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Chris Douridas of member station KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., reviews Nashville, the latest album by singer-songwriter Josh Rouse.

The highlights of Cicely Tyson's life and career tell a story of personal excellence -- and interesting choices. The Oscar-nominated actress is back on the silver screen in two recent films, and talks with NPR's Ed Gordon about balancing her acting career with her active humanitarian efforts.

Rock will host the 2005 Academy Awards, airing Sunday. The comedian spent time on the cast of Saturday Night Live and In Living Color, and his comedy TV specials include last year's Chris Rock: Never Scared and Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker. This interview was originally broadcast on Feb. 6, 1997.

Hip-hop star Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins has made his mark in the music world. Now, he's pursuing a big-screen acting career. His latest role is in Assault on Precinct 13, which also stars Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne.

The Fox television network has a new, controversial reality show premiering this week -- Who's Your Daddy, where an adopted woman tries to pick out her biological father. Variety critic Brian Lowry says Fox doesn't shy away from shows bordering on the tasteless. In fact it encourages them.

In the new Showtime series Fat Actress, Kirstie Alley stars and spoofs her real-life issues as an overweight actress. Television critic Andrew Wallenstein has a review.

Rock critic Ed Ward finds a forgotten chapter of American pop history: the 1940s sound of East Los Angeles. Hear original recordings of vintage Latin music collected on the new CD Pachuco Boogie, from Arhoolie Records.

Rapper and actor Will Smith talks about his new film Hitch. Also, the first season of his fish-out-of-the-projects TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is now out on DVD.

NPR's Ed Gordon speaks with Actress Kimberly Elise, who stars as Helen McCarter in the box office hit Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The film deals with the struggles that women encounter while finding their own identity, and the self-image of African-American women.

For more than 20 years, filmmaker Peter Brosnan has been working to unearth and restore the "Lost City" of Cecil B. DeMille: the massive set of his epic The Ten Commandments, which was buried in the California desert in the 1920s.