- Puff Daddy
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➡ P Diddy
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▪ 1999To the delight of his fans and the dismay of his critics, music mogul-producer-rapper Sean ("Puffy") Combs, aka Puff Daddy, remained in the forefront of the music industry in 1998. Although hip-hop devotees derided the self-aggrandizing showman for his creation of hit singles through the liberal "borrowing" of entire choruses of classic songs, most fans and many fellow musicians appreciated the young entertainer's Midas touch as a producer and performer.Combs was born Nov. 4, 1970, and raised in Harlem in New York City, where the city streets claimed the life of his father when Combs was three but also fostered Combs's hip-hop sensibilities. Nine years later the family moved to suburban Mount Vernon, N.Y., where Combs attended prep school and supposedly received the nickname "Puffy" for his habit of puffing up his chest during football practice. Combs attended Howard University, Washington, D.C., but his interest lay in promoting dance parties. He left college after two years to become an intern at Uptown Records in New York City and within a year had moved up to vice president. Tragically, in December 1991 nine people were crushed to death as crowds pushed their way into a charity basketball game Combs had promoted at City College of New York.In 1993 Combs was fired from Uptown, and he turned his energies to his own label, Bad Boy Entertainment. He soon discovered and befriended a street hustler named Christopher Wallace, who rapped as Biggie Smalls and recorded as the Notorious B.I.G. By 1994 Wallace was a rising rap star, and Combs had negotiated a $15 million deal to move Bad Boy to Arista Records, which gained him a growing industrywide reputation as a rap impresario and entrepreneur.In the spring of 1997 the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered, and his death made Combs's first album, No Way Out, released that summer, less a celebratory debut and more a mournful tribute to his friend. The first single was "I'll Be Missing You," a musical eulogy featuring the voice of Wallace's widow and the melody from the Police's "Every Breath You Take." Several more singles from No Way Out dominated the pop charts in 1997, and in December Combs presented Wallace's children with a check for $3 million in proceeds from "I'll Be Missing You" and pledged to donate future profits from that single to them as well.In 1998 Combs toured in support of No Way Out and maintained his presence on the airwaves; for the movie Godzilla he enlisted guitarist Jimmy Page to concoct the single "Come with Me," a thunderous reworking of Page's Led Zeppelin song "Kashmir." His hold on pop music seemingly secure, Combs signed deals to create a clothing line and co-write his autobiography and tried, unsuccessfully, to become a professional sports agent.LOCKE PETERSEIM* * *
Universalium. 2010.
