Making the Band is underway and over the weekend, Diddy and the Combs Cartel launched the first set of auditions. The reboot of the music mogul's famed MTV series has garnered responses from thousands of aspiring artists hoping for their big break. While in the ATL, there were a few guest judges were there to help rate the singers including Monica, Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, Pierre Thomas, Coach K, Quavo, and Brian Michael Cox.

It's safe to say that since those original Making the Band days, music culture has shifted. There has been a rise in independent artists experimenting with new sounds and paving their own successful career with the use of the internet alone, but with all of the evolution comes a few drawbacks. Jermaine Dupri took to his Twitter to reflect on the Making the Band auditions and shared some thoughts.

"One of the things that I notice and learned going to the #makingoftheband try outs, is that kids are using auto tune so much,the understanding of being tone def is gone and people be singing in all kinda keys," the So So Def founder wrote. "Lol this is really a epidemic." Diddy made it clear that he's looking for R&B singers who are going to bring down the house, so hopefully there were a few that made Jermaine's cut. Do you agree with him?

As Diddy revives his hit show Making the Band over a decade after the last season ended, some of his former contestants are speaking out about their experiences. Danity Kane is hailed as the most successful act to come from the MTV series, but not all of the ladies share fond memories of their time on reality television. Aubrey O’Day previously told Diddy to finish what he started with the acts he’s already helped shape, and now Danity Kane’s D. Woods tells Page Six that she was “miserable” on the series.

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Danity Kane has reunited in recent years, but only with three of its members. Wanita “D. Woods” Woodgett decided not to rejoin her former girl group as she continues to grow her career in the entertainment industry. Prior to joining Making the Band in 2005, Woods said she was an intern at 40 Acres and a Mule, Spike Lee’s production company, and worked at radio station Power 1015.1. She’d even gone on tour as a dancer for Bow Wow and Snoop Dogg.

“It was a hard part of my life,” said Woods. “It was not pleasant.” Danity Kane won a record contract with Bad Boy following Making the Band, but Woods claims it was rigged. “[I] knew so much about the industry but really [couldn’t] apply any of it,” she said. “I had no leverage. Nobody cared.” Diddy has been criticized for some of the things that he said to the Danity Kane ladies about their appearances, and Woods recalled when the music mogul told her he was just “a burger away” after questioning her about her stomach and asking her if she’s “feeling a little thick.”

“Do you know how long people would stop me on the street and say, ‘You must have lost a lot of weight,’ and I’ll be like, ‘No, I am actually the same size.” She made it clear to Page Six that she wouldn’t be tuning in to watch Diddy’s forthcoming Making the Band reboot.

Quavo and 112’s Mike and Slim will serve as judges for the Making The Band auditions in Atlanta, along with Monica and Quality Control’s Pierre “Pee” Thomas and Kevin “Coach K” Lee. Casting auditions for the reboot, which Diddy officially announced last July, will commence this weekend, beginning in Atlanta on Friday, February 28th at Center Stage Theater. While the official Making The Band’s social media accounts have confirmed that Mike and Slim will be joining the ranks of Monica, Pee, and Coach K, according to TMZ‘s production sources, fellow Atlanta native Quavo will also be partaking in the judging process to help find the next R&B supergroup.

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Hopeful talent will audition in front of these celebrity guests as well as the “Combs Cartel”—which includes Diddy and his sons Quincy, Christian, and Justin. The open casting call will take place on Friday from 10:00am-6:00pm, with callbacks scheduled for Saturday by invitation only. Once the Atlanta auditions are complete, the Combs Cartel will head over to Houston and then to Charlotte, where DaBaby will serve as a judge alongside the famous father and sons to evaluate North Carolina’s budding talent. New York auditions will then take place from March 21st-22nd.

Send a few prayers Diddy's way. The hip hop mogul shared with his millions of followers earlier today that he was undergoing surgery on his quadriceps after taking an accidental tumble. Diddy was in the hospital and looked to be preparing for surgery as he pulled out his camera and spoke directly to the public. In a series of slides on his Instagram Story, the Bad Boy founder explained how he ended up on a gurney.

“I just found out yesterday, they squeezed me in for today,” said Diddy. He had to cancel an appearance in San Fransico because of his health concerns. "Pray for ya boy, I’m gonna see you all next time and make it up y’all.” Then, he revealed that he had to make a "confession" to everyone: He's accident-prone.

“I’m clumsy. I trip. I fall. I fall in holes. It’s always been like that,” he shared. “I have a good recovery, but this is my fourth surgery in two years. I’ve had two rotator cuffs, a knee replacement, and now it’s on quad. At the end of the day, this is God's work to slow me down, to take better care of my body, and really eat right and to stop treating my body like a machine." 

He asked that people don't show him sympathy because "I did it to myself by accident." Diddy also posted a video to his Instagram Page prior to his surgery as he talked about what kind of talent he's looking for on Making the Band. Check that out below.

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A post shared by Diddy (@diddy) on Feb 21, 2020 at 4:45pm PST

Dawn Richard of Making The Band‘s Danity Kane has come forward with some frightful allegations about her time with Diddy. In an interview with Wild Wayne Unchained podcast, Richard admitted that Diddy is a genius but there was a dark side to his brilliance. She said that Diddy would say things like, ‘You’re not worth it,” and ‘You’re going home.’

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“He would literally do it every day,” Dawn recalled. “And I would be so stressed out I lost [weight], I was so skinny and my dad was stressed out. I heard they were calling my dad like ‘How do we get them out of this?’ They were asking Puff for a lot of money to get me out of the contract.”

The insults got word with Richards detailing how Diddy attempted to have them “toughen up.”

“He would bring us in the room and say, ‘You’re ugly. You gotta fix your face.’ Wild stuff. But he was preparing us for what the industry would be,” she said. “But if we would have done what we did in this time, Puff would have been crucified. Because you can’t talk to women now — like the levels of what he was saying, it was aggressive. It was really aggressive. It was crazy.”

“The last time before he picked the band he made me change twelve times,” she added. “I just knew I was going home, the reason why he made me change was going to pick me the whole time but he made me feel like s*** and be stressed out because he wanted to see if I’d be off my game.”

Peep the full interview below. 

It’s not surprising that rap mogul Diddy has made his next television venture a family affair. The talented members of the fiercely close “Combs Cartel” have often worked together, but it will be interesting to watch as Diddy navigates his reality series with his three sons. Making the Band was one of MTV’s most popular shows in the 2000s, and last year Diddy began receiving submissions for the revived series.

In a newly released promotion clip, Diddy’s sons Quincy Brown, Christian Combs, and Justin Combs talk about what kind of talent they’ll be looking for on Making The Band. “You know we had to be involved in the return of Making the Band,” Christian said to the camera before the picture cuts to old clips of the show. “It’s only right, so stay tuned. It’s a movie,” he added.

Quincy chimed in and said, “We not settling for just anybody. If you feel that you got what it takes to compete in this industry, you know how our pops does it… We expect nothin’ but the best.” Last year, Diddy spoke with Rolling Stone about the show and how he would go about judging talent. “To be honest, my decisions will be made through God. I’m at another frequency and level of music,” said Diddy. “It would have to be something that God fully put in my heart, like when I heard Biggie or I heard Mary [J. Blige].”

Check out their casting call promo below.

For those of us who were around during Diddy‘s original Making the Band days, there are a few moments that we hold near and dear. The show itself was a cluster of reality television drama from a group of young aspiring artists with hopes of becoming the next big thing. Day 26, Danity Kane, and Donnie Klang achieved their own levels of success from their appearances on the show, but the most talked-about seasons of the Making the Band arguably belonged to those involving the rap collective Da Band.

Diddy auditioned individual rap and R&B artists and attempted to form a City High-ish supergroup consisted of six people. Throughout their three seasons, the artists struggled with getting along and often engaged in arguments that turned physical. News has been circulating that Diddy may be working on reprising his memorable television show, and while fans speculate as to whether or not the hip hop mogul will return with a brand new Making the Band series, Diddy thought it was the perfect time to drop this gem about sacrifice.

The video comes from the early 2000s when Diddy had to once again correct Da Band members after they found it difficult to work together. “If you look at anybody that’s really, really big, they sacrificed some things,” Diddy says in the clip. “Madonna sacrificed some sh*t. Michael Jackson has sacrificed some sh*t. Jay Z has sacrificed some sh*t. Biggie, Tupac, myself. We’ve sacrificed some stuff. Eighty percent of my day is not stuff I want to do. I really want to take a nap, look at Scarface fifty times, eat a turkey sandwich, and have sex all motherf*ckin’ day. That’s what I would like to do. I can’t do that.” Check it out below plus a bonus video of Dave Chappelle hilariously mocking the group on Chappelle’s Show.