Wiktionary
n. (context arts English) precious stone or semi-precious stone used to make intaglio, mosaics etc.
Wikipedia
Hardstone (real name Mbaruku Harrison Ngunjiri Maina, born August 17, 1977) is a Kenyan musician. His music is a mixture of ragga, reggae and hiphop. He sings in English, Swahili and Kikuyu languages. He is a pioneer urban style artist in Kenya and topped the Kenyan music scene for a while in the late 90's.
He emerged in 1997 with popular hit "Uhiki" and an album named "Nuting but de Stone", produced by Tedd Josiah of Sync Sound Studios and released internationally by German-based Kelele Records. Guest artist on the album were Fiona Mungai (of Shadz O'blak) and Eric Wainaina. The album contained two versions of he Uhiki his, original and Pinye's remix. The latter version contains samples of Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye. At the 1997 Kisima Music Awards, Hardstone won the "Best new artist of the year" category.
He recorded a second album known as "Ziwe Nkulu", but it was left unreleased while he moved to the United States in 1998. He left Kenya to enhance his career, In 2003 he released another album "Hardstory". The song "Uhiki (Pinye's remix)" was also on "African Groove" compilation released by Putumayo World Music in 2003.
In 2008, he recorded Stone Republic 12 tracks on Vigintillion Records. Featuring the music of Hardstone, the Godfather of Kenyan Hip Hop, with producers include Edward "Eddie Hands" Rollins, and Paul "Arkitekt" Himmel.
In 2010, Hardstone created "Stone Island Entertainment" an Independent Record Label. His new album project, "Stone Island" is due to launch early fall 2010 and will accompany his scheduled world tour returning to his homeland of Kenya to perform then Denmark and London.
On 9th March 2015, he landed a recording deal with Atlantic Records, making him the first East African to sign for the label.
Hardstone is an unscientific term, mostly encountered in the decorative arts or archaeology, that has a similar meaning to semi-precious stones, or gemstones. Very hard building stones, such as granite, are not included in the term in this sense; only stones which are fairly hard, and regarded as attractive - in effect ones which could be used in jewellery. Hardstone carving is the three-dimensional carving for artistic purposes of semi-precious stones such as jade, agate, onyx, rock crystal, sard or carnelian, and a general term for an object made in this way. Two-dimensional inlay techniques for floors, furniture and walls include pietre dure, opus sectile (Ancient Roman), and medieval Cosmatesque work - these typically inlay hardstone pieces into a background of marble or some other building stone.
The definition of "hardstone" is not very rigid, but excludes "soft" stones such as soapstone (steatite) and minerals such as alabaster, both widely used for carving. Hard organic minerals such as amber and jet are included, as well as the mineraloid obsidian. Geologically speaking, most of the gemstones carved in the West are varieties of quartz, including: chalcedony, agate, amethyst, sard, onyx, carnelion, heliotrope, jasper and quartz in its uncoloured form, known as rock crystal. On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, quartz rates no higher than a 7, less for types with impurities. Stones typically used for buildings and large sculpture are not often used for small objects such as vessels, although this does occur.
The term is derived as a literal translation of the Italian plural pietre dure= "hard stones", which in Italian covers all hardstone carving. The semi-anglicized singular pietra dura is used in English for multi-coloured stone inlay work, in fact using marbles as much as semi-precious stones, which was a Florentine speciality from the Renaissance onwards. "Pietre dure" is sometimes used (normally italicized) for Italian or European vessels and small sculptures of the same period.
Usage examples of "hardstone".
Naturally, a lawyer as well known and successful as Rufus Hardstone was their first choice.
Rufus Hardstone was not only incredibly successful, he was incredibly pompous.
While he sat chipping an edge along a flake of hardstone in the way he had been told, he watched Fire Keeper scraping the last scraps of meat from the bones of a long-haired horn-head, cracking open the ones with marrow, and separating the sinews for bowstrings and thongs.
Rakki climbed to his feet, his eyes blazing, forcing down the impulse to drive the sharpened hardstone into the Screecher's face.
She led them onto the sparse brush and hardstone of the chasm, and there she let them drop.
Also known as verde antique, this carving hardstone is really a group of very similar stones.