Here's the audio from our interview with Beanie Sigel. You can catch some of "Shake It For Me" featuring Diddy at the beginning of part 2.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Besides YouTube (1 and 2), you can also find the video on MySpace (1 and 2) and imeem (1 and 2).

SOHH.com has an interview with Russell "Block" Spencer, CEO of Block Entertainment. Among other subjects, he squashed the rumors that Atlantic/Bad Boy had dropped Block Entertainment. Watch below.

Our surprise interview is with Roc-A-Fella Records rapper Beanie Sigel. Beans just released his fourth album, "The Solution", on December 11. Many may not realize it, but he's worked with Bad Boy or with Bad Boy artists on a number of tracks, including the remix to Black Rob's "Whoa", "If I Should Die Before I wake" from Biggie's "Born Again", the remix to 112's "Dance With Me" and "Journey Through the Life" from Diddy's sophomore effort, "Forever".

His most recent work with a Bad Boy artist is what caught my attention, however. He brought Diddy along to sing the hook on "Shake It For Me" (originally labeled "Pass the Patron") a song that also features Ghostface Killah, another artist that has collaborated with Bad Boy a few times, and Peedi Crakk. It marks just the second time that Diddy has seriously attempted to sing on a track, following the top 10 hit "Last Night". The song is interesting in that, at first, it can be difficult to recognize that the voice you are hearing belongs to Combs.

In the interview, we talk about his initial connection with Bad Boy, his thoughts on posthumous Biggie albums and his work with Bad Boy, including "Shake It for Me".

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HipHopDX.com is reporting that Atlantic Records has decided to drop it's support and distribution of Block Entertainment. Officially, it was under the Bad Boy Records umbrella, but as Bad Boy is distributed through Atlantic, so is Block Entertainment. They note, however, that this is an unconfirmed report and I've requested comment myself.

This would not be much of a surprise if not for the timing, seeing as it wasn't that long ago that "Back Up N Da Chevy", "Welcome to the Zoo" and "Hustlenomics" were released. Even if you were done releasing albums from them, you'd want to stick with them a little while longer, officially, while you tried to promote those somewhat recent releases, I would think. Besides those albums, the partnership also yielded the release of the debut albums of Boyz N Da Hood ("Boyz N Da Hood") in 2005 and Yung Joc ("Hustlenomics") in 2006. Big Gee has a solo deal with Bad Boy - as far as I have heard, it's a separate deal, outside of the Block Entertainment arrangements. I don't know how, if at all, a split with Block would affect that deal.

There were a handful of new (or, at least, new to their MySpace) tracks added to the Bad Boy MySpaces recently.

The Boyz N Da Hood MySpace added "True to ATL".

The Big Gee MySpace added "S*** I Lost", "Pull Cock and Pop It" and "Str8nme Den" by Yung Joc featuring Big Gee.

The LOS MySpace added "G5 Point2 Freestyle" and "G5 Freestyle", both of which are downloadable.

There are no Bad Boy releases on The Billboard 200 or The Billboard Hot 100 for the December 29 editions.

AllHipHop.com has an interview with production team Soul Diggaz (producers of "Hydrolics" and "Portrait of Love"). In it, they talk about how Diddy wanted to sign them as producers and why they opted not to. They've also been working with Danity Kane, the Making the Band 4 guys and Donnie on their projects.

Here are the latest tentative (that means... loose internal) release dates from the label. I realize what dates are on Diddy's MySpace, but the dates below are the correct ones until further notice.

2/26/08: "In and Out of Love" (Physical) by Cheri Dennis.
3/4/08: TBD by Making the Band 4.
3/11/08: TBD by Danity Kane.
3/25/08: "Let's Get Physical" by Elephant Man.
5/20/08: TBD by Cassie.
6/10/08: TBD by Mario Winans.
7/15/08: TBD by Yung Joc.

And then there was vague guidance given on Donnie Klang (third quarter 2008) and Marina Chello (2009).

On this week's Hot 100 chart, "Hood Figga" by Gorilla Zoe slips from 66 to 75.

According to a PR person working for Def Jam, along with Jay-Z, both Diddy and Jimmy Iovine were interested in signing 16 year old Karina Pasian, an R&B singer now signed to Def Jam.