What a way to make your music-video debut. Surrounded by a diverse array of stars like Ben Stiller, Snoop Dogg and Pat O'Brien, up-and-coming MC Mark Curry almost didn't get his face seen in the clip for P. Diddy's "Bad Boy for Life."

Guest starring on the track with P.D. and Black Rob, Curry was a little stiff during the video shoot and had to be given slight motivation.

"Puff told me, 'If you don't loosen up, I'm just gonna play your part and I'm gonna dance over it,'" Curry remembered with a smile. "That's all he had to tell me. I was able to jump right in there and do what I had to do."

Curry and the rest of the new wave of Bad Boy Family members knew their roles when it came to helping their boss make his new LP, P. Diddy & the Bad Boy Family — The Saga Continues ... — just be themselves and listen.

"He guides you in the right way," G. Dep said of his experience in the studio with P.D. "If you got the talent, he's just gonna tell you what you need to do with it, and you take it from there. He's like a sculptor. You bring him the clay and all the material, and he's just gonna sculpt it to what he needs it to be."

The Bad Boy CEO went down to Miami's South Beach to indulge in some R&R after his trial on gun possession charges ended in March. Pretty soon his new recruits started to filter down there to visit him.

"We didn't even go down to Miami to make an album," Black Rob said. "Puff just got off a trial, I was on trial [for weapons possession]. Everybody was going through their little thing. We just went out there to relax. We rented the studio in case brothers wanted to come in there and lay something down and not just sit around."

"It was like a truck was off your back," said Marock, one fourth of the Hoodfellaz. "Everybody was happy. [During Puffy's trial] everybody's career felt like it was on freeze."

With the family together, it wasn't long before ideas started to flow and tracks were laid down.

"Brothers didn't want to relax," said Black Rob. "Whenever we heard a beat, we was on top of it. We didn't even try to make this [album]. This was ... 'You my man, you wanna do a joint? Let's do it!' It wasn't like Puff was like, 'Get in the studio!' That's why I felt this. We were just focused on just doing anything, it didn't matter. Brothers ain't making songs like that no more."

"Down in Florida, it was an incredible experience," Curry said. "You have a room with 12 [MCs]. When you put them all in one room and set a track out and be like, 'Only the best three gonna get on. The best three verses is what we working with,' and you see them cats coming in there with that heat, and you're sitting there listening to it. It makes you go home and step your game up."

Diddy had a vision of taking things to the next level as well. Instead of making a compilation of his artists' songs as he originally planned to do at some point, he decided to do things bigger and make his own album — backed by his people, of course.

"Puff did the drill sergeant, the commander in chief," said Dep. "He gave us the regiment of what was going down and the time frame and all that, and we put it together in a matter of three weeks. Less than a month — we just worked hard everyday. It was casual but it was formal, it was professional at the same time. We just got it done."

The work and play brought all of them — many of whom have known each other outside the industry for years — even closer together.

"It was just a crazy vibe to be around the Bad Boy Family," Curry said. "It's actually a family for real. It's like the game of chess: you have 16 pieces on the board and all have a purpose. As a family we all have a purpose, and our purpose is to win. We all have a style. When you put that together, it's a perfect team."

Although no team can boast absolute perfection, the Bad Boy camp of 1994-97 came real close. P.D. and his artists Notorious B.I.G., Mase, the Lox, 112, Faith Evans and Total dropped hits almost on a weekly basis, bathing in platinum plaques, street credibility and heavy rotation. While his team's dismantling has been well documented, 2001 finds Diddy regrouped and refocused with an arsenal that includes rhyme rippers Kain, Loon, Bristal and Big Azz Ko and singer Cheri Dennis.

"We're not trying to compete with the first [squad]," Marock said. "We're trying to carry on, finish what they started. Every time we get in that [studio], it's like 'Big was here, Mase and the Lox were here.' It's a lot of pressure, we gotta do what they did."

Black Rob, who's been on the label since 1996, said one thing this team has over Diddy's old crew is the friendship.

"When I came in, there was a lot of animosity in the air," Rob said. "They had Biggie, [but] Craig Mack wasn't even on the label no more. The Lox had been wanting to go to Ruff Ryders, Mase had been wanting to leave the game. Nobody was getting along.

"Then when Big died," he continued, "Puff was like, 'I'm not even doing this no more. I could do R&B and gospel all day long. I ain't gotta touch this hip-hop sh--.' It was a lot of animosity; I don't play that. All that riffin' and throwing chairs around the office — I'd rather be uptown on the block."

While it's too early to determine if the new breed of rappers can duplicate the success of its predecessors, everyone seems to be confident. With highly anticipated albums from Black Rob (who went platinum plus with his 1999 debut) and G. Dep (who already has a Best Of ... mix tape on the streets) planned for this year, they seem to be on track.