Known alternately throughout his career as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, and less formally as Puffy, Sean Combs has been one of the shrewdest and most successful figures in the music industry since the early ’90s. Starting as a party promoter, background dancer, and label intern, Combs rapidly emerged as a talent scout, label executive, producer, songwriter, and rapper, among other roles behind the scenes and on-screen. After a brief stint fostering the success of Jodeci and Mary J. Blige at Uptown Records, Combs launched Bad Boy Records in 1994 and resumed his ascent with hits by Craig Mack and the Notorious B.I.G., leading to smash singles as a solo artist and with subsequent Bad Boy artists such as Faith Evans, 112, and Mase. Combs and his Hitmen production team conducted a raid on the charts. They were responsible for half of the songs that topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, beginning with Combs’ own ‘Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down’ and including ‘I’ll Be Missing You,’ his Grammy-winning tribute to the recently murdered Notorious B.I.G., stockpiling platinum certifications as they irked hip-hop purists with their mainstream appeal and brazen approach to sampling pop hits. No Way Out, Combs’ first solo album, consequently topped the Billboard 200. Each of his later solo LPs, namely 1999’s Forever, 2001’s The Saga Continues…, and 2006’s R&B-oriented Press Play, debuted at either number one or number two on the charts, and 2009’s progressive R&B-dance hybrid Last Train to Paris, made with Kalenna Harper and Dawn Richard under the name Diddy – Dirty Money, likewise went Top Ten. In addition to other musical projects, and outside endeavors including a clothing line, reality television, and acting work, Combs continued to operate Bad Boy, home to the likes of Cassie, Danity Kane, Janelle Monáe, Machine Gun Kelly, and French Montana. In 2022, he founded another label, Love Records, teaming with Bryson Tiller for his first headlining single (‘Gotta Move On’) in roughly half a decade.
Sean Combs was born in Harlem in 1969, and was raised in nearby Mount Vernon. Taking a cue from his mother, who worked multiple jobs to support her family, Combs was enterprising as a youngster, responsible at one point for six newspaper routes. He later majored in business administration at Howard University, and after his sophomore year put academics aside to chart his course through the music industry. Having begun as a party promoter, he became a background dancer for Big Daddy Kane and Heavy D. Combs persuaded the latter rapper, a fellow Mount Vernon native he saw as a big brother, to help him land an internship with Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records. In short order, Combs was granted an A&R position and was an executive producer behind Father MC’s Father’s Day (1990), Jodeci’s multi-platinum Forever My Lady (1991), and Mary J. Blige’s even hotter seller What’s the 411? (1992), as well as Heavy D’s Blue Funk (1993). During the roll, Combs initiated a tight creative partnership with the Notorious B.I.G., who was featured on a remix of Blige’s ‘Real Love,’ and on the last track of Blue Funk, and made his first appearance as a lead artist on Uptown’s soundtrack for Who’s the Man? with ‘Party and Bullshit.’
Combs had signed the Notorious B.I.G. to Uptown, but Andre Harrell refused to release the emergent rapper’s debut album, seeing it unfit for his label. Harrell also relieved Combs of his duties, seeing the time was right for the protégé to strike out on his own. Combs responded by establishing Bad Boy Records, operating at first out of his apartment with a small staff. Aided by a distribution deal with Arista, the label struck platinum out of the gate with Craig Mack’s ‘Flava in Ya Ear’ (the remix of which featured the Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, and Rampage), and also by the end of 1994 released Ready to Die, B.I.G.’s landmark first album, containing the multi-platinum singles ‘Juicy’ (produced by Combs and Poke) and ‘Big Poppa’ (produced by Combs and Chucky Thompson). Ready to Die itself would eventually go platinum six-times over. During 1995 and 1996, Combs added three more eventual platinum-selling acts — Faith Evans, Total, and 112 — to the Bad Boy roster.