My pal Marian Liu, plucky entertainment reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, wrote a story on Jin and his new all-Cantonese album ABC: Rapper's road. The record drops tomorrow, February 20th. The few tracks I've heard off of it are pretty kickass... and I don't even understand Cantonese. It's just too bad Jin hasn't blown up with the mainstream success and acclaim he truly deserves, because releasing an indie Cantonese-language hip hop album probably isn't going to get him any closer to that. Read the story here, and listen to a podcast of Marian's interview with Jin here.

Marian also interviewed American Idol contestant Paul Kim, "the pool boy" with some soul: 'American Idol': Interview with Saratoga's Paul Kim. South Bay represent! The guy has given me a reason to watch American Idol, instead of just cursing the show for introducing the world to William Hung (I still curse it for that). Also listen to a podcast of Marian's interview here (don't mind the clickety-clack sound of Marian's keyboard). He sounds like a guy you really wanna root for. All the way, Paul.