The last time I listened to Nhat Ha was about a decade ago. Back then I was more interested in her look than her singing. Has her voice always sounded slightly raspy or has time given her timbre some textures? Her dark, lush vocals particularly soar through in Quoc Dung’s “Trai Tim Toi Loi,” a mesmerizing track off her new record Nhu Chut Nang Hu Hao. She sings like a woman who has been through pain, love and lust as she curls her voice like smoke around the decent orchestration.

When covering well-know ballads, Nhat Ha sings with maturity and appreciation for the lyrics. On Le Uyen Phuong’s “Vung Lay Cua Hai Chung Ta,” her flow is mellow and her emotion is fragile yet poignant. On Lam Phuong’s “Mot Minh,” she could bring out the lonely sentiment of the song. When it comes to her own tunes, co-written with Huynh Thai Binh, Nhat Ha is no less impressive. The title track is slow, bittersweet and soothing as she takes her time to convey her personal lyricism. Her “Xa Cach” is gorgeously delivered by Tuan Ngoc whose unmatchable phrasing over Duy Cuong’s unmistakable arrangement brings the song to a higher level.

Duc Tuan and Quang Minh also appeared in the album, but Nhat Ha is still the main attraction. She closes out the record with a sensational cover of Pham Duy’s “Phuong Yeu” showing off her versatility in interpreting other people work as well as expression her own. Now I am more interested in her song choice than her look, but I must say she’s aging pretty well based on the album cover.

To fully express Vietnamese sentimental ballads, a vocalist has to reach the ripeness of the lyrics. She has to sing like she lives it. Tam Doan has been covering lyrical standards throughout her career, yet her latest release, Sau Le Bong, is as plain as yesterday’s cold white congee. Her version of Lam Phuong’s “Giot Le Sau” lacks the despondency and Song Ngoc’s “Xin Goi Nhau La Co Nhan” lacks the soul-stirring despair from the older generation. Maybe she was trying to refrain herself by staying in the low register, but you can never go over sentimental on over-sentimental music.

Sure Susan Boyle stunned the audiences and the judges on Britain’s Got Talent with her gorgeous soprano and palpable phrasing. She can take a song and sing her heart out, but Ms Boyle is no interpreter. The twelve tracks on her her debut, I Dreamed a Dream, are the proof. From “Cry Me a River” to “Silent Night,” she never escapes the melodies. She is predictable on most string-orchestrated standards and gospel songs with the exception of “The End of the World.” Although her delivery is faithful, the simple strumming guitar allows her voice to carry the sentiment of the tune.

“Open up your legs, girl / I wanna kiss you in your private part,” Mr. sexpert R. Kelly seduces with his authoritative baritone on “Whole Lotta Kisses.” When it comes to sex, Kelly doesn’t afraid to “Go Low” and say how he feels: “For instance, you look like food, I wanna put you on my plate / Suck you up with some biscuits and go on and eat you baby / Up until you make it rain, grab my ears and pull my face / Tonight I’ll be giving you brain.” As he claims on “Like I Do,” there’s only two things that he is best at in this world: music and rock your body. From the club to the bedrooms, Kelly sure lives up to his words. Untitled is another one of Kelly’s “sex sessions.”

In Historicity, jazz-piano virtuoso Vijay Iyer along with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore rework, reconstruct and re-imagine a wide range of repertoire as well as the leader’s original compositions. The trio’s cover of M.I.A.’s “Galang” is an ingenious work of reinterpretation. Iyer flows his jagged melodic lines like Rakim rhyming over hip-hop hard-hitting beat. “Somewhere” is another masterpiece, in which the group completely revived Leonard Bernstein’s classic track from West Side Story with its own reharmonization and unconventional approach. When it comes to Iyer’s original pieces, such as the title track and “Helix,” the band is no less inventive in rhythmic and hormonic structures. Historicity is an artistic statement that sneaks listeners into an uncharted yet accessible territory. A must experience.

The Clipse flips the scripts on the new release, Til The Casket Drops. On the opening track, “Freedom,” Pusha T warns, “Cocaine aside / All of the bloggers behoove / My critics finally have a verse of mine to jerk off to.” Gone are the coke rhymes and startling paranoia that made its critical-success Hell Hath No Fury such mesmerizing guilty pleasures. Back by “Popular Demand,” Malice and Pusha T trade in dark-tale lyricism for lighter, accessible wordplays. Like “Counseling,” which contains an interpolation of Laura Branigan’s “Self Control,” Clipse tries to take its cameo to the club with comical lines such as: “I used be to all about that fat ass / Then I found a cutie with a flat ass / Good hair, nice smile but a flat ass / Two out of three, sure, I couldn’t let that pass.” While Casket shows the less-serious side of the group, its lyrical verses worth listening to, not jerking off to.

Upon listening to Dumbfoundead’s “Bullets of Truth” prompted to cop his debut Fun With Dumb. The track shows this Asian rapper has some serious swag and he could push 100 bars without a pause. His lyricism is also top-notch. Unfortunately, Fun With Dumb is a dumb-down joke. Tracks like “Rapper-O’s,” “Cockblockers,” and “She Don’t Care” are cute, especially with coined terms like “choppy chaser” and “broke digger,” but you just can’t take them earnestly. I was expecting some sort of Eminem’s or Talib Kweli’s quality, but I was getting Ludacris’ comical rhymes instead. Maybe I would have a different expectation if I didn’t come across “Bullets of Truth” first.

Sure, Lil Wayne lives up to his self-proclaimed title, “Best Rapper Alive,” but can he rock? The short answer is hell fucking yeah. With his new release, Rebirth, Weezy completely transformed himself from a rap luminary to a rock star.

Unlike his previous multimillion-selling Tha Carter III, which was all over the place, Rebirth is very focused. He either raps or sings (sometimes with the support of Auto-Tune) over hardcore, heavy rock riffs. With his gritty vocals, fluid flows, and lyrical wits, Wayne brings his idiosyncratic skills to a whole new level.

On “One Way Trip,” he once again turns nonsense rambling into genius rhyming: “Woke up this morning with my dick to the ceiling / Rather sleep with another chick from my building / Kick her ass out / have breakfast like a motherfucker / I am with another bitch by supper.” Aesthetically speaking, it’s really not what he says, but how he says it and his punch lines are hilarious: “You can act stupid, bitch I am just dumber” and “I am sick, very sicker than you / and when I play sick, I am Jordan with the flu.”

“Ground Zero” is a proof that Weezy can rhyme over any beat, even a boisterous one, and that he could turn noise into catharsis: “Kill them all, die in the spirit of the war / Thinking would a mind be in spiritual fall / Uh shit cause there ain’t no love / Die while America drank your blood.”

Unlike Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3, which filled with guest spots, Weezy has wisely kept his list to the minimal. Eminem shows up on “Drop Your Wall” and makes the track a dynamic duo. Both Em’s and Weezy’s eccentric styles are a perfect complement to one another. This is a much better collaboration than Jay and Weezy on “Mr. Carter.”

As for his singing, he should definitely drop the Auto-Tune clutch. Both “American Star” and “Prom Qeen” are horrendous due to the digital deterioration. Sure, Rebirth is a detour, but it’s a highly creative one. This is the way to rock. Norah Jones should take notes.

Hoa Mi’s volume one, Mot Thoi Yeu Nhau, showed some promising return, but her follow-up volume two, Thu Tinh Khong Gui, and three, Trom Nhin Nhau, are huge disappointments. Even on a cold, rainy, gloomy Sunday morning, I felt no soul in her covering of sentimental ballads (nhac tru tinh). Her heart is just not into the songs. Her version of “Dung Xa Em Em Nay” is the blandest I have ever heard, as if she was reading off the music sheet. The mechanical productions aren’t doing her any favor either.

Fuck Minh Tuyet and let’s make it official—Le Quyen is the new hooker. On the street, a hooker is someone who offers sex for money. In music, a hooker is a singer who lives by the hooks and makes luscious love to the hooks.

Le Quyen’s volume 3, Neu Nhu Ngay Do, is packed with catchy, contagious choruses. Right off the opening title track, she drips her thick, husky vocals over the banal lyrics like honey and ginger over plain, white tofu. On the Chinese-melodic “Tha Thu Cho Em,” she wraps her big-ass pipe around the hilariously-heartbreaking lines, “Neu em ra di bay gio thi nhieu nguoi se trach moc / vi da ben nhau bao ngay ma gio day doi thay,” as if girls these days really give a fuck what people say. With “Roi Mot Mai,” she brings out her rockability that is a reminiscent of Phuong Thanh.

Just when I give up on her for going down the trendy, poppy path, Le Quyen Acoustic pulls me back and gives me some hope again. Unlike Minh Tuyet, Le Quyen is not a mediocre singer at best. She has a dark, raucous, powerful voice with a bit of range. Her jazzy cover of Jimmy Nguyen’s “Mai Mai Ben Em” is intoxicating. She knows how curl her raspy, smoky vocals around the acoustic picking guitar and sentimental sawing violin. On Tran Le Huynh’s “Chan Tinh,” she completely erased Van Truong and intimately made it all her own. With Phu Quang’s “Noi Nho Mua Dong,” songbird Le Quyen trenches her soul into a bitter cold winter night and her delivery is a resemblance of the younger Thanh Lam who I truly missed.

Acoustic has its stale moments with tracks like Thanh Tung’s “Mua Ngau,” Duc Huy’s “Neu Xa Nhau” and Ngoc Le’s “Xa Roi Tuoi Tho.” Yet as long as Le Quyen doesn’t waste her voice with lollipop tunes, she remains one of my favorite Vietnamese vocalists.