AllHipHop.com dropped a bombshell of an interview today with Andre-LeRoy Davis, aka A.L. Dre, who’s been drawing the "Last Word’ column in The Source for 16 years.

Dre pulls some curtains from the Source operations back in the Dave Mays/Benzino days and up to today.

Here’s an excerpt:

AllHipHop.com: As far as your leaving, was it a one-day process, or something that progressed over time?

Andre LeRoy-Davis: During the latter-day parts of the Benzino/Mays
days, they had owed me some money. But I was always a team player, and
I knew they were going through some difficulties. At that point, I was
under contract. When I started, I was getting 50 dollars a drawing; at
the end, it was 3,000 dollars a drawing. I told [Mays/Benzino] that I’d
honor my contract through the end of ’05. They were supposed to hit me
with some money, but then s**t went down. They left, I was owed 10,000
[dollars]. Not good. So I figured that was gonna be it for me; I was
gonna walk away.

Dre’s departure means the Source is losing two names from its masthead so far this year. Bill Heinzelman, assistant music editor, left the magazine at the end of last month.

Update hopefully coming.

-Slav