Pitchfork

A year ago, the third season of "Making the Band" proved how-- with the right producers, stylists, dance instructor, and house-mother-- Diddy could build a commercially successful pop item out of absolutely anything. Presumably, that was the point (Combs is a narcissist, but he's endearingly up front about it). Given that he's already pulled back the curtain on his artifice (not that there was much of a curtain to pull), it's always kind of weird to see him subject his own persona to the same processes. It's like watching Dr. 90210 give himself a facelift. Diddy albums aren't just soul-numbing documentations of what Nas means when he says hip-hop is dead. They're also personality tests that determine how you respond to pop culture, as well as explorations into the parameters of what the term "artist" means in the producer's era of postmodern pop.

Take this song, for example. Presented as Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole, and not vice-versa (because after all, it's his name on the album), Combs lays in the background wheezing pathetically over a modest, barebones club-beat, while Cole admirably and gamely struts her stuff all over the rest of the track. This all goes on, repetitively, for about four minutes. The final two minutes are dedicated to a mock phone call from Diddy to his woman: "You gotta stop playin' with a nigga's feelings," Diddy reproaches. "You know how much I love you… But those couple of seconds when I couldn't get in touch with you… I was ready to come over and shoot that muthafucka up. Fucking dumb bitch!" He's kidding, of course. Whatever this is-- a harmless, club-ready dance track, another ridiculous bit of meta-pop commentary, or an insipid piece of crap--- the joke, as always, is on us.