Good week for hip-hop

This week sees the release of Fortywater's My Ghetto Report Card, UK rapper Ty aka Ben Chijioke, releases Closer. If you don't know Ty, his second album, Upwards would be a good place to start. In yesterday's Friday Review, Alexis Petridis writes the most amusing review of P Diddy's new album Press Play. People on the tube must have wondered how a newspaper made me chuckle so much. Here's a taster:

Earlier this year, Sean "P Diddy" Combs expanded the business empire, which has thus far netted him an estimated $364m, with the launch of his own perfume. As with a lot of celebrity-branded scents, Combs's took an adjective as its name. But the word he picked was somehow inappropriate: there is something a little jarring about calling an aftershave Unforgivable. It sounds peculiarly negative in conversation ("She bought me that P Diddy's aftershave for my birthday." "That's Unforgivable."). Matters were not much helped by the great man's gnomic explanation. "Life without passion is unforgivable," he said, thus explicitly linking his product to a life without passion. It's as if he's trying to sell you bottled essence of sexless misery. Read more...