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Emerging quickly from the aftermath of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs's New York-club shooting trial is the optimistically titled The Saga Continues, a compilation masquerading as Combs's third solo album. Though he was found not guilty, the incident is clearly very fresh in the Bad Boy CEO's mind. On the mic, he vents about the criminal justice system and player haters, and he also dedicates a thinly veiled verse to his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, on "I Need a Girl." The only thing that's changed about Combs since his last outing is his name (from Puff Daddy to P. Diddy). On the mildly gritty "Bad Boy for Life," he raps "Don't worry if I write rhymes / I write checks," and the wholesale musical swipes of the past are just a little subtler now. The Neptunes-produced "Diddy" pilfers from Rakim, Boogie Down Productions, and Nice & Smooth, and even recent Bad Boy product is fair game, as Black Rob's "Whoa!" is recycled on "That's Crazy." Most of the rest of the production and vocal contributions here come from a mix of loyalists and newcomers, and predictably wallow in mediocrity. Aside from Faith Evans and Carl Thomas ("Can't Believe"), on this album's evidence, the Bad Boy Family is now pretty nondescript. The loss of key franchise players over the years to death, departure, religious conversion, and prison means Combs and his label will themselves need an equally drastic turnaround to scale their previous heights. --Del F. Cowie