What We Are Reading Today: Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949 by M. Taylor Fravel

NEW YORK: Hip-hop sensation Cardi B is being honored at New York’s Brooklyn Museum by Spotify, with a life-size sculpture wearing a gown by Beirut-based fashion house Ashi Studio, which is headed by Saudi-born founder Mohammed Ashi.The US rapper revealed the creation in a short video she posted to her 42.6 million Instagram followers on Wednesday. “If you’re in the New York area make sure you check out my statue in the Brooklyn Museum,” she wrote. “Make sure ya take pics and tag me.”Besides the New-York born rapper, Jaden Smith, Juice WRLD and Gunna are also new honorees of the Spotify RapCaviar Pantheon in an exhibit from April 3 to 7. The streaming service’s popular playlist is celebrating the four performers for their impact on hip hop.Ashi Studio shared images and video of Cardi B’s statue on its Instagram account, also inviting fans to check out the creation at the museum. The designer also thanked Cardi B’s stylist Kollin Carter, who is credited with introducing the singer to the label.Cardi B, who describes herself as a “regular, degular, shmegular” girl from the Bronx, is quite the fan of the Arab designer. She wore a daring gown by the fashion house for her music video “Money” released in December last year.In the video, the artist appears with her baby girl Kulture, who was born in July, while wearing a black, floor-length gown by Ashi Studio’s Autumn-Winter 2018-19 couture collection.The “Please Me” rapper wore a custom-made pleated ivory lace dress with butterfly sleeves and tail by the Saudi couturier to the 2018 Grammy Awards. She had attended the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala in New York City donning a strapless, cream-colored Ashi Studio tuxedo-style gown just hours earlier.The Arab fashion house hit headlines last month when Bollywood star Deepika Padukone described a pink Ashi Studio gown she wore to Cannes in 2018 as the “most extravagant” outfit she had ever worn, in an interview with Vogue magazine.The dress, featuring huge pink ruffles and a voluminous, tiered skirt, was also worn by Beyonce for a concert in Johannesburg that honored the life of Nelson Mandela in December.