10 Bad Boy Artists: Where Are They Now?

Bad Boy Records closing?? Rumors are swirling all over the place that they could be on their last legs as Diddy seeks to shutter the record company. What will happen to the artists? How do they feel about it? Who will collect all those B.I.G. royalties? We’ll know all that once Diddy officially confirms what will happen one way or the other. We may be losing Bad Boy Records, but we get to keep the memories those artists gave us. Oh yeah, what happened to them anyway?

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Like any other band, squabbles and infighting threatened to break them up. But they’ve since reconciled and are touring. No word on new music, but at least you can see them in some venues on tour with Johnny Gill and Dru Hill.

Black Rob

You would think a guy with a hit record would want to stay out of jail, but that wasn’t the case with Black Rob. After “Whoa” made him a platinum artist he started stealing other precious metals in 2006, $6,000 worth. He served four years in prison before coming out, leaving Bad Boy and making another album that you don’t know anything about. He’s currently planning to be on a reality show with Ed Lover and Mr. Cheeks.

Faith Evans

Although she had three successful albums with Bad Boy she left in 2003 to sign with Capitol Records. Since then she’s had a few successful albums despite a rocky relationship with her husband/manager Todd Russaw. In 2012 she was a co-star and co-executive producer for the TV One show “R&B Divas.” She’s currently working on a new album which will feature a guest performance by Missy Elliott.

Carl Thomas

Carl Thomas’ first album, “Emotional,” released in 2000, did quite well. But during promotion for his second album album, “Let’s Talk About It,” his step-brother was killed in a drive by shooting and Carl took a sabbatical from music to recover. He left Bad Boy in 2005 and has still been making music, even collaborating with Snoop Lion and Rico Love recently.

Danity Kane

After two albums and mountains of drama all chronicled in two seasons of “Making The Band,” Sean Combs’ band-creating reality show, Danity Kane fell apart. The individual members went their own way while Aubrey O’Day spent her time remaining in the spotlight by releasing half naked pictures of herself and saying outlandish things to entertainment reporters.

But during the 2013 MTV VMAs pre-show four members of the group appeared saying they were back. They are currently working on new material with various upper-tier producers. D. Woods, though not getting back with them, wishes them well in their future endeavors.

Cassie

Her self-titled first album, “Cassie,” was a sales success in 2006. It wasn’t until 2013 that she released another body of work, a mixtape called “RockaByeBaby.” In between she dated Ryan Leslie, her debut album’s producer, broke up with Leslie, co-starred in “Step Up 2” and started dating Bad Boy founder, Sean Combs. Who knows what will happen between now and her next album?

Yung Joc

In 2006 and 2007 Yung Joc released “New Joc City” and “Hustlenomics” for Bad Boy. Apparently he didn’t like the size of his checks though because he sued Bad Boy for lack of payment of royalties and started his own record label, Swagg Entertainment, with Jive Records. Since then he and Combs have made up. However, production of Joc’s third album hit a snag when someone robbed his Swagg studios and took $70,000 worth of equipment along with the material for his unproduced third album which was due for release in 2013.

Lil’ Cease

Lil’ Cease is most famous for being name-dropped by Notorious B.I.G. in several of B.I.G.’s biggest songs. Lil’ Cease, however, did eventually release his own album in 1999 called “The Wonderful World Of Cease A Leo” that experienced modest success. In 2009 Cease released a song called “Letter To B.I.G.” which sampled a song of the same name written by Jadakiss for the soundtrack to “Notorious.”

Most recently Lil’ Cease, returning to the Notorious well, told a story about how B.I.G. wouldn’t let him meet Michael Jackson. Seriously, dude needs to just write a book about it and get everything Biggie Smalls out of his system.

Ma$e

Ma$e spent 16 years as a Bad Boy artist, but you’d be lying to call them anything but tumultuous. After early platinum success he quit to start a Christian ministry. Then he came back and tried to join G-Unit with 50 Cent, but Diddy charged him $2 million to get out of his contract so 50 ended that.

Reluctant Bad Boy artist Ma$e has not produced a full album since his 2004 album “Welcome Back,” but he’s guested on many records for other artists. Diddy recently released Ma$e from his Bad Boy contract and although Ma$e hasn’t signed with anyone yet, he’s looking primarily to join up with either Kanye’s label or Drake’s. Word is he has his prayer committees putting in overtime on that request.

Shyne

First of all, if you didn’t know, Shyne is from Belize and his dad is the country’s current prime minister. Interesting, huh?

Shyne came to the US at 17 and settled in Brooklyn which is where he was introduced to Sean Combs. Several guest spots and an album later he was poised for platinum success, but that’s when IT happened.

See, he went to a club with Sean Combs and Jennifer Lopez and at some point a gun went off. The rumor is that it was Combs’ and that he asked Shyne to take the fall for it, but no one knows the truth since Shyne won’t talk about it. So Shyne caught a 10 year sentence, but only served 9 before being released from prison and deported back to Belize.

Since then Shyne lived as a Hasidic Jew in Israel, change his name from Jamal Michael Barrow to Moses Michael Levi, befriended fellow converted Jew, Matisyahu, was a featured speaker in the Ukraine on inter-religious understanding, endorsed Mitt Romney for president, dissed Rick Ross, Drake, Game and Kendrick Lamar on wax, is still trying to get back into the US and released his “Gangland” mixtape that has done exceedingly well on Datpiff. Phew. That’s a lot.