One night in London, I get offstage at 9:45 p.m. and I hear that she’s in Paris. It’s one of the foggiest nights, so I can’t take my plane, I can’t drive. The only way I can get to her is the last train to Paris.

Diddy- Dirty Money released their first album, Last Train to Paris, on December 13, 2010. The album is based on Sean “Puffy” Combs past, real- life experiences. The group consists of Combs himself, previous member of Danity Kane, Dawn Richard, and up and coming star, Kalenna. They call themselves “an organic group,” looking to show the world “an entirely new side of the rap impresario.”

The new, energized expectations, however, are not fulfilled and seem to fall short. Featured artists including Chris Brown, Wiz Khalifa and Lil Wayne add some much needed depth to the album. The beats are catchy, unlike the lyrics. Some are actually extremely hard to understand. To fully understand this “trio’s unmatched creative chemistry”, look the lyrics up online. The first track, entitled Intro, is paired with music but lasts only one minute and 34 seconds and sounds like direct dialogue. Is it an actual introduction to the album, or a song?

If this is in fact about the life of Combs, it is an uninteresting storyline (think Eminem’s everlasting Slim Shady impression) for an entire album. By using some of the larger names from the music industry to combined “elements of UK grime, Mediterranean techno and the 808s of American hip hop”, it is the equivalent of awkward laughing that you think nobody hears, amusing at most, but forgettable by the next hour. For a group trying to show a listening audience a revolution of rap music (Kid Cudi, anyone?), it is nothing most have not heard before.

Perhaps the big hype created while awaiting their release is what furthermore led to their downfall. By branding the album as the life of Combs, it did the group as a whole, no justice and fails to compare to some other modern day Shakespeares. However, the two highlights of Last Train to Paris, “Hello Good Morning” featuring T.I. and “Coming Home” featuring Skylar Grey, were actually released as singles. “Hello Good Morning” was first performed onstage at the season finale of American Idol. So, skip the album, buy the singles. This “organic” album was compounded one too many times.