"I guess the things that used to thrill me don't thrill me so much anymore. Intimacy is more important to me than sleeping with hot chicks. I don't even know if I really savored every ménage à trois I had." - Diddy.

"Nobody's called me back yet. Bond people, I'm here waiting. My number's listed. I'm waiting to get a crack."

- Diddy says he wants to become the first black James Bond.

They say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Janelle Monáe said "No, thanks."

While growing up in Kansas City, the R&B-soul artist dreamed of becoming a Broadway star. But Monáe, who studied theater at NYC's American Musical Academy, shelved her plans after she was only offered "African-American roles." In 2004, the 22-year-old singer moved to Atlanta and began her singing career in earnest, crafting her Andre 3000-meets-Lauryn Hill style on the Southern club and college circuit. A year later, Monáe wowed OutKast's Big Boi during a Def Poetry Jam performance and parlayed it into guest spots on Big Boi's Got Purp? Vol. II compilation and OutKast's Idlewild soundtrack.

In 2007, Monáe was working on an ambitious four-part debut titled Metropolis. But a call from Diddy stopped Monáe in her tracks. He heard her music on MySpace and asked her to join Bad Boy Records. Monáe agreed, and the man who helped Notorious B.I.G. go "from ashy to classy" hailed his new artist as "possibly the most important signing of my career." A self-described sci-fi freak, Monáe dropped the first installment of Metropolis, The Chase Suite, last summer. Both retro and futuristic, the album tells the story of an android who faces death after falling in love with a human. "I love Octavia Butler and Isaac Asimov and The Twilight Zone, and Blade Runner, and of course The Matrix and Star Wars. I've always had a fascination with the supernatural. So I kind of meshed all this in my mind," explains Monáe, whose pompadour is a li.

The Grammy-nominated Monáe is currently on tour, opening for No Doubt on selected dates. The second and third installments of her Metropolis series are scheduled for release later this year but it's another gig that may help Monáe blur the lines between fact and fiction: this fall, she'll play herself in two episodes of the SyFy Channel's Stargate Universe.

See: myspace.com/janellemonae

The sum is not always greater than its parts.

Flo Rida Right Round

Samples: Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round

Flo Rida follows up the sticky "Low" with a nod to 80's gender-bending disco.

Slim Thug I Run

Samples: A Flock of Seagulls' I Ran

An upbeat song about love becomes a downbeat track about thugs in the hands of Houston's Slim Thug.

Diddy I'll Be Missing You

Samples: The Police's Every Breath You Take

Diddy retooled the end of a romance into the end of a bromance after the shooting death of partner-in-rhyme Notorious B.I.G.

Nas Rule

Samples: Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Nas lets the original do the driving – on a ride through his 'hood.

Lady Sovereign So Human

Samples: The Cure's Close to Me

The "female Eminem" goes even more pop by hijacking a New Wave classic.