P. Diddy
Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), also known by his stage names
Diddy and P. Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, record producer,
actor, and entrepreneur. He has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV
Video Music Awards, and his clothing line earned a Council of Fashion
Designers of America award. He was originally known as Puff Daddy and
then as P. Diddy (Puff and Puffy being often used as a nickname, but
never as recording names). In August 2005, he changed his stage name to
simply "Diddy", but continues to use the name P. Diddy in the UK as the
result of a lawsuit. He formed and recorded with the group "Diddy –
Dirty Money".Combs was born in Harlem and grew up in Mount Vernon, New
York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records and then founded
Bad Boy Records in 1993. His business interests under the umbrella of
Bad Boy Entertainment Worldwide include Bad Boy Records; the clothing
lines Sean John & Sean by Sean Combs; a movie production company;
and two restaurants. He has taken the roles of recording executive,
performer, producer of MTV's Making the Band, writer, arranger, clothing
designer, and Broadway actor. In 2011, Forbes estimated his net worth
at $500 million, making him the richest figure in hip hop.
Early life
Sean Combs was born in a public housing project in Harlem, New York
City, the son of Janice, a model and teacher, and Melvin Earl Combs.He
grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. When Combs was a child, his father,
aged 33, an associate of Frank Lucas (the New York drug lord), was shot
to death in his car at a Manhattan park after attending a party.Lucas
and rival gangster Nicky Barnes both publicly state that they were close
to Melvin.Combs played football at the Roman Catholic Mount Saint
Michael Academy. In 1986, his team won a division title; he graduated in
1987.Combs said that he was given the nickname "Puff" as a child
because he would "huff and puff" when he was angry,and "Daddy" was
another version of "playa".
Career beginnings
Combs attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he showed a
penchant for marketing and gained a reputation as a party promoter. He
eventually became an intern at New York's Uptown Records. For some time
he would travel back and forth between Washington and New York, juggling
his classes and his internship, before eventually dropping out of
Howard when he became a talent director at Uptown. He was instrumental
in developing Jodeci and signing and producing Mary J. Blige.
In
1991, Combs promoted a concert, headlined by Heavy D and held at the
City College of New York (CCNY) gymnasium, following an AIDS charity
basketball game. The event was overcrowded since it was oversold to
almost twice capacity, while thousands without tickets were outside. To
keep them out Combs' people shut the only door to a stairwell and put a
table behind it, though the crowd jammed inside was pounding on the door
and pleading for help. When the crowd outside broke several glass doors
in an attempt to get in a stampede ensued inside the gymnasium in which
nine people died.In a 1999 ruling, with respect to civil liability, a
New York Court of Claims judge found Combs and Heavy D. fifty percent
responsible. CCNY bore the rest of the responsibility in part for
abdicating security responsibilities to Combs though they knew the event
was oversold.
In 1993, after being fired from Uptown, Combs established Bad Boy
Records,taking then-newcomer The Notorious B.I.G. with him. Both The
Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack quickly released hit singles, followed
by similarly successful LPs, particularly The Notorious B.I.G.'sReady to
Die.Combs began signing more acts to Bad Boy, including Carl Thomas,
Faith Evans, Father MC, 112 and Total, as well as producing for Jodeci,
Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil' Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, SWV,
Aretha Franklin, and others, and forming The Hitmen, an in-house
production team. Mase and D-Block (then known as "The L.O.X.") joined
Bad Boy just as a widely publicized rivalry with the West Coast's Death
Row Records was beginning. Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. were
criticized and parodied by Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight in songs and
interviews during the mid-1990s. During 1994–1995, he also helped
produce songs for TLC's CrazySexyCool, which was the decade's
best-selling R&B album. Songs he helped produced include "If I Was
Your Girlfriend" and "Can I Get A Witness".
1997-1998: "Puff Daddy" and No Way Out
In 1997, Combs recorded his first commercial vocal as a rapper under
the name "Puff Daddy." His debut single, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down"
spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album, No Way
Out was released on July 1, 1997 through Bad Boy Records. Originally
titled Hell Up In Harlem,the album underwent several changes after The
Notorious B.I.G.'s killing on March 9, 1997. The album's guest
appearances were largely made up of the label's artists. No Way Out was a
significant success, particularly in the United States where it reached
number one on the Billboard 200 in its first week of release, selling
561,000 copies. The album produced five successful singles, including
"I'll Be Missing You", a tribute song aimed at The Notorious B.I.G.,
which became the first rap song ever to debut at number one on the
Billboard Hot 100, and remained at the top of the chart for eleven
consecutive weeks, whilst topping several other charts worldwide. The
other four singles, the Billboard hits "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down",
"It's All About the Benjamins", "Been Around the World" and "Victory",
were also successful, and all except the latter peaked in the top two
positions of the Billboard Hot 100. He collaborated with Jimmy Page on
the song "Come with Me" for the Godzilla film, an EPIC/Sony Soundtrax
production. The track, approved by Page, sampled the Led Zeppelin song
"Kashmir". Producer Tom Morello supplied live guitar parts, playing bass
on the song. Combs and Page filmed a video for "Come with Me", which
reached #2 in the UK.
The
album earned Combs five nominations at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998,
winning the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.On September 7, 2000, the
album was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry
Association of America for sales of 7,000,000+ copies.
In 1997, Combs was sued for landlord neglect by Inge Bongo. Combs
denied the charges.By the late 1990s, he was receiving criticism for
watering down and overly commercializing hip-hop and overusing guest
appearances by other artists, samples and interpolations of past hits in
his own hit songs.
2001-2004: "P. Diddy" and The Saga Continues
In 2001, after his acquittal on gun possession and bribery charges,
Combs changed his stage name from "Puff Daddy" to "P. Diddy".He later
appeared as a drug dealer in the film Made and starred with Halle Berry
and Billy Bob Thornton in Monster's Ball. He tried to reinvent his
image, working on a gospel album, Thank You,but soon faced assault
charges by a Michigan television host, Dr. Roger Mills,also known as
Rogelio Mills, and then was arrested for driving on a suspended license
in Florida.Combs began working with a series of unusual (for him)
artists. For a short period of time, he was the manager of Kelis; they
have a collaboration titled "Let's Get Ill". A collaboration with David
Bowie appeared on the soundtrack to Training Day and he also worked with
Britney Spears and 'N Sync. He signed California-based pop girl group
Dream to his record label. He was also an opening act for 'N Sync on
their Spring 2002 Celebrity Tour.
The Saga Continues... was released by American on July 10, 2001 in
North America. The album was eventually certified Platinum. It is the
only studio album under the P. Diddy name, and last studio album under
Bad Boy Entertainment's joint venture with Arista Records (his We
Invented The Remix album was the last overall album with Arista). The
Saga Continues is considered by most fans to be the best album to date
since the release of No Way Out. The album debuted at number two on the
Billboard 200 and topping the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. This is
the first album by Sean Combs not to feature any guest appearances by
Jay-Z or Lil Kim.
Later in 2002, he made his own reality show on MTV called Making the
Band 2, a sequel to the first Making the Band, in which contestants
competed to be in a new group on Bad Boy Records. Six finalists were to
come up with their name, CD and video (see Da Band). The group, maligned
by comics and critics and drawing a skit on Chappelle's Show, was
dissolved by Combs at the end of the series.
In 2003, Combs ran in the New York City Marathon and raised $2,000,000
for the educational system for the children of New York.On March 10,
2004, he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss the marathon,
which he finished in four hours and eighteen minutes. In 2004, Combs
headed the campaign "Vote or Die" for the 2004 Presidential Election.
The "Vote or Die" slogan was mocked by both The Daily Show and South
Park as being too simplistic and encouraging young people to vote
without knowing the issues. In a South Park episode entitled "Douche and
Turd", Combs and his friends were depicted chasing Stan Marsh, one of
the show's main characters, around with weapons, literally threatening
to kill him if he wouldn't vote in his school election.
On August 16, 2005, Combs appeared on Today and he announced that he
was altering his stage name yet again, dropping the "P." and calling
himself simply as "Diddy," saying that "the P was getting between me and
my fans".However, London-based musical artist and DJ Richard Dearlove
had been performing under the "Diddy" name since 1992 - i.e. nine years
before Combs started using even "P. Diddy" - so in November 2005 sought
an injunction in the High Court of Justice, London, but accepted an
out-of-court settlement of £10,000 in damages, and more than £100,000 in
costs. As a result, Combs no longer uses the name Diddy in the UK,
where he is still known as P. Diddy.Combs starred in the 2005 Carlito's
Way: Rise to Power, played Walter Lee Younger in the critically
acclaimed 2004 Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun and the
television adaptationwhich was aired in February 2008. In the same year
Combs sold his record company to theWarner Music Group. Tensions still
existed between him and former Warner CEOs Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles
(both formerly of Def Jam) but they arranged for his imprint to be a
part of the company. In an interview with AndPOP Combs said that he was
developing a line of men's suits. He later hosted the 2005 MTV Video
Music Awards, and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of
2005 by Time magazine.He even earned a mention in the world of country
music: The narrator of "Play Something Country" by Brooks & Dunn and
Sean Okundaye says he "didn't come to hear P. Diddy", which he rhymes
with "something bumpin' from the city."
In 2006, after trying to move Mase away from Bad Boy Records, 50 Cent
recorded a diss song, "Hip-Hop," in which he implied that Combs knew
about The Notorious B.I.G.'s murder.The feud was resolved, with both
rappers appearing on MTV's TRL and Sucker Free, respectively, stating
that there were no longer problems.
Combs released his first album in 4 years, Press Play, on October 17,
2006 on the Bad Boy Records label with guest appearances fromChristina
Aguilera, Keyshia Cole, Mario Winans (signed to his label 'Bad Boy
Records'), Nas, Will.i.am (of The Black Eyed Peas), Mary J. Blige,
Nicole Scherzinger (of the Pussycat Dolls), Jamie Foxx, Fergie, Big Boi
(of Outkast), Ciara, Twista, Just Blaze, Pharrell, Brandy. The album
debuted at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with sales of over
173,009. In the UK, the album debuted at number 11. Its singles "Come to
Me" and "Last Night" both reached the top–ten of the Billboard Hot 100.
The album became available to preview on MTV'sThe Leak on October 10,
2006, one week before being sold in stores.Press Play received generally
mixed to positive reviews from music critics. As of November 21, 2008,
the album has sold 700,000 copies in the United States.
In October 2007, he was sued by hip-hop promoter James Waldon for
allegedly unleashing three violent bodyguards on him in a New York
nightclub. In March 2008, a source for the Los Angeles Times claimed
that The Notorious B.I.G. and Combs orchestrated the '94 robbery and
assassination attempt on Tupac, substantiating the claim with supposed
FBI documents to that effect; the newspaper later retracted the story,
acknowledging that the supporting FBI documents had been fabricated.
In June 2008, Combs' representative denied rumors of another name
change.August 2008 saw Combs venture into reality television with the
premiere of his VH1 series I Want to Work for Diddy.After the second
season finale of Making the Band 4, Combs confirmed that he would be
heading back into the studio to record his next album. Combs has stated
that he would like to work with Leona Lewis on his new album. In an
interview with The Daily Mail he said: "I had Christina Aguilera on my
last album, but its all about Leona Lewis on my next." Under his real
name of Sean Combs, he starred in two episodes of Season 7 of CSI:
Miami; 'Presumed Guilty' and 'Sink or Swim' in the role of the lawyer
Derek Powell.
2010-present: The Dream Team and Diddy Dirty Money
He has created a rap supergroup known as "The Dream Team". The group
consists of Diddy, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymesand Red
Café.Fabolous is also rumored to be in the group.Since 2009 he has
recorded and performed as part of the group Diddy - Dirty Money. In June
2010, Diddy played a role (as Sean Combs) in the comedy film Get Him to
the Greek, as Sergio Roma, a record company executive. An
Entourage-series representative announced that Diddy would guest star on
an episode of the upcoming season.
He released Last Train to Paris on December 13, 2010. During its
opening week Last Train to Paris outperformed expectations, debuting
eight places higher than predicted at number seven on the Billboard 200.
The album follows Diddy's alter-ego as he travels from London to Paris
to regain a lost love. It also introduced Diddy's R&B/Hip-Hop
collective, Dirty Money, a group consisting of Dawn Richards (formerly
of Danity Kane) and singer-songwriter Kalenna Harper. Dirty Money
performed on the album alongside a total of sixteen guest vocals which
include appearances from Grace Jones and Lil Wayne, amongst others. To
reflect the concept of the album, Last Train to Paris features vocal
segues from designers and editors of the fashion world including Vogue
editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and Tommy Hilfiger. The release was
preceded by four singles "Angels", "Hello Good Morning", "Loving You No
More" and "Coming Home" which received mixed success on the Billboard
Hot 100. The latter has become the most successful, peaking at number
twelve on the U.S. Hot 100 and top-five or top-ten in much of Europe. On
March 10, 2011 Diddy-Dirty Money performed the single "Coming Home"
live on American Idol.
On April 18, 2011, Diddy appeared in the 21st episode of season one of Hawaii Five-0 as an undercover NYPD detective.
Business ventures
In 2002, he was featured on Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40" and was
placed number one in the list of the top ten richest people in hip-hop.
In 2011 his estimated worth was hip hop entertainment business.
Family
Combs is the biological father of five children and the informal
stepfather of another child:His on-again, off-again girlfriend Kimberly
Porter has a son, Quincy Jones Brown (born December 1991) with 1980s New
Jack Swing romantic singer/producer Al B Sure.Quincy was featured on My
Super Sweet 16.
Combs' first biological child is Justin Dior Combs (born December
1993), from a relationship with his high school sweetheart, designer
Misa Hylton-Brim. In January 2010, it was widely reported that Combs
presented his son Justin with a $360,000 Maybach car (and chauffeur) as a
16th birthday present.Justin was also featured on My Super Sweet 16.
His second child is son Christian Casey Combs (born April 1998) with
Kim Porter. Porter is also the mother of Combs' twin daughters, D'Lila
Star Combs and Jessie James Combs (born December 2006).In July 2007
Combs and Porter ended their relationship.
In October 2007, Combs took legal responsibility for Chance, his
daughter with Sarah Chapman.Combs owns a home in Alpine, New Jersey that
he purchased for a reported $7 million.
Wardrobe style
In the February 2007 issue of Blender magazine, Combs spoke about his
wardrobe. He describes his style in three words: "Swagger. Timeless.
Diverse."On September 2, 2007, Combs held his ninth annual "White Party"
in which all guests are limited to an all white dress code. The White
Party, which has also been held in St. Tropez, was held in his Long
Island home in East Hampton. It featured a white carpet to go along with
the white dress code. Combs stated, "This party is up there with the
top three that I've thrown, It's a party that has legendary status. It's
hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend."
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