Chronologically, ... Diddy ... was the second star to fall into alignment for Jay-Z. Now, things musically began to take shape in Daddy�s House...

Jay-Z explains, �When I saw the movie, I was thinking, �Maybe I should do it, maybe I should do it.� Puff had called me and he�s always like, �Let me do an album, like executive produce the album.� And I�m like, �I�m an executive my damn self. Stop talking to me like that.�� The room giggles again.

�I believe in Karma and all that �everything happens for a reason [stuff],�� he continues. �So, he called me like, �You gotta come to the studio. I never call you to come to the studio. You gotta come to the studio.��

After finally meeting with Diddy, Jay-Z said he was also introduced to a cornucopia of beats that his Uptown counterpart and his former production team The Hit Men had crafted years ago. Oddly, Diddy didn�t even know that Jay-Z was contemplating an album, nor did he realize that he was about to lay the foundation for American Gangster�s rich 70�s soundscape.

�I go to the studio and he�s playing all these tracks. And it hit, the [70�s] time period. But, he didn�t know about it [the album]. I�m like, �What are you doing with all these tracks?� He�s like, �I just don�t have anybody to give them to.� I was like, �Let me get those and it really set the [tone for the album],�� Jay admits.

Diddy and friends would go on to produce �Roc Boys,� �Pray,� �No Hook,� among other joints. With a solid groundwork, both sonically and thematically, Jay quickly pulled in others.

�[Diddy�s tracks] pretty much set the foundation and [other producers] had to produce into the sound that was already there,� he said. ...

"Pray": American Gangster's first cut, one of several produced by none other than Sean "Diddy" Combs � whom Jay still calls "Puffy," harkening back to days long past when both were members of the late Notorious B.I.G.'s circle. "[The album] starts with a kid looking into the game," Jay explained. The beat slams ominously behind his scene-setting rhymes: "Mindstate of a gangster from the '40s/Meets the business mind of Motown's Berry Gordy."

"No Hook": Another wide-screen Puff production, full of dark organ vibes, and more rhymes from an aspiring kingpin's perspective: "F---rich, let's get wealthy/Who else gon' feed we?" The mood is sneering, hungry, with Jay almost seeming to slip into his long-abandoned double-time flow at times.

"Roc Boys": "That's him at his height," Jay said of his persona in this song. "It's a celebration of the whole s---." Exultant horns burst out on the beat (Puffy again) as the rapper revels in a lifestyle funded by ill-gotten riches: "First of all, I wanna thank my connect/The most important person, with all due respect/...Think ros�/Think O.J./I get away with murder when I sling yey'." (The song also includes a reference to "black bar mitzvahs." Maybe that "L'chaim" was even more significant than I realized.)

James Sabatino, a former consultant for Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment Inc., said he flew B.I.G. to Miami in 1994 to perform a show and record some music. The rapper ... recorded about 17 minutes of vocals, and the session was also captured on about 90 minutes of video footage.

It was understood that both belonged to Sabatino because he paid for the rapper's travel expenses and studio time, although a contract was never signed, according to the lawsuit.

Notorious B.I.G. was killed in 1997 ... Later that year, Combs agreed to buy the music and video footage from Sabatino for $200,000. Combs reportedly gave Sabatino a check for $25-thousand and promised the rest of the money in 60 days. Combs said the reason for the delay was because L.A. police had named Sabatino a person of interest in the rapper's death.

According to the lawsuit, Diddy worried about the public�s opinion if they found out his company had paid a large sum of money to a person of interest in Biggie�s murder.

Sabatino was later jailed on unrelated charges. He claims that everytime he attempted to get the money from Diddy, he was reportedly told it was coming soon.

Jay told me a funny story in the elevator on the way to get his first look at the Hype Williams-directed �Blue Magic� video. He said Puff would always bug him like, �N**** let me executive produce your next album.� Jay would basically be like, �What the f*** you talkin� about? I�m a boss. And you�re a boss. That don�t even make any sense.� But finally Hova gave in and agreed to at least listen to what the Shiny Suit man had cookin� in the stu. Surprisingly, he was blown away. ...

Just how Just Blaze�s work inspired the beginning of Kingdom Come, the Hitmen tracks built the foundation of American Gangster.

DX: I spoke to 8Ball & MJG a little while ago, and 8Ball told me that they didn�t really feel like they are a part of the Bad Boy family. How much family is there really in the industry?

CD: As far as Bad Boy, we�re definitely one big family. Of course every artist is always gonna want a great amount of attention, especially from Puff. You know, maybe that�s what I�m here for, what Harve [Pierre] is here for. Puff is the chairman, but he has other companies. So you�re gonna get that from artists sometimes, if maybe they feel like they didn�t get enough attention and it becomes a Puffy thing, but really there�s people in place. I was very involved in their project and I�m sure [8Ball] would agree to that. I�m not sure why he would say that. ...

DX: Address the critics that say Bad Boy has gotten away from real Hip Hop with artists like Danity Kane and the new solo artist Donny�

CD: What is that? Man! We�re a record company. What record company just wants to stay in one genre of music. It doesn�t make sense financially. It doesn�t make sense to limit yourself in terms of what kind of music you�re going to put out and what type of artist you�re going to sign. We gotta spread our wings and really grow as a company�which we�ve been doing.