While American Idol and Canadian Idol have launched a wide array of successful solo artists, music-oriented contest shows and reality TV projects have had far dodgier results for groups—just ask the members of O-Town and Sugar Jones. But Diddy’s Making the Band has yielded one of the decade’s biggest new R&B acts with Danity Kane. A multiracial quintet closely modelled on Destiny’s Child and the Pussycat Dolls, the prefab group has topped the Billboard album charts twice, most recently with Welcome to the Dollhouse (2008). Slick but strictly formulaic, the music is inevitably less compelling than the backstage dramas that fill the TV show. Supporting act Flo Rida is a bolder proposition, thanks to “Low,” a thunderous, tricked-out hip-hop track that has dominated clubs and car stereos since late last year. He’s surely got his own reality show in the works.—Jason Anderson