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| Black Sheep | |
|---|---|
| Name | Black Sheep |
| Origin | United States |
| Genres | Hip hop, alternative hip hop |
| Years active | 1989–1996, 2006–present |
| Labels | Mercury Records, Universal Records |
| Members | Dres, Mista Lawnge |
Black Sheep is a term with origins in pastoral practice and has become a widespread idiom, a biological descriptor, a cultural symbol, and a popular name in arts, entertainment, commerce, and politics. It appears across literature, film, music, folklore, and organizational identities, connecting references from pastoral Europe to contemporary popular culture worldwide.
The expression traces to pastoral contexts such as Sheep farming, Wool trade, Medieval England, and Scottish Borders, where black-fleeced individuals contrasted with flocks bred for white Woollen cloth used in Textile industry centers like Leeds, Manchester, and Nottingham. Literary appearances occur in works tied to Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and later commentators in Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster, influencing idioms recorded in Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge Dictionary. Political commentators in 19th-century Britain and reformers in Progressive Era America invoked the phrase in debates involving figures associated with Reform Acts, Labour movement, and Populist Party, while journalists at outlets such as The Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde have used it to describe dissenters in institutions ranging from British Parliament factions to United States Congress caucuses.
In biology the descriptor relates to phenotypic variation studied by scientists like Gregor Mendel and addressed in fields connected to Population genetics, Molecular biology, and Evolutionary biology. Studies in Genetics and Animal breeding explore melanin synthesis pathways involving genes comparable to those researched in models such as Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, Ovis aries, and Bos taurus. Research groups at institutions like Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Max Planck Institute, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, and Stanford University have investigated pigmentation, inheritance patterns, and cryptic coloration relevant to melanism in taxa including Panthera pardus, Corvus corax, and Bombyx mori. Conservation programs run by organizations such as World Wildlife Fund, IUCN, and Conservation International occasionally note atypical pigmentation in captive-breeding and reintroduction work in Yellowstone National Park, Galápagos Islands, and Chernobyl Exclusion Zone studies.
Folk narratives in regions such as Norse mythology, Celtic folklore, Slavic folklore, and Native American folklore incorporate figures marked by uncommon traits; comparative folklorists at Folklore Society and American Folklore Society link such motifs to archetypes studied by scholars like Joseph Campbell and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Folkloric motifs intersect with rituals in Carnival, Masquerade, and Midsummer festivities in locales like Iceland, Ireland, Balkans, and Basque Country. Ethnographers from Smithsonian Institution and British Museum collections document mythic outcasts and trickster figures akin to the idiom in collections curated by Folklore Archive of the University of Sheffield and Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Writers and composers including Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Toni Morrison use outsider figures in novels and short stories; dramatists such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Pinter stage characters cast as outsiders. Filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Billy Wilder have portrayed social pariahs in cinema distributed by studios including Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures. Musicians and bands such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Radiohead, Björk, Miles Davis, Prince, and David Bowie have explored outsider themes; record labels like Columbia Records, Island Records, and Def Jam released albums that feature outcast narratives. Notable works include novels published by Penguin Books, films screened at Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and recordings nominated for Grammy Awards and BAFTA Awards.
Individuals and groups labeled with this sobriquet appear across history, politics, sports, and the arts. Political figures in France, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Russia, and India have been cast as mavericks in press coverage by agencies like Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Sports teams and athletes in Major League Baseball, National Football League, Premier League, La Liga, and National Basketball Association sometimes adopt outsider reputations noted by broadcasters such as BBC Sport, ESPN, and Sky Sports. Musical acts touring venues including Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium, Sydney Opera House, and Royal Albert Hall have been nicknamed for their iconoclastic styles, as have theatre troupes on stages like Broadway and West End.
Commercial and nonprofit entities employing the name span hospitality, apparel, breweries, record labels, film production companies, and advocacy groups. Examples surface in industries tied to hospitality chains operating in New York City, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Mumbai; craft breweries listed in guides published by Brewery Association and RateBeer; independent record labels distributed by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment; and film production companies with credits logged in databases curated by British Film Institute and American Film Institute. Nonprofits and political action committees using the name register with authorities such as Internal Revenue Service and electoral commissions in jurisdictions like Federal Election Commission, Electoral Commission (UK), and state-level bodies in Australia and Canada.
Category:Nicknames