\Weird Al\" Yankovic" Negative What is Negative? I don't know. Why was Weird All negative? One of Yankovic's most controversial parodies was 1996's "Amish Paradise", based on "Gangsta's Paradise"
HOw was AMish paradise received?
How was Amish Paradise by Weird Al Yankovic received?
Yankovic changed his diet to become a vegan in 1992 after a former girlfriend gave him the book Diet for a New America and he felt "it made ... a very compelling argument for a strict vegetarian diet". When asked how he can "rationalize" performing at events such as the Great American Rib Cook-Off when he is a vegan, he replied, "The same way I can rationalize playing at a college even though I'm not a student anymore." In a 2011 interview with news website OnMilwaukee, Yankovic clarified his stance on his diet, saying, "I am still a vegetarian, and I try to be a vegan, but I occasionally cheat. If there's a cheese pizza on the band bus, I might sneak a piece." Yankovic married Suzanne Krajewski in 2001 after being introduced by their mutual friend Bill Mumy. Their daughter, Nina, was born in 2003. Yankovic identifies as Christian and has stated that a couple from his church appeared on the cover of Poodle Hat. Yankovic's religious background is reflected in his abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and profanity. He and his family currently live in Los Angeles in a house previously owned at separate times by Jack S. Margolis and Heavy D. On April 9, 2004, Yankovic's parents were found dead in their Fallbrook, California home, the victims of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning from their fireplace. Several hours after his wife notified him of his parents' death, Yankovic went on with his concert in Appleton, Wisconsin, saying that "since my music had helped many of my fans through tough times, maybe it would work for me as well" and that it would "at least ... give me a break from sobbing all the time." Their deaths occurred following the release of Poodle Hat, which was Yankovic's lowest-selling album in 20 years, but he considered continuing the show and tour therapeutic, saying "if I didn't have anything to distract me, I probably would have spiraled into an even deeper depression. For a couple of hours each night, I could go onstage and put on a big fake smile and pretend like everything was just OK." In a 2014 interview, Yankovic called his parents' death "the worst thing that ever happened to me." He added, "I knew intellectually, that at some point, probably, I'd have to, you know, live through the death of my parents, but I never thought it would be at the same time, and so abruptly." Yankovic is well known for creating parodies of contemporary radio hits, typically which make up about half of his studio releases. Unlike other parody artists such as Allan Sherman, Yankovic and his band strive to keep the backing music in his parodies the same as the original, transcribing the original song by ear and re-recording the song for the parody. In some cases, in requesting the original band to allow for his parody, the band will offer to help out with the recreation: Dire Straits members Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher perform on "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", Yankovic's parody of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", while Imagine Dragons provided Yankovic with advice on how to recreate some of the electronic sounds they used for "Radioactive" in Yankovic's parody "Inactive". Yankovic's career in novelty and comedy music has outlasted many of his "mainstream" parody targets, such as Toni Basil, MC Hammer, and Men Without Hats. Yankovic's continued success (including the top 10 single "White & Nerdy" and album Straight Outta Lynwood in 2006) has enabled him to escape the one-hit wonder stigma often associated with novelty music. Although many of Yankovic's songs are parodies of contemporary radio hits, it is rare that the song's primary topic lampoons the original artist as a person, or the song itself. Most Yankovic songs consist of the original song's music, with a separate, unrelated set of amusing lyrics. Yankovic's humor normally lies more in creating unexpected incongruity between an artist's image and the topic of the song, contrasting the style of the song with its content (such as the songs "Amish Paradise", "White & Nerdy", and "You're Pitiful"), or in pointing out trends or works which have become pop culture cliches (such as "eBay" and "Don't Download This Song"). Yankovic's parodies are often satirical of popular culture, including television (see The TV Album), movies ("The Saga Begins"), and food (see The Food Album). Yankovic claims he has no intention of writing "serious" music. In his reasoning, "There's enough people that do unfunny music. I'll leave the serious stuff to Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline." Yankovic considered that his first true satirical song was "Smells Like Nirvana", which references unintelligible lyrics in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Other satirical songs include "Achy Breaky Song", which refers to the song "Achy Breaky Heart", "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long", which refers to the repetitious lyrics in "Got My Mind Set on You", and "Perform This Way", set to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" that drew inspiration from Lady Gaga's outlandish but confident attitude. Yankovic is the sole writer for all his songs and, for "legal and personal reasons", does not accept parody submissions or ideas from fans. There exists, however, one exception to this rule: Madonna was reportedly talking with a friend and happened to wonder aloud when Yankovic was going to turn her "Like a Virgin" into "Like a Surgeon". Madonna's friend was a mutual friend of Yankovic's manager, Jay Levey, and eventually Yankovic himself heard the story from Levey. One of Yankovic's most controversial parodies was 1996's "Amish Paradise", based on "Gangsta's Paradise" by hip-hop artist Coolio, which, in turn, was based on "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder. Reportedly, Coolio's label gave Yankovic the impression that Coolio had granted permission to record the parody, but Coolio maintains that he never did. While Coolio claimed he was upset, legal action never materialized, and Coolio accepted royalty payments for the song. After this controversy, Yankovic has always made sure to speak directly with the artist of every song he parodied. At the XM Satellite Radio booth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show Yankovic and Coolio made peace. On his website, Yankovic wrote of this event, "I don't remember what we said to each other exactly, but it was all very friendly. I doubt I'll be invited to Coolio's next birthday party, but at least I can stop wearing that bulletproof vest to the mall." In an interview in 2014, Coolio extended his apology for refusing his permission, stating that at the time "I was being cocky and shit and being stupid and I was wrong and I should've embraced that shit and went with it", and that he considered Yankovic's parody "actually funny as shit". In 2000, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea told Behind the Music that he was unimpressed and disappointed by Yankovic's 1993 song "Bedrock Anthem", which parodied two of the band's songs. He was quoted as stating "I didn't think it was very good. I enjoy Weird Al's things, but I found it unimaginative." For the Poodle Hat Al TV special, Yankovic raised the question of artistic expression in a fake interview with Eminem. As Yankovic has always done for his Al TV specials, he edited the footage of a previous Eminem interview and inserted himself asking questions for comic effect. CANNOTANSWER
While Coolio claimed he was upset, legal action never materialized, and Coolio accepted royalty payments for the song.
"Amish Paradise" is a 1996 single by satirist "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a satire of the hip hop song "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio featuring L.V. (which itself is a reworking of the Stevie Wonder song "Pastime Paradise"). Featured on the album Bad Hair Day, it turns the original "Gangsta's Paradise", in which the narrator laments his dangerous way of life, on its head by presenting an Amish man praising his relatively plain and uncomplicated existence.

Track listing
 "Amish Paradise" – 3:20
 "Everything You Know Is Wrong" – 3:46
 "The Night Santa Went Crazy (Extra Gory Version)" – 3:59
 "Dare to Be Stupid (Instrumental)" – 3:25

Coolio's response
Yankovic sought permission from Coolio before making "Amish Paradise", offering a percentage of the revenues. Yankovic was given rights to use the song by the record company (non-exclusive right holders), but not by Coolio himself, who when presented with Weird Al's offer, declined.

Yankovic later stated on VH1's Behind the Music that he had written a sincere letter of apology to Coolio, which was never returned, and that Coolio never complained when he received his royalty check from proceeds of the song. A series of photos taken at the XM Satellite Radio booth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show suggests that Yankovic and Coolio had made amends. Coolio stated in a 2014 interview that the decision to refuse the parody at the time was "stupid" and he wished that someone on his management had stopped him, and considers the final parody to be "funny".

During an interview with Sean Evans on Hot Ones in 2016, Coolio further expressed regret for how he initially responded to "Amish Paradise". "In hindsight, it was stupid of me to say something about [Yankovic] doing a parody of 'Gangsta's Paradise'," he said. "I mean, he did Michael Jackson, he did Prince. You know, people who were definitely more talented than I am. I think Prince did say something... but he wasn't very vocal about it like I was. And it just made me look dumb... It was one of the dumb things I did. And I'm willing to admit I did something stupid."

Music video
Weird Al directed the music video for "Amish Paradise" himself, as he has done for many of his music videos since 1986.

Chart performance

See also
 List of singles by "Weird Al" Yankovic
 List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic

References

External links

Weird Al's Official Page

Amish Paradise On Spotify

1996 singles
Songs about religion
Amish in popular culture
Music videos directed by "Weird Al" Yankovic
Songs with lyrics by "Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic songs
Comedy rap songs
Satirical songs
1996 songs
Songs written by Stevie Wonder
American hip hop songs
Music controversies
Songs written by Coolio
Scotti Brothers Records singles Steven M. Nolt (born 1968) is an American scholar who serves as Senior Scholar and Professor of History and Anabaptist Studies at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. The author of fifteen books, most of which focus on Amish and Mennonite history and culture, Nolt is a frequent source for journalists and other researching Anabaptist groups. He was often quoted in the aftermath of the 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

Early life and education
Nolt was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1968. He received his BA from Goshen College in 1990, and an MA in 1994 from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He received an MA in 1996 and a PhD in 1998, both from University of Notre Dame.

Notable works
His co-authored book, Amish Grace, explores Amish forgiveness in the wake of the school shooting.

Nolt collaborated with Donald Kraybill and Karen Johnson-Weiner on the research project "Amish Diversity and Identity: Transformations in 20th Century America", funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Bibliography
A History of the Amish, 1992; second ed., 2003; third ed., 2015. 406 pages. 
Amish Micro-Enterprises: Models for Rural Development (with Stephen M. Smith, et al.), 1994. 110 pages.
Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (with Donald B. Kraybill), 1995; second ed., 2004. 286 pages. 
Through Fire and Water: An Overview of Mennonite History (with Harry Loewen), 1996; revised ed., 2010. 335 pages. 
Foreigners in Their Own Land: Pennsylvania Germans in the Early Republic, 2002. 238 pages. 
An Amish Patchwork: Indiana's Old Orders in the Modern World (with Thomas J. Meyers), 2005. 192 pages. 
Plain Diversity: Amish Cultures and Identities (with Thomas J. Meyers), 2007. 244 pages. 
Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (with Donald B. Kraybill and David L. Weaver-Zercher), 2007. 237 pages. 
Mennonites, Amish, and the American Civil War (with James O. Lehman), 2007. 358 pages. 
The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World (with Donald B. Kraybill and David L. Weaver-Zercher), 2010. 268 pages. 
Seeking Places of Peace. A Global Mennonite History: North America (with Royden Loewen), 2012. 400 pages. 
The Amish, third ed. (with John A. Hostetler and Ann E. Hostetler), 2013. 56 pages. 
The Amish (with Donald B. Kraybill and Karen M. Johnson-Weiner), 2013. 520 pages. 
The Amish: A Concise Introduction, 2016. 144 pages. 
Mellinger Mennonite Church (1717-2017), 2017. 321 pages.

References

External links
 Amish Grace official site
 Young Center faculty page

1968 births
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
Elizabethtown College faculty
Goshen College alumni
Historians of Christianity
Living people
University of Notre Dame alumni
American male non-fiction writers Donald B. Kraybill (born 1945) is an American author, lecturer, and educator on Anabaptist faiths and culture. Kraybill is widely recognized for his studies on Anabaptist groups and in particular the Amish. He has researched and written extensively on Anabaptist culture. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Elizabethtown College and Senior Fellow Emeritus at Elizabethtown's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

Early life and education 
Kraybill was born in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, in 1945 to a Mennonite family and grew up on dairy farms in Mount Joy, Lampeter and Morgantown. He graduated from Lancaster Mennonite High School in 1963. After attending Millersville University for two years, he received a bachelor's degree from Eastern Mennonite University in 1967, a master's degree from Temple University in 1971, and a PhD in sociology from Temple University in 1976. At Temple he was a research assistant to John Hostetler, a recognized authority on Amish society who had himself grown up Amish and who was influential in Kraybill's interest in studying the groups.

Career 
Kraybill served for five years as an associate pastor in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, at the Willow Street Mennonite Church and served four years as the associate director of Mennonite Voluntary Service as a conscientious objector.

He started teaching sociology at Elizabethtown College in 1971. From 1979 to 1985 he chaired the Sociology and Social Work Department and from 1989 to 1996 was director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown.  He was provost of Messiah College from 1996 to 2002 before returning to Elizabethtown in 2003.

In October 2005, Young Center was awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a three-year collaborative research project entitled "Amish Diversity and Identity: Transformations in 20th Century America."  In addition to Kraybill as senior investigator, the investigative team included Steven Nolt, a professor of history at Goshen College in Indiana, and Karen Johnson-Weiner, a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Potsdam. A national panel of seven scholars advised the research team throughout the project.

The NEH grant enabled the researchers to investigate the Amish experience at the national level, giving attention to geographic expansion, the growth of diversity, changing conceptions of identity and evolving patterns of interaction with the larger society. The team also explored how the Amish have contributed to shaping the identity of a nation that made exceptions in the areas of education, Social Security, and child labor for a religious minority living on its cultural margins. The project resulted in a website; an international conference, The Amish in America: New Identities and Diversities, held in 2007; and a book, The Amish.

Kraybill is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Elizabethtown College and Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. He is widely recognized for his studies and expertise on Anabaptist groups and in particular the Amish. 

Kraybill retired in 2015 and planned to continue his research in his retirement. He was succeeded as director of the Young Center after his retirement by Nolt. Elizabethtown College holds his papers in their Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections.

Works
Kraybill has authored or edited nearly 30 books on various aspects of the lives of Plain sects. He writes almost exclusively on the groups within the Anabaptist faith such as the Mennonites, Amish, and Bruderhof.  In addition to academic books — largely published by Johns Hopkins University Press — he also writes popular books sold in gift shops to tourists, interested in learning more about the plain sects. He is one of two experts frequently quoted by reporters to give background to news stories involving the Amish. He also served as a consultant for the PBS show The American Experience series The Amish.

Book projects include Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (Jossey-Bass, 2007), a discussion of the Amish response to the school shooting at Nickel Mines, and The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World (Jossey-Bass, 2010), an exploration of Amish spiritual life and practices, both with coauthors Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher. Kraybill also authored Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), which provides basic information about these four Anabaptist groups in North America, and coauthored (with Karen M. Johhson-Weiner and Steven M. Nolt) The Amish, a comprehensive description and analysis of Amish life and culture.

In 2014 he published a book related to five beard-cutting attacks on Amish people in eastern Ohio in the fall of 2011, which led to the arrests of sixteen members of a maverick Amish community in Bergholz, Ohio. Kraybill assisted federal prosecutors in understanding Amish beliefs and practices and served as an expert witness at the federal trial in 2012. He wrote a book about the attacks, investigation, trial, and aftermath: Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers. In August 2014, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the hate crimes convictions, a ruling that generated much response.

Kraybill was selected to research and write a centennial history of Eastern Mennonite University, his alma mater, that was published in 2017.

Bibliography

 Our Star-Spangled Faith, 1976. 
 Puzzles of Amish Life, 1990. 
 Old Order Amish: Their Enduring Way of Life (with Lucian Niemeyer), 1993. 
 The Amish Struggle With Modernity (Co-edited with Marc Alan Olshan), 1994. 
 The Riddles of Human Society (with Conrad L. Kanagy), 1999. 
 The Riddle of Amish Culture, 2001. 
 Anabaptist World USA (with C. Nelson Hostetter), 2001. 
 On the Backroad to Heaven: Old Order Hutterites, Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren (co-author: Carl Bowman), 2001. 
 The Upside-Down Kingdom, 2003. 
 The Amish: Why They Enchant Us, 2003. 
 Who Are the Anabaptists: Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites, 2003. 
 The Amish and the State, 2003. 
 Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (with Steven M. Nolt), 2004. 
 Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy (with Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher), 2007. .
 The Amish of Lancaster County (with photography by Daniel Rodriguez), 2008. .
 The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World (with Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher), 2010. .
 Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites, 2010. .
 The Amish (with Karen M Johnson-Weiner and Steven M Nolt), 2013 .
 Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Amish, 2014. .

Personal life 
Kraybill lives in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, with his wife. He and his wife are members of Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren.

See also 

 D. Holmes Morton, medical researcher of genetic disorders common among Amish

References

American Mennonites
American sociologists
Temple University alumni
Eastern Mennonite University alumni
Mennonite writers
Living people
People from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Elizabethtown College faculty
Messiah University
Millersville University of Pennsylvania alumni
American Brethren
1945 births