Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Matthew Sweet.

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Do you have a voice? It's a political question. It's a biological question. It's one that we're

going to talk about for the next 45 minutes. I would seem to have one. I mean, just listen to

the air, surging up from my lungs and through my vocal folds.

They're opening and closing now, cutting up that air and creating a buzzing sound

that's then further transformed inside my vocal tract, which is the airspace at the top of my throat,

mouth and nasal passages, and that sound then moves through the air into the studio,

is registered by a microphone

and the associated technology that sends what I'm saying through the ether or down a wire.

And this is the really amazing bit, allows your brain to recognise this complex movement of carbon dioxide and muscle and electrons

as me welcoming you to this edition of

free thinking. So welcome. It's taken us millions of years of evolution to get to this point,

so well done us. Now, there are four others in on this conversation, all chosen for their

talking abilities. Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustic Engineering,

an author of a new book called Now You're Talking,

...