Jamie Foxx only achieves mediocrity with his release of his album Best Night of My Life on December 21. This release falls in the gray area on the spectrum of R&B albums. The whole album does not stand out as drastically different, yet only some songs fall into the same format of previous albums. Most likely, Foxx fans will only be compelled to give it a shoulder shrug after playing it.

“Winner” was released earlier this year and received a lot of radio play, making it the only song on the album sure to get your head bobbing. The song features T.I. and Justin Timberlake and was used during promotions for the 2010 NBA Playoffs. If it does not stand out as a lovable track then it is at least recognizable as a commercial hit.

Unfortunately the rest of the album has lackluster tracks that are quite forgettable after a first listen. The beginning songs feel more like a hip-hop album versus R&B and feature many rappers including Drake, Ludacris and Rick Ross. The last half of the album is mostly ballads with only Foxx singing on the tracks. Some songs deviate from the signature sensual style that Foxx has established with his last two albums, which works great for songs like “Winner,” but is unfortunate for “Freak.” “Freak” maintains Foxx’s voice and uses little auto-tune, but the techno-style beat of the track distracts from the lyrics. It stands out from the style of the rest of the album and might provoke a skip from Foxx fans.

Moving away from ballads and songs that prominently feature his voice, Foxx uses more auto-tune and up-tempo beats for many songs on this album. He begins the album with a cover of Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be.” While the song has an old school feel, Foxx quickly dissipates any hopes of a soulful album by auto-tuning his voice for the intro. He follows the intro with the track from which the album gets its name, “Best Night of My Life.” This track is more of an expected Foxx style and gives some familiarity to his fans.

His album Unpredictable still stands as his best release yet, with many popular singles including “Unpredictable” and “DJ Play a Love Song.” Foxx’s release of Intuition was disappointing, but the singles “Blame It” and “Just Like Me” carried the album and helped it to still get some positive attention.

Foxx has released “Fall For Your Type” featuring and written by Drake as his first single on the Best Night of My Life album. Some have already heard Drake’s unofficial version of the song, which Foxx used as a reference track. The single sounds like Drake’s signature style and has the unfortunate challenge of overcoming perceptions that Drake’s version is better than Foxx’s.

Best Night of My Life is a decent album but Foxx has not reached the bar that he set for himself with Unpredictable. If fans are looking for a classic Foxx R&B album then they may want to look elsewhere, but he may be attracting a new group of listeners with the variety of music styles present on this album.

Atlanta-based rapper T.I.’s new album “No Mercy” is hitting stores Tuesday, although the rapper is still in jail for a parole violation.

Also, the new video of the album’s title track is available.

T.I. posted his latest letter from jail to thank all the fans, which is on his blog site, trapmuzik.com.

In the letter, he said: (spelling errors uncorrected)

“So here it is…NO MERCY, the most honest and intimate installment of my life story as promised. Hope y’all enjoy it and it lives up to the very high standards I’ve set for myself or anyone who’s to be considered one of the best. I must admit it takes a lot to go through as much as I have and still keep the love in your heart and in your art. But at the end of the day, if that’s what it takes to produce the music that keeps the world of hip-hop evolving on it’s axis….Then even the lowest of the lows of my life was all worth it. Thanks again for your prayers, your time and attention. And remember….It does’nt matter how long it’ll be before the next time you see me. What matters is that I’ll be a better man before that time comes. The longer I sit, the smarter I get.

I’d like to give a vey special thank you to all the fans who’ve been writing me and lifting my spirits everyday. I read all of them. Although I would never be able to write you all back…I’d like to list as many of you individualy as i can and thank the others collectively. It’s a relief to know that there still are people who see a man with a life and not just another headline in the news. Most of you sound very concerned and optimistic at the same time about my situation. Let me assure you all that I am deffenitely keeping my head up. I don’t consider myself done by far. Also many of you are convinced as I am that God has a plan for me that he’s preparing me for. How do you tell God Almighty that all you wanna do is LIVE LIFE ??? What if all you wanna do is be a father to your kids, a husband to your wife, and son to your mother while providing insightful motivation through music and lending a helping hand when posible to those who need it most. Well guys…That’s the topic of discussion between me and the MOST HIGH at the moment. I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out. Who knows maybe you can look foward to hearing the dialogue between us set to music on the next album…which I’ll be announcing the official title to sooner than later. But until then, thanks again for all your understanding, love and support. Y’all take it light and be eazy.

- Love King.”

T.I. has been sentenced to 11 months in jail for violating his probation after he was arrested on a drugs charge last month.

The 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, had been on probation after serving 10 months behind bars for a weapons conviction. He was stopped by police in Hollywood in September who arrested him on suspicion of possessing ecstasy. Also, the judge ordered the rapper to serve a year of supervised release.

During the hearing, Harris begged US District Court Judge Charles Pannell not to send him back to prison, saying he needed to get help for drug addiction.

“I screwed up big time, and I’m sorry. I’m truly and sincerely sorry. I don’t want and I don’t need to use drugs anymore. I want them out of my life,” he said.

His lawyers had argued that no-one had been jailed in the last 10 years in the northern court district of Georgia for a first drug violation of their probation, but the judge said he thought the rapper “had about the limit of second chances.”

Harris is expected to surrender voluntarily to authorities on November 1.

Do you know there is a song “Hero” by T.I. (and Akon)? T.I. raps in the song: “Just to make sure he don’t get it clear like pallegreeno from acseno to a kilo I’m a neighborhood hero.”

Well, here is serious actual proof that he is actually a hero. Yesterday in Atlanta, T.I. helped prevent a man from jumping to his death from the top of an office building. According to USA TODAY, police said T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, “appeared out of nowhere” to talk to the man down. It seemed like quite the coincidence that Harris happened to be in the area when the man decided to jump. After all, the man was safely helped down and taken to an area hospital for psychological evaluation.

The good news might be a good cause for him because Harris has to head to a court tomorrow to do his business with a federal judge who will decide if the rapper violated his probation when police arrested he and his wife on drug charges in Hollywood last month.

Don’t be taken.

I remember wondering why my theater’s poster for this movie was blank. Turns out there was very little worth showing, nothing you haven’t already seen in cops and robbers movies for as along as you’ve been watching them.

Speaking of which, is it really that entertaining at this point in history to watch a bunch of well-dressed guys steal the money people have entrusted to banks? Haven’t we just spent the past two years feeling like we’ve been ripped off by a gangs of cocky suits with no morals?

"Takers" suffers from an abundance of problems: the all-too-familiar, clipped, tough guy dialogue over a pump-up soundtrack, Matt Dillon as a flavorless L.A.P.D. detective (he bucks his bosses, is loyal to his partner, squints, and grits his teeth), Hayden Christianson as apparently some kind of tough guy—but the heart of the problem is in fact, a sympathy gap.

The best American crime movies — Bonnie and Clyde for example, play on moral ambiguity. We know stealing is wrong, but on the other hand, it’s attractive to watch someone break the rules in a particularly ballsy or clever way, and suddenly have enough money to make their dreams come true. In fact, the fantasy plays into the American Dream myth: work hard at something, take a big risk, be inventive and you can transcend class extremely quickly. Robbers become rugged individualists who distinguish themselves from the herd by aggressively claiming what they want without following anyone else’s rules. It’s fun to spend a couple of hours imagining that this could work—and cathartic to see that in the end, it can’t.

"Takers," however, doesn’t mess around with moral ambiguity or the meaning behind crimes and punishments in any interesting way. Its gang of thieves, Jake and Jesse Attica, (Michel Ealy and Chris Brown) Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba) John Rahway (Paul Welker) Max (Gaius Charles), and A.J. (Hayden Christianson) should have it made after they pull off a nearly flawless heist in the film’s first few scenes. They celebrate in style, and as Jake tenderly proposes marriage to his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) in the dim blue light of a lavish hotel bar, over strains of soulful piano jazz provided by gang mate, A.J., they start to get a little interesting. They seem like o.k. guys who did one bad thing.

Then Ghost (T.I.) shows up. He’s a shadier-seeming crook who, it turns out, went to prison working on one of their last jobs (apparently they did more than one bad thing). None of them trust him, but when he offers them a shot at another big payoff in the form of an armored car robbery he’s been orchestrating from prison, they deliberate for about two seconds (it’s a against their rules to do two jobs in the same year) before one of them takes the bait and pressures the others who fall like dominoes.

The second they do, you know more or less how the next hour-and-half is going to go. They’re going to regret their greed, turn on one another, probably loose at least a guy or two. The worst part is though now that you’ve already seen what they’d do with the money and then watched them fail the moral test, there’s no reason to care very much about what happens next. Of course Matt Dillon is hot on their train as tough L.A. Cop, Jack Welles, but there’s not much to care about there either. It’s like watching two countries you’ve never heard of compete in the World Cup: there might be a few minutes of good action, but is it worth it if you don’t really care who wins?

I will say that Chris Brown (who is hard to root for other reasons) is given one very long, very cool, on-foot chase scene, in which he bounds in and out of buildings like Spiderman. Once that ended, so did my interest in the movie.

As of Tuesday, Weird Al’s parody of T.I.’s chart-topping hit “Whatever You Like,” is available on iTunes and hilarious.

Triple Grammy Award winner, Weird Al Yankovic adds his own style and slant to the #1 BillBoard Hot 100 single by bringing the econony trouble into the mix. Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Weird Al’s new single will be available exclusively on iTunes for two weeks starting on October 7 and then made available at all major online retailers.