Kalefa Sanneh reviews T. I. vs. T. I. P.:

T. I. is one of the last rap stars standing, a dominant figure at a time when record sales are falling fast and hip-hop sales are falling faster. (Last year no hip-hop album, not even “King,” was among the 10 top-selling CDs.) And like just about every popular rapper since the 1980s, he is both a sign of the times and an anomaly. He is part of a wave of beat-savvy Southern rappers (many based in Atlanta) who have reimagined the genre over the last decade. But he’s also an old-fashioned lyricist, obsessed with verbal density; Pharrell famously said, “He’s like the down-South Jay-Z.”

You might even say that T. I. has triumphed by turning Jay-Z’s style inside out. Jay-Z knew how to hide sound in sense. His lyrics often sounded like plainspoken prose; it was only later that you noticed the hidden rhyme patterns and rhythms. By contrast, T. I. hides sense in sound. His lyrics often sound like singsong chants; it’s only later that you notice the hidden intricacy of the words.

The HBO Voyeur Project is a multimedia experience similar to Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Take a peek at the fantastic web site.

In a recent Vietnamese article, Quoc Dung severely criticizes the current computerized production in Viet Nam. Sounds like someone is blowing his own whistle.

From National Geographic‘s “The Third Sex“:

In Thailand the concept of three sexes is ancient. Creation tales from northern Thailand say that in the beginning, a man and woman had three children: a male, a female, and a third sex. Many Thai believe that to be born a ladyboy or ‘phuying praphet song’—literally translated, ‘second kind of woman’—is a result of one’s karma. Many believe that in their past lives, ladyboys were men who had many affairs with different women. It was their karmic destiny to be reincarnated as a woman trapped in a man’s body. Ladyboys believe that if they behave well they will be reborn as either a man or woman.

Thailand’s estimated 180,000 ladyboys might live as women, but legally they are considered men.

Check out Thailand’s Third Sex gallery by Kevin Tat.

A discussion on old-school hip-hop albums on Soundcheck with Brian Coleman (author of Check the Technique) and Mark Anthony Neal (associate professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University).

I am not even sure what to say about an article in Vietnamese about Nguyen Quang Huy, a three-year-old boy who was born with such an abnormal structure in his private part.

You have heard enough about the hype already, but this post is not about the iPhone, rather it is relating to it. If you drop by the Apple web site today, you’ll see nothing but the humongous visual treatment under the global navigation. The boxes below the fold even dropped out to focus mainly on the iPhone. How many corporate homepage do you see with this bold and simple approach? Take a look at the Mac Pro image on its secondary page. Ain’t that big enough for ya?

Jazz pianist Chick Corea teamed up with bluegrass banjoist Bela Fleck on the new album titled The Enchantment. Both musicians perform and share their collaborative process on NPR.

About Fleck: “Renowned as one of the world’s foremost banjo players, Fleck blends bluegrass, jazz, folk and even classical music into a sublimely realized whole.”

About Corea: “One of the most influential jazz and jazz fusion keyboardists of the modern era, Chick Corea has — over the course of a nearly 50-year career — developed a distinctive and original style that pushes the melodic and percussive capabilities of his instrument to the limit.”

If you’ve wanted the piece of the new hype but can’t get one, don’t feel so bad. Not everybody’s going to get one!

A chart from Econimist.com shows the street price of coca from Columbia ($2 a gram) to New Zealand ($714.30 a gram).