial, apologized to the injured and the bereaved in the bombings.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: The following morning, on June 25, 2015, Tsarnaev was transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Florence High in Colorado; as of July 17, 2015 he had been transferred to ADX Florence. A Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesperson stated that "unique security management requirements" caused the agency to place Tsarnaev in Colorado instead of United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana, where male death-row inmates are normally held.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: According to "The Guardian", in June 2016, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a threat to the United States warning of the "gravest consequences" should Tsarnaev be harmed.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: Tsarnaev appealed his sentence on the grounds that the trial should not have been held in Boston, that there were errors in jury selection and that the judge improperly excluded evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man, Ibragim Todashev, committed a prior triple murder in Waltham on September 11, 2011, arguing that such evidence would suggest that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev acted under the influence of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and was possibly fearful of what would happen to him if he refused.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: The appeal was heard by a three-judge panel of the First Circuit on December 12, 2019. On July 31, 2020, the First Circuit overturned the death sentence and three of the other convictions, agreeing that the judge failed to determine how much the potential jurors had been aware of the event during jury selection, and ordered a retrial with a new jury for the penalty phase of his trial. Tsarnaev remained in prison from multiple life sentences carried by the other uncontested convictions. U.S. Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, who wrote the opinion, clarified the ruling of the court. She stated, "Make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution."


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On March 22, 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to consider an appeal from the Department of Justice, and on October 13, 2021, the Department of Justice presented arguments in favor of reinstating the death penalty for Tsarnaev. The Supreme Court ruled on March 4, 2022, in a 6–3 decision, that the First Circuit improperly vacated the death sentence that Tsarnaev had been given. The Court reversed the First Circuit's decision, reinstating the death penalty.


title: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

text: On April 7, 2022, Tsarnaev's attorney asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to consider four constitutional claims that had not been taken up in the previous appeal in March 2021. The filing was made in response to an April 6 filing by the appeals court to comply with the previous Supreme Court ruling in March 2022.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez (; born 24 July 1981) is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who is the 43rd president of El Salvador, serving since 1 June 2019. He is the first president since José Napoleón Duarte (1984–1989) not to have been elected as the candidate of one of the country's two major political parties: the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele served as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán for three years from 2012 to 2015, and then served three years as mayor of San Salvador, the nation's capital, from 2015 to 2018. After winning both mayoral elections as a member of the FMLN, in 2017 Bukele was expelled from the party. In 2018 he established his own political party: Nuevas Ideas (NI). He sought to run for president in the 2019 election with the center-left Democratic Change (CD); however, the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) dissolved the CD, forcing Bukele to instead run with the center-right Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA). He won the election with 53 percent of the vote.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: El Salvador's murder rate decreased to historic lows during Bukele's tenure, falling by over 50 percent during his first year in office. Although Bukele attributed the decrease in murders to his deployment of thousands of police and soldiers to gang strongholds and an increase in prison security, his government has been accused by the United States of secretly negotiating with Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) to reduce the number of murders. Since March 2022, Bukele's government has arrested over 60,000 people with alleged gang affiliations following a significant spike in murders, leading to accusations of human rights violations being committed by El Salvador's security forces.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele has maintained high approval ratings among Salvadorans throughout his tenure, but has been accused of governing in an authoritarian manner. In February 2020, Bukele was criticized by the opposition for sending soldiers into the Legislative Assembly to encourage the passage of a bill that would fund additional purchases of equipment for the police and armed forces. In May 2021, he led a move to fire the attorney general and five supreme court judges of El Salvador, which the United States Department of State and Organization of American States (OAS) denounced as democratic backsliding. Following the approval of bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador in September 2021, protests against Bukele's government took place. His announcement that he would run for reelection in 2024 led to criticism by constitutional law experts and organizations that presidential reelection violated the country's constitution.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele has made several international visits to foreign nations as president, including the United States, Japan, China, Qatar, Guatemala, and Turkey. Additionally, he also made official visits to Taiwan and Israel during his tenure as mayor of San Salvador. Bukele has been critical of other Latin American leaders, including Daniel Ortega, Nicolás Maduro, and Juan Orlando Hernández, calling them "dictators".


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez was born on 24 July 1981 in San Salvador. He is a son of Armando Bukele Kattán and Olga Ortez de Bukele. According to "The Times of Israel", Bukele's paternal grandparents were Palestinian Christians from Jerusalem and Bethlehem while his maternal grandmother was Catholic and his maternal grandfather was Greek Orthodox. His father later converted to Islam and became an imam.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele studied law at the Central American University, but later ended his studies and founded his first company at age 18. According to a 2017 article in the digital newspaper "El Faro", Bukele owned Yamaha Motors El Salvador, a company that sells and distributes Yamaha products in El Salvador. He was also the director and president of OBERMET, S.A. DE C.V. in 2011.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 11 March 2012, he was elected mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, in the department of La Libertad, representing a coalition of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) with 2,754 votes (49.72%) and Democratic Change (CD) with 108 votes (1.95%), for a total of 2,862 votes (50.68%), defeating the incumbent Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which won 2,585 votes (46.67%). He took office on 1 May 2012.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: During his mayorship, he provided all adults of Nuevo Cuscatlán over the age of 55 a monthly basket to cover basic nutritional needs. Before Bukele took office, Nuevo Cuscatlán had around 12 homicides per year, but during his three-year term, only one homicide was reported. He also offered scholarships to all youths with a GPA above a 3.5 to be able to go any university in El Salvador, believing that such awards for academic achievements would help combat crime among youths. Throughout his term, he donated his salary to the scholarships that he was offering for youths in Nuevo Cuscatlán. On 21 January 2015, Bukele inaugurated a new boulevard which connected Nuevo Cuscatlán with Huizúcar and Antiguo Cuscatlán. Bukele performed much of his works as mayor with funding from ALBA Petróleos, an association owned by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In the municipal elections of 2015, he won the mayoralty of San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador, representing a coalition of the FMLN and the (PSP) that won 89,164 votes (50.37% of total). His main challenger, businessman and former ARENA deputy Edwin Zamora in a coalition with the National Coalition Party (PCN), received only 82,288 votes (46.49%). The latter party had controlled the city during the previous six years. Bukele took office on 1 May 2015.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Upon taking office, Bukele reverted the names of two streets in San Salvador: "Calle Mayor Roberto D'Aubuisson" to "Calle San Antonio Abad A La Vía" and "Boulevard Colonel José Arturo Castellanos" to "Boulevard Venezuela". Both names were changed by his predecessor, Norman Quijano, during his term, the former being named after Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, who ordered the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in 1980 during the Salvadoran Civil War and founded ARENA in 1981, and the latter being named after Colonel José Castellanos Contreras, who saved 40,000 Jews from the Holocaust in Central Europe by providing them fake Salvadoran passports. Bukele began his "revitalization" of San Salvador with the relocation of street sellers, a change which was positively received by the public and the media. He also built the Cuscatlán Market and San Salvador's first municipal library.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In February 2017, Bukele visited Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to "enhance" the sister city relationship between San Salvador and Taipei. In February 2018, he attended the 32nd International Mayors Conference in Jerusalem, where he was seen praying at the Western Wall, and revealed that his wife's grandfather was a Sephardic Jew. During the last months of his term, Bukele brushed up the historic center of San Salvador by expanding roads, remodeling buildings, and rebuilding electric and telecommunication lines, all costing around $5.7 million.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 10 October 2017, Bukele was expelled from the FMLN, accused by the FMLN Ethics Tribunal of promoting internal division within the party, verbally and physically attacking fellow party member Xóchitl Marchelli, performing defamatory acts against the political party, and heavily attacking and criticizing incumbent FMLN President Salvador Sánchez Cerén. Bukele did not attend the hearing scheduled for 7 October 2017 by the FMLN Ethics Tribunal, arguing that they were biased in favor of the plaintiffs. The FMLN lost 20 municipalities and 8 seats in the Legislative Assembly in the subsequent 2018 legislative election. Some political experts have speculated that the losses were in part due to the expulsion of Bukele from the FMLN.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: After Bukele's expulsion from the FMLN, his aspirations towards 2019 moved in the direction of participating in the presidential elections as an independent who rejects the current political system. He had wanted to run for president as a member of the FMLN; however, resistance from party leadership prevented him from doing so. He established the political party Nuevas Ideas ("New Ideas") with the goal of making it a political party where he could run as a candidate for the presidency of El Salvador.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Following the announcement of his presidential aspirations, he was opposed by both the ruling FMLN party on the political left, and ARENA on the political right, as they blocked any attempts for him to found his own political party and politically canceled any party that he has attempted to use for his candidacy, as they did so with Democratic Change. His attempt to run with the party ended when the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) effectively dissolved the party. Bukele eventually joined the center-right Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) party to mount his presidential bid.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 3 February 2019, Bukele announced that he had won the presidential elections with ease. Challengers Carlos Calleja of the ARENA and Hugo Martínez of the FMLN conceded defeat. He won 53 percent of the vote, thereby eliminating the need for a run-off election. He is the first candidate to win the presidency since the end of the Salvadoran Civil War who did not represent either of the major two parties. In his victory speech he declared, "Today we have turned the page on the postwar period."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele assumed office on 1 June 2019, succeeding Sánchez Cerén. Bukele announced a cabinet of sixteen people made up of eight men and eight women, who will serve until 1 June 2024.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In February 2020, Bukele wanted to secure a 109 million dollar loan from the United States to go to increase funding for the Territorial Control Plan. His plan was opposed by the ARENA and the FMLN, citing that his previous policies regarding law enforcement had increased militarization of the National Civil Police. Bukele rallied supporters to call upon the opposition to approve the loan, and on 6 February 2020, Bukele invoked article 167 of the Constitution of El Salvador, calling on the Council of Ministers to convene in the Legislative Assembly on 9 February 2020. When the meeting was supposed to occur, Bukele ordered soldiers into the Legislative Assembly to intimidate legislators to approve the loan. The incident, known in El Salvador as 9F, was condemned by the opposition as an attempted self-coup and the Supreme Court of El Salvador prohibited Bukele from exercising powers not granted in the Constitution.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele's Nuevas Ideas won a majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly in the 2021 legislative elections, and on 1 May 2021, Nuevas Ideas made a coalition with three other political parties, gaining control of two thirds of the legislature. On the same day, the Legislative Assembly voted to remove the five justices of the Supreme Court's constitutional court and Raúl Melara, El Salvador's attorney general. The event has been condemned as a self-coup by opposition politicians, accusing Bukele and Nuevas Ideas of committing a power grab. The incident was condemned by the United States and has been cited as an instance of democratic backsliding.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: The first case of COVID-19 in El Salvador was confirmed on 19 March 2020. As of 3 November 2022, El Salvador had 201,785 confirmed cases and 4,230 deaths, and as of 28 October 2022, 11,250,496 doses of the vaccine had been administered.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 21 March 2020, Bukele instated a nationwide lockdown in an effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic which was to last 30 days. During the lockdown, 4,236 people were arrested by the National Civil Police for violating the lockdown order. Human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have criticized the arrests, citing arbitrary arrests and police abuses. Human Rights Watch also criticized the living conditions of prisoners in El Salvador following Bukele's authorization of the "use of lethal force" by the National Civil Police and the government's release of prisoners being lined up in San Salvador, referring to the living conditions as being "inhumane" and being critical of the move, especially as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 27 May 2020, the United States donated 250 ventilators to El Salvador. During the press conference where Bukele received the ventilators, he stated that he took Hydroxychloroquine. On 22 June 2020, Bukele inaugurated the Hospital El Salvador, the largest hospital in Latin America used exclusively for treating cases of COVID-19, having a capacity of 400 beds, 105 intensive care units, 295 intermediate care units, and 240 doctors.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In January 2021, Transparency International cited both El Salvador and Colombia as examples of "an explosion of irregularities and corruption." Transparency International cited the Corruption Perceptions Index of 2020 as its basis. Twenty of Bukele's government institutions were under investigation by the attorney general on suspicions of corruption relating to the pandemic; however, the investigations were halted after the attorney general was removed by the Legislative Assembly on 1 May 2021.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 13 May 2021, Bukele donated 34,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to several towns and villages in Honduras after pleas from local mayors for vaccines. At the time, El Salvador had received 1.9 million doses, while Honduras had only received 59,000. Bukele donated 44,000 more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Honduras on 19 June 2021 after Mexico had donated 154,100 doses to Honduras the day prior.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 5 June 2021, Bukele announced that he planned to introduce a bill to the Legislative Assembly which would make El Salvador the first nation to make bitcoin a legal tender. The Legislative Assembly approved the bill on 8 June 2021, and it was scheduled to come into effect on 7 September 2021. On 17 June 2021, the World Bank rejected a request from El Salvador to assist with the implementation of bitcoin as legal tender, citing concerns over transparency and the environmental effects of bitcoin mining. On 24 June 2021, Athena Bitcoin stated that it intended to invest one million dollars into installing 1,500 cryptocurrency ATMs which be able to exchange the U.S. Dollar for bitcoin, or vice versa.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 6 September 2021, Bukele announced that the Salvadoran government had bought its first 400 bitcoins. The following day, the Bitcoin Law came into effect, making bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, which became the first country to make the digital currency legal tender. The same day, bitcoin "crashed," falling from $52,000 per bitcoin to under $43,000, reaching, at one point in the trading, "its lowest in nearly a month." Meanwhile, platforms such as Apple and Huawei weren't offering the Salvadoran government-backed digital wallet, named "Chivo", while internet servers were forced to move offline after they were overwhelmed with user registrations. Some "one thousand protesters" took the streets of San Salvador to express their opposition to the country's adoption of bitcoin.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In November 2021, Bukele announced that he planned to build the world's first bitcoin city in the southeastern region of La Unión at the base of the Conchagua volcano, which would use geothermal energy to power bitcoin mining.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: By January 2022, the price of bitcoin had fallen by 45 percent since November, costing the national treasury up to $22 million in reserves. El Salvador bonds declined. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stalled its talks with the government on a loan deal, urging El Salvador to drop bitcoin as legal tender due to concerns over its volatility and diminished transparency. Economist Steve Hanke said, "El Salvador now has the most distressed sovereign debt in the world, and it’s because of the bitcoin folly. The markets think that Bukele's gone mad, and he has." , the Salvadoran government has lost $56 million dollars in bitcoin, and economists state that the country is likely going to default on its debt.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 27 July 2022, Bukele announced that the Salvadoran government would buy back US$560 million in debt bonds by 2023 and 2025 to "ease worries" that the country would default on its debt. In September 2022, Bukele mocked the Bank of England on Twitter after the pound sterling fell to its all-time lowest exchange rate to the US dollar, tweeting "told you" in reference to a tweet from November 2021 criticizing the Bank of England for "printing money out of thin air".


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 20 June 2019, Bukele announced his "Territorial Control Plan" which would increase policing of certain areas of the country in an effort to combat high crime rates and gangs in the country. Both the National Civil Police and the Armed Forces of El Salvador (FAES) would also be equipped with better firearms, ammunition, and vests as a part of the Territorial Control Plan. As a result of his Territorial Control Plan, El Salvador's homicide rate fell from 52 homicides per 100,000 people in 2018, the highest in the world at the time, to 36 homicides per 100,000 people in 2019. In 2020, the homicide rate fell to 19.7 homicides per 100,000 people, and by 2021, it decreased again to 17.6 homicides per 100,000 people. InSight Crime referred the homicide rate of 2021 as "unimaginable," as, only six years prior in 2015, the homicide rate was 103 homicides per 100,000 people.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In September 2020, the website El Faro accused Bukele of having secretly negotiated a deal with Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), the most powerful gang in the country, which stipulated the government granting the gang more flexible prison conditions for its members and other promises, in exchange for the gang pledging to reduce the number of murders in the country and to support Bukele's political party during the upcoming 2021 elections, similar to the gang truce formulated by President Mauricio Funes from 2012 to 2013 with MS-13 and 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18). Bukele denied the allegations and shared photos of the prisons from that April, which showed gang members rounded up in cramped conditions. Bukele subsequently launched an investigation into El Faro on suspicions of money laundering.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 8 December 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury accused Bukele of secretly negotiating with Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street Gang to lower murder rates in the country. The department sanctioned Osiris Luna Meza, Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security, and Carlos Marroquín Chica, chairman of its Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit, alleging that they repeatedly negotiated with the gangs. Bukele rejected the accusations, stating that the United States sought "absolute submission" from El Salvador instead of cooperation.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 26 March 2022, El Salvador recorded 62 murders committed in a single day, the deadliest day in Salvadoran history in 30 years since the end of the civil war. Most of the murders were committed by MS-13 and 18th Street Gang. The following day, the Legislative Assembly voted to enact article 29 of the Salvadoran constitution, declaring a 30-day state of emergency, referred to as the "Régimen de Excepción" ("State of Exception"), which suspended some constitutional civil liberties and mobilized the military to neighborhoods controlled by the country's criminal gangs. According the national police, a total of 60,452 alleged gang members, which Bukele and the police refer to as "terrorists," were arrested as of 19 December 2022, days since the declaration of a state of emergency.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In a speech to 1,450 newly trained soldiers, Bukele threatened to not allow the incarcerated gang members to eat if gang members outside of prison continued to commit criminal acts. In the same speech, Bukele criticized the international community, specifically human rights non-governmental organizations, for "not saying anything when these criminals killed tens of Salvadoran men and women, but they leaped at attention when we began to arrest them saying that we are violating their rights," adding that the NGOs are "against human rights." He also claimed that the NGOs "need us [El Salvador] to continue to have problems, so that they can continue to make their fat salaries." Bukele also warned Salvadoran parents to keep their children away from involvement with gangs as it would lead to "prison or death."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 23 April 2022, Bukele expressed his desire to extend the state of emergency for 30 more days, stating that he met with the Council of Ministers to petition the Legislative Assembly to vote for such an extension. The following day, 67 of the 84 deputies of the Legislative Assembly voted in favor of extending the state of emergency by 30 more days. The Legislative Assembly has since extended the state of emergency by 30 days eight additional times with 67 of the 84 deputies again voting in favor on 25 May 2022, 21 June 2022, 19 July 2022, 17 August 2022, 14 September 2022, 15 October 2022, and 15 November 2022. According to a survey conducted by CIESCA in late-May 2022, 90.13 percent of Salvadorans approved of the state of emergency and the measures taken by the government against the gangs, while only 7.10 percent did not approve.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), called the actions of the police and army as resorting to an "unnecessary and excessive use of force." In early-May 2022, Human Rights Watch claimed that there was "mounting evidence" and "credible allegations" that Salvadoran authorities were committing human rights violations, such as arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and deaths in police custody, throughout the state of emergency. In early June 2022, Amnesty International stated that the government has committed "massive human rights violations", including torture, against those incarcerated, and stating that 2 percent of the country's population have been incarcerated and that there have been 18 deaths in custody. Groups which advocate for freedom of the press were "alarmed" when the Legislative Assembly authorized prison sentences of 10 to 15 years to news media which spreads messages from the gangs.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 28 June 2022, three police officers of the National Civil Police were killed by MS-13 gang members in a shootout in Santa Ana. Bukele described the shootout as an "ambush" against the police, and he referred to the three killed officers as heroes. In a news conference, Bukele swore to intensify the gang crackdown, stating, "What is coming to [gang members] is much greater, and they are going to pay dearly for having taken the lives of these three [police officers]." In response to foreign criticism regarding the crackdown, Bukele stated "Let them complain all they want [...] We are going to defend our people and we are going to ensure that the lives of these agents were not lost in vain." Similarly, on 13 July 2022, a group of soldiers was attacked by 10 gang members in Nueva Concepción, one of which was mortally wounded and died in a military hospital. Bukele also described the incident as an "ambush" and ordered the national flag to be hoisted at half-mast for three days.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In July 2022, Bukele announced the construction of a new prison which will be able to house 40,000 prisoners, making it one of the largest prisons in the world.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 3 November 2022, Osiris Luna Meza, the minister of justice, announced that the government would begin destroying gravestones belonging to members of gangs to prevent them from becoming "shrines", stating "terrorists will no longer be able to 'glorify' the memory of dead criminals". Despite the destruction of the gravestones, the government stated that the bodies would remain intact and not be disturbed. Bukele compared the removal of the tombstones of gang members to denazification in Allied-occupied Germany and also compared the gangs to the Nazis themselves.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele founded the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES) () on 6 September 2019. The institution's purpose is to combat a variety of crimes, including drug trafficking, corruption, and white collar crimes. He also established an anti-corruption unit within the National Civil Police (PNC) which would cooperate directly with CICIES.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 17 May 2021, the United States named five of Bukele's ministers and aides as being corrupt. The five officials named were Rogelio Rivas, Guillermo Gallegos, José Luis Merino, Sigfrido Reyes, and Carolina Recinos. Following the report, the United States diverted funding to El Salvador away from government institutions, instead giving funding to civil society groups. On 4 June 2021, Bukele placed Ernesto Muyshondt, who succeeded Bukele as Mayor of San Salvador from 2018 to 2021, under house arrest on suspicions of electoral fraud and illegal negotiations with gangs to gain votes for ARENA in the 2014 presidential election. Muyshondt had just been named by Luis Almagro, the General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), as one of his anti-corruption advisors, and as a result, El Salvador withdrew from the Organization of American States' anti-corruption accord.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 30 October 2021, Bukele and Nuevas Ideas accused two deputies of the legislative assembly, José Ilofio García Torres and Gerardo Balmore Aguilar Soriano, of "conspiracy against the political institution" for allegedly being bribed with "perks" such as U.S. citizenship by the embassy of the United States in San Salvador and Roy García, a vocal opponent of Bukele's presidency. An audio recording of the two deputies allegedly recorded a meeting between the deputies, García, and the U.S. embassy negotiating an agreement to fracture 15 to 25 deputies of Nuevas Ideas from the party to oppose Bukele's political agenda in the Legislative Assembly. Both deputies were subsequently ousted from Nuevas Ideas amidst an ongoing investigation into the incident. The U.S. embassy denied the allegations made by Bukele and Nuevas Ideas, stating that none of its representatives were on the audio recording.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 11 November 2021, Bukele introduced a bill to the Legislative Assembly called the "Foreign Agents Law" with the goal of "prohibiting foreign interference" in Salvadoran political affairs. Juan Carlos Bidegain, the Minister of the Interior, stated that the law was meant to "guarantee the security, national sovereignty and social and political stability of the country." Bukele stated that the law was modeled off of the United States' Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but critics have compared it to various Nicaraguan laws which institute press censorship by shutting down organizations and arresting journalists. Human Rights Watch reported on 16 December 2021 that 91 Twitter accounts belonging to journalists, lawyers, and activists were blocked by Bukele and various government institutions.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Other world leaders Bukele has met with include Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in November 2019, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in January 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in January 2022, and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in May 2022. Additionally, Bukele met Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, the Qatari minister of state, on the day of his inauguration on 1 June 2019, and Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, the Qatari minister of energy, in Qatar in December 2019.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Between 5 June 2019 and 22 December 2019, Bukele served as the president pro tempore of the Central American Integration System (SICA). Bukele is a proponent of Central American reunification.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele considers Nicolás Maduro, the disputed president of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, and Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, to be dictators. He refused to recognize the presidency of Manuel Merino in Peru in November 2020, describing his government as "putschist". Bukele and the Legislative Assembly denounced the results of the 2021 Nicaraguan general election, which have widely been seen by several governments as fraudulent. On 15 June 2019, Bukele withdrew El Salvador's recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the Polisario Front in favor of improved relations with Morocco.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Before becoming president, Bukele accused China of meddling in Latin American politics, especially after El Salvador withdrew recognition of Taiwan. In 2018, however, Félix Ulloa, Bukele's vice president, has stated that El Salvador would not restore relations with Taiwan. In December 2019, Bukele signed a "gigantic" infrastructure agreement with China for an unknown amount. Bukele met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China in December 2019.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 9 November 2022, Bukele announced that El Salvador and China had entered negotiations for a free trade agreement between the two countries. China donated fertilizer and wheat flour to El Salvador, and according to a Salvadoran government official, China also offered to buy El Salvador's external bond debt.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele met with U.S. President Donald Trump on 26 September 2019 in Washington, D.C., where he called on Trump to promote legal migration in an effort to combat illegal immigration, and to maintain the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) policy for Salvadorans living in the United States. He later confirmed on 28 October 2019 that the United States was continuing TPS for Salvadorans.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In June 2019, Bukele stated that his government would no longer recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela, instead, recognizing Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate president amidst Venezuela's presidential crisis. The action was welcomed by Ronald D. Johnson, the United States' ambassador to El Salvador. On 3 November 2019, he expelled Venezuelan diplomats, who were appointed by Maduro, from El Salvador. Bukele showed his displeasure when the United States spoke with Maduro in March 2022, accusing the United States of "deciding who is bad and who is good and also when the bad becomes good and the good becomes bad."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In February 2021, Bukele arrived in the United States to meet U.S. President Joe Biden, but Biden refused to meet Bukele. Bukele did not attend the 9th Summit of the Americas of June 2022 due to frustrations over the U.S. government's allegations of corruption and human rights abuses committed by his government. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant of former President Trump's home on 8 August 2022, Bukele criticized the FBI, asking on Twitter, "What would the US Government say, if OUR police raided the house of one of the main possible contenders of OUR 2024 presidential election?"


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Norma Torres, a U.S. congresswoman representing California's 35th congressional district, has been a critic of Bukele and his administration since the two of them engaged in an argument on Twitter regarding the U.S. migrant crisis on the southern border. She stated that she "sleeps with a gun nearby" after her social media accounts were sent "hateful messages" and images of Bukele as a result of their argument. On 10 November 2022, after the 2022 elections for the 35th congressional district, Torres accused Bukele of interfering in the election for endorsing Republican challenger Mike Cargile.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: On 31 August 2021, the Legislative Assembly passed a number of bills, including one that forced the departure of all judges over the age of 60 or those having served over 30 years, affecting about a third of the judiciary. A few days later, on 3 September 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the president is eligible to serve two consecutive terms in office, overturning a previous ruling 2014 stating that presidents must wait ten years until being eligible to run for reelection. The court ruling allows Bukele to run for reelection in the 2024 general election. The Supreme Electoral Court accepted the court's ruling.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: The ruling was protested by both ARENA and the FMLN, with a representative of ARENA calling the ruling a "precursor to a dictatorship," and a representative from the FMLN stating that the state is serving only one person, referring to Bukele. The ruling was also condemned by the U.S. government, as stated by Jean Elizabeth Manes, the chargé d'affaires of the United States to El Salvador, claiming that the ruling was "clearly contrary to the Salvadoran constitution." According the Manes, the ruling was a direct result of the legislature replacing the judges of the Supreme Court in May 2021. José Miguel Vivanco, the executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, stated that El Salvador was heading down the same path as Honduras and Nicaragua in allowing presidents to be reelected, adding, "democracy in El Salvador is on the edge of the abyss".


title: Nayib Bukele

text: During a speech celebrating the country's 201st anniversary of independence from Spain on 15 September 2022, Bukele officially announced that he will be running for reelection in 2024. Constitutional lawyers criticized his announcement, stating that presidential reelection violates "at least" four articles of the country's constitution. Polling conducted after his announcement indicate that around 90 percent of Salvadorans would support Bukele's reelection campaign.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Despite being described as an autocrat, a caudillo, and an authoritarian, and despite self-proclaiming himself as the "Dictator of El Salvador," the "coolest dictator in the world," and the "Emperor of El Salvador," by way of irony by the accusations, Bukele has retained a high approval rating throughout his presidency, making him the most popular president in Salvadoran history. He is considered by some journalists to be one of the most domestically popular world leaders and heads of state due to his approval ratings hovering around 87 percent.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele was born into a Christian household, although his father converted to Islam later in life. As the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Bukele's religious beliefs were a controversial subject in the 2019 election, with an image surfacing showing Bukele praying at the mosque in Mexico City. In February 2018, "The Times of Israel" published an image of Bukele "in deep reflection at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele has publicly stated he considers himself a believer in God first rather than religion. In a 2015 interview he said that "I am not a person who believes much in the liturgy of religions. However, I believe in God, in Jesus Christ. I believe in his word, I believe in his word revealed in the Holy Bible. And I know that God does not reject anyone because of their origins."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: He married Gabriela Rodríguez, a psychologist and educator, on 6 December 2014. In 2018, Bukele told the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, that Rodríguez has "Jewish-Sephardic blood". The couple has one child, named Layla, who was born during Bukele's presidency in August 2019.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele promised to sanction bus carriers that increase the rates established by law. Elements of the Police were deployed in different parts of the country to guarantee compliance with the regulations. During his presidential campaign, Bukele proposed the construction of a new airport in the east of the country to relieve congestion from El Salvador's main airport and bring an economic boost to the country's east. On 26 April 2022, the Legislative Assembly passed a law to begin construction of the Airport of the Pacific and the Train of the Pacific. The new rail network will be 332 miles (535 kilometers) long, and the new airport will be 126,530 square feet (11,755 square meters) in size in La Unión.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: Bukele is a right-wing populist. He has stated that he opposes abortion, including in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother's life is at risk. Bukele has stated: "I think, in the end, in the future, we're going to realize that [abortion] is a great genocide that we’ve committed." Bukele has stated that he is opposed to same-sex marriage and believes marriage is between "a man and woman." In September 2021, Bukele stated that the Legislative Assembly would not decriminalize abortion, legalize same-sex marriage, or legalize euthanasia in any potential constitutional reforms.


title: Nayib Bukele

text: In an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson, Bukele attributed mass emigration from Central America to the United States to the region's "lack of economic opportunity" and "lack of security," and described the status quo as "immoral," arguing that emigration not only strains the United States, but also impedes domestic efforts to improve living conditions in El Salvador. In an interview with VICE News' Krishna Andavolu shortly after his inauguration, Bukele stated, "I share the same concern President Trump [has with] immigration, but for different reasons. [...] He doesn't want our people to go; I don't want our people to leave."


title: Nayib Bukele

text: A character inspired by Bukele called "Nashim Bupele" appeared on the Korean drama "Becoming Witch". In the show's seventh episode, one of the characters mentioned that he is a personal friend of Nashim Bupele, briefly showing his image, and how El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin its legal tender. Bukele ironized the drama by describing the actor as a "questionable choice".


title: André 3000

text: André Lauren Benjamin (born May 27, 1975), better known as André 3000, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is best known for being a part of southern hip hop duo Outkast alongside fellow rapper Big Boi.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin has also acted in films and television series such as "Families", "The Shield", "Be Cool", "Revolver", "Semi-Pro", "High Life", "Four Brothers", and in the lead role of Jimi Hendrix in "All Is by My Side". He currently plays Fredwynn on the AMC series "Dispatches from Elsewhere". He is also known for his Cartoon Network animated series "Class of 3000" (2006–2008). He has additionally been an entrepreneur and an advocate for animal rights. In the spring of 2008, he launched a clothing line called Benjamin Bixby.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin has been ranked as one of the greatest rappers of all time by publications including "Billboard", "Complex", "The Source", and About.com.


title: André 3000

text: André Lauren Benjamin was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 27, 1975, the only child of real estate seller Sharon Benjamin and collections agent Lawrence Harvey Walker. His single mother raised him in Atlanta, East Point, and Buckhead, where he attended Sarah Smith Elementary School, Sutton Middle School, Northside High School, McClarin Success Academy, and Tri-Cities High School. He was a childhood friend of Fonzworth Bentley.


title: André 3000

text: In high school, Benjamin (who was then performing as André) met Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. Benjamin and Patton teamed up to form Outkast. Shortly after graduating, Outkast was signed to the Atlanta-based LaFace label and released their debut album, "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik", in 1994. Buoyed by the success of the single "Player's Ball", the album went platinum by the end of the year and Outkast was named Best New Rap Group of the Year at the 1995 Source Awards.


title: André 3000

text: On their next two albums, "ATLiens" (1996) and "Aquemini" (1998), Outkast experimented with their sound by adding elements of trip hop, soul, and jungle. The albums were also influenced by a return to traditional black music genres, with funk being the most prominent example. Outkast's style and lyricism again received commercial and critical acclaim. With the duo's portrayal of themselves as out-of-place extraterrestrials in "ATLiens", Benjamin's lyrics, in particular, were noted for their surreal, space-age tinge: "the funkadelic, futuristic, and seemingly unfamiliar, weird, or eccentric persona projected by André 3000 creates the chance to transcend the more pronounced characterizations of gangstas and pimps so regularly assumed by black men rap artists." During the recording of these albums, Benjamin took up guitar, painting, and a relationship with singer Erykah Badu.


title: André 3000

text: Outkast's fourth album, "Stankonia" (2000), introduced Benjamin's new alias André 3000 (largely to distinguish himself from Dr. Dre and his new persona after his split with Badu) and increased the group's crossover appeal with the single "Ms. Jackson", which hit #1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The song was written in the aftermath of Benjamin's breakup with Badu and was a fictionalized account of the disintegration of their relationship. In 2002, Outkast released a greatest hits album, "Big Boi and Dre Present... OutKast", which contained three new tracks, one of which, "The Whole World", won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Later that year, Benjamin participated in the Dungeon Family group album, which saw some prominent Atlanta-based hip-hop groups combine into a supergroup. In 2002, André 3000 was referenced on the song "Till I Collapse" by Eminem, who considered him one of the best rappers ever.


title: André 3000

text: In 2003 Outkast released "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", a double album that highlighted the differences in the musical styles of the group's two members. Though Big Boi's half of the album, "Speakerboxxx", spawned the number-one hit "The Way You Move" and the relatively successful "Ghetto Musick", Benjamin's "The Love Below" garnered the most attention from mainstream audiences, with the popular singles "Hey Ya!" and "Roses" and their music videos receiving heavy radio and television airtime. "Prototype", the album's fourth single and video (Benjamin's third), was released shortly after. Unlike "Speakerboxxx", "The Love Below" is an exercise in funk, jazz, and alternative music, featuring vocals from Benjamin which are mostly sung instead of rapped. "Rolling Stone" compared Benjamin to "an indie-rock Little Richard" on "Hey Ya!" and later declared the international hit one of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.


title: André 3000

text: In 2006, Outkast released their sixth album as a group, "Idlewild", which also served as a soundtrack to the group's musical film "Idlewild". The film depicts life in a 1930s setting and the album takes influences from the music of that era, particularly blues. Benjamin had a few rapped verses on the album, including on the first single "Mighty O", but mostly stuck with singing, as he had on "The Love Below". The album postponed the release of the theatrical film, as Benjamin and Patton were concentrated more on the production of the music than the movie. In an interview with "Billboard" in 2006, Benjamin explained that Outkast and its associates had developed the idea of creating a movie before the release of "Aquemini", so that when it finally came time to collaborate on the movie, they already had most of the details worked out, including a script, and the movie was ultimately finished before the album was.


title: André 3000

text: In January 2014, it was announced that Outkast would be reuniting to celebrate their 20th anniversary by performing at more than 40 festivals worldwide during the spring/summer of 2014, beginning with a headline spot at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California in April.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin returned to rapping in 2007, after a hiatus from the genre, appearing on various remixes including "Walk It Out", "Throw Some D's", "You", and Jay-Z's "30 Something". His contributions to original songs included UGK's "International Players Anthem", Devin the Dude's "What a Job", Fonzworth Bentley's "Everybody", and Big Boi's "Royal Flush" alongside Raekwon. Benjamin also worked with Q-Tip on the song "Be Brave", which was supposed to be released on Q-Tip's 2008 album "The Renaissance". He also appeared on the track "Green Light" from John Legend's album "Evolver", which was released on October 28, 2008. Prior to the release, Benjamin commented: "It's going to be a surprise for a lot of John Legend fans because it is a lot more upbeat than John is—than people think John is. I was actually happy to hear it. This is a cool John Legend song." Benjamin has stated that he plans on recording a solo rap album and that the response to his remixes is part of the motivation for it. In 2010, he was featured on Ciara's remix for her single "Ride" from the album "Basic Instinct", and on the remix to Chris Brown's "Deuces".


title: André 3000

text: On January 18, 2011, Kesha released "The Sleazy Remix", which featured Benjamin. The remix was later re-released on December 13, 2011, also featuring verses by rappers Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, and T.I. On June 7, Big Boi leaked a collaboration with Benjamin and Sleepy Brown entitled "Lookin' 4 Ya", which had originally been intended for Big Boi's debut solo album "" before it was blocked by Jive Records from appearing on the album.


title: André 3000

text: On June 24, 2011, Beyoncé's fourth studio album, entitled "4", was released. Benjamin featured on the track "Party", his first collaboration with the singer. The song was later nominated for the Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2012 Grammy Awards. Benjamin continued his string of guest appearances throughout the year, featuring on Lloyd's song "Dedication to My Ex (Miss That)", Lil Wayne's "Interlude", and Drake's "The Real Her". He also featured on the track "Play the Guitar" by B.o.B.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin was featured alongside Jay-Z on Young Jeezy's track "I Do", released on January 10, 2012. It later appeared on Young Jeezy's fourth studio album "". Benjamin's verse, which was initially recorded as a song for his debut solo album, was leaked onto the Internet in 2010. The following month, it was announced that Benjamin would be featured on a song with LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy and the alternative rock virtual band Gorillaz titled "DoYaThing", in order to promote the Gorillaz Converse collection. It was released on February 23, 2012, in two different versions, an approximately 4-and-a-half-minute radio edit and an explicit 13-minute version. The song was written and recorded over three days, with the 13-minute version being recorded on the last one.


title: André 3000

text: On July 10, 2012, "Channel Orange", the debut album by singer-songwriter and Odd Future member Frank Ocean, was released. Benjamin was featured on the song "Pink Matter", supplying vocals and guitar. Also in July 2012, Rick Ross's album "God Forgives, I Don't" featured Benjamin on the song "Sixteen", once again supplying vocals and guitar. Later in the year, Benjamin also featured on T.I.'s album "" on the song "Sorry". T.I. noted that the collaboration was a "proud moment" for him.


title: André 3000

text: On May 6, 2013, the for the 2013 film "The Great Gatsby" was released, featuring a cover by Benjamin and Beyoncé of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", marking their second collaboration. The following month, Capital Cities released their debut album, "In a Tidal Wave of Mystery", on which Benjamin was featured on the song "Farrah Fawcett Hair".


title: André 3000

text: After being seen in the studio with producer Mike Will Made It, it was reported on August 3, 2013, that Benjamin would be releasing a new solo album in early 2014. However, the following day a representative for Benjamin told "Billboard" that "there is no official confirmation on that report." In 2014, Benjamin appeared on fellow Dungeon Family member Future's second studio album, "Honest", on a song titled "Benz Friendz (Whatchutola)".


title: André 3000

text: In November 2015, Benjamin made a surprise guest appearance on the track "Hello" from Erykah Badu's mixtape "But You Caint Use My Phone". In 2016, Benjamin performed background vocals on the track "30 Hours" by Kanye West from his album "The Life of Pablo". Earlier that year, Benjamin revealed that he was in the process of recording new music. He also appeared on the song "Solo (Reprise)" by Frank Ocean off his album "Blonde". In the song, Andre expresses his disappointment with the direction hip hop has taken in the more than twenty years since he started rapping. Benjamin also appeared on the track "the ends" from Travis Scott's second studio album, "Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight". Also in 2016, he appeared on the song "Kids..." by A Tribe Called Quest from the album "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" and was featured on two tracks from Kid Cudi's album "Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin'". He was also featured on the track "Rollinem 7's" on N.E.R.D's 2017 album "No One Ever Really Dies".


title: André 3000

text: On May 13, 2018, on Mother's Day, Benjamin released two surprise songs through his SoundCloud account, "Me&My (To Bury Your Parents)" and a 17-minute instrumental track, "Look Ma No Hands", which featured Benjamin on bass clarinet and James Blake on piano. Benjamin co-wrote and featured on "Come Home", the first track of Anderson .Paak's album "Ventura", released on April 12, 2019. He also featured in a guest verse on "Where's the Catch" from James Blake's album "Assume Form".


title: André 3000

text: On September 3, 2021, as part of Drake's ongoing feud with Kanye West, Drake shared the West and Benjamin collaboration "Life of the Party" on his Sirius XM radio show. The unreleased track was originally intended to be on West's album "Donda". Benjamin released a statement on the uncertified release explaining that the track was omitted from "Donda" due to West's current stance against profanity and remarked, "It's unfortunate that it was released in this way and two artists that I love are going back and forth." "Life of the Party" was released officially as part of a deluxe edition of "Donda" on November 14, 2021.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin's early hip hop influence was Rakim, who inspired him to rap at school talent shows as a teenager. He was also heavily influenced by A Tribe Called Quest, stating that group member Q-Tip is "kind of like the father of all of us, like me, Kanye, Pharrell".


title: André 3000

text: In the book "How to Rap", several emcees praised his rapping technique; k-os noted Benjamin's intricate songwriting process and "wicked" flow, Fredro Starr of Onyx commended Benjamin's ability to unpredictably "change up [his] flow on every record", and David Banner said that Benjamin is "one of the best lyricists ever" despite his Southern drawl delivery. With the release of Outkast's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" album, "Billboard" stated that Benjamin had proved himself to be "an eccentric emo crooner and one of hip-hop's elite at the same time". Henry Adaso of About.com noted that in Benjamin's solo career, he had developed "a reputation for stealing the show with nearly every guest appearance". He has been ranked as one of the greatest rappers of all time by several publications; "Billboard" ranked him sixth, "The Source" and About.com ranked him 13th, and "Complex" ranked him 10th best of the 2000s.


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin began producing music on Outkast's "ATLiens" album, and later co-founded the production team Earthtone III, which also consisted of Big Boi and Mr. DJ. On "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", he evolved his production by playing multiple live instruments, including keyboards, guitar, acoustic guitar, and tenor saxophone. He has since contributed outside production for Aretha Franklin, Frank Ocean, and Kids See Ghosts, among others. Scarface has called Benjamin the "Prince Rogers Nelson of Hip-Hop".


title: André 3000

text: Benjamin has made appearances in "Families", "The Shield" (he plays Robert Huggins, a character that originated in an episode titled "On Tilt" from Season 3 in 2004), "Be Cool", "Revolver", "Semi Pro", and "Four Brothers". He was also cast as Percival in the Outkast film "Idlewild", released on August 25, 2006, alongside the album of the same name. He voiced a crow in "Charlotte's Web", a movie adaptation of the 1952 children's book.