Sean “Diddy” Combs leans out of the window of a glossy black SUV, holding aloft a big, wood-mounted key because the car makes its well past the flashing screens of Instances Sq..
“New York, we f****** did it,” he shouts. “Let’s go!”
It is September 2023 and the hip-hop impresario has simply been handed the important thing to town by Mayor Eric Adams. It is a full-circle second for the rapper and producer “from the Harlem streets”, just some miles but in addition a world away from the life he has turn into accustomed to. This symbolic key’s the most recent marker of Combs’ rise from formidable younger rap aficionado to some of the influential hip-hop producers of the earlier 30 years.
Quick-forward a 12 months, and the secret’s gone. In September 2024, the rapper is locked in jail dealing with critical legal prices – strenuously denied – of racketeering conspiracy and intercourse trafficking following allegations of abuse.
Combs rose to fame within the Nineteen Nineties, by a music profession that expanded into enterprise enterprises that in 2022 took his internet price to a reported $1bn. Earlier than the likes of Jay-Z, Pharrell and Kanye West have been constructing their enterprise empires, it was Diddy who ingrained hip-hop tradition into style and life-style, and firmly into the mainstream.
However behind the glamour, prosecutors allege there was a person able to sexual abuse and violence, and a critical abuse of energy.
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What’s Sean Combs on trial for?
The early years
Combs, now 55, was born and raised in Harlem, New York, in 1969, to mom Janice and father Melvin. Melvin Combs, who had served within the US air drive however was additionally concerned in drug dealing, was shot lifeless when his son was only a toddler.
The rapper didn’t discover out the reality about his father’s killing till he was older. In interviews, he has mentioned it spurred him on to remain “off the streets” and “try and be somebody”.
Combs additionally has a sister, Keisha, and the household moved 12 miles north to the suburb of Mount Vernon in Westchester County after his father’s loss of life. He was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy, however “always had that hustle” from an early age, saying in interviews that he labored as a paperboy and a busboy, clearing tables, in his youthful years.
The nickname “Puffy” – which led to Puff Daddy, the primary of a number of artist names he selected for himself – apparently got here from his tendency for tantrums. “Whenever I got mad as a kid, I used to always huff and puff,” he reportedly advised Jet journal in 1998.
After leaving college, Combs enrolled to review enterprise and hone his entrepreneurial expertise at Howard College in Washington DC. However when a route into the music trade got here by an internship at New York’s Uptown Data in 1990, taken on by the label’s founder Andre Harrell, he left greater training behind after his second 12 months.
It was at Uptown he labored with artists together with Mary J Blige and Jodeci and began to create a reputation for himself. Nonetheless, tragedy struck when Combs helped to advertise a celeb charity basketball occasion that includes rapper Heavy D at New York’s Metropolis School in 1991 – a surging crowd led to a stampede that resulted within the deaths of 9 individuals and accidents of 29 others.
Whereas no legal prices have been filed, a state decide discovered the faculty, together with Combs and Heavy D, equally responsible for the tragedy.
Dangerous Boy and Infamous BIG
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The Infamous BIG (Christopher Wallace) on the Billboard Music Awards in New York on 6 December 1995. Pic: AP/Mark Lennihan
In 1992, Combs signed a then unknown Christopher Wallace, aka the Infamous BIG or Biggie Smalls, to Uptown. The next 12 months, Combs was fired from the label over variations with Harrell – however rapidly determined to start out over, and took his rap protege with him.
Dangerous Boy Data was based in 1993 and Juicy, the primary Infamous BIG single, was launched in 1994. The story of a fantasy of a greater life changing into actuality – “It was all a dream”, because the well-known intro goes – it’s constantly voted among the many biggest hip-hop tracks of all time.
Combs was reportedly instrumental within the choice to make it lead single. “I wanted to release music that let people know he was more than just a gangster rapper,” he mentioned in a single interview.
The debut album, Prepared To Die, got here shortly afterwards and the Infamous BIG rapidly grew to become an enormous title. A simmering rivalry between the East Coast’s Dangerous Boy and the West Coast’s Demise Row Data heightened, and Combs’ flashy persona and obvious starvation for fame himself didn’t go unnoticed by his opponents.
Dangerous Boy went on to signal artists together with Religion Evans (Wallace’s spouse) and Mase, and in January 1997, Combs – as Puff Daddy – launched his personal debut single, Cannot No person Maintain Me Down, that includes Mase.
Simply two months later, within the early hours of 9 March 1997, Wallace was killed in a drive-by taking pictures in Los Angeles, on the age of 24. The homicide, which stays unsolved, got here six months after the deadly taking pictures of West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas.
Wallace’s second album, the prophetically titled Life After Demise, was launched just some weeks later. Combs channelled his grief into music, sampling The Police’s Each Breath You Absorb I am going to Be Lacking You, that includes Evans and 112, which grew to become one of many biggest-selling singles of the 12 months in each the UK and the US. His debut album, No Method Out, was successful after its launch just a few months later.
Excessive-profile relationships – and brushes with the legislation
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Combs along with his then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez on the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 1999. Pic: Reuters
In his private life, Combs grew to become a father to his first son Justin, with designer Misa Hylton, in 1993, and was in an on-off relationship with mannequin and actress Kim Porter for a number of years. They’d a son, Christian, in 1998, and he additionally adopted her older son, Quincy.
By the late Nineteen Nineties, he was an enormous star in his personal proper due to hits together with Come With Me, sampling Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, and collaborations and manufacturing work for artists together with Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes and LL Cool J.
He additionally launched his personal style line, Sean John, in addition to his annual White Events – as soon as the most well liked ticket on the town, with celebrities together with Carey, Paris Hilton, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher pictured attending through the years.
Combs mentioned he needed to affiliate hip-hop with aspirational wealth and excessive society. “I wanted to strip away everyone’s image and put us all in the same colour, and on the same level,” he advised Oprah Winfrey in a single interview.
His highest profile relationship started in 1999, when the rapper began courting Jennifer Lopez. He was among the many producers who labored on her debut album, On The 6, launched that 12 months.
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Combs, proper, on stage with Nelly in the course of the Tremendous Bowl halftime present in 2004. Pic: AP/Amy Sancetta
However there have been additionally authorized troubles, too. In April 1999, he was accused of assaulting rival report government Steve Stoute, however the cost was lowered to harassment.
Later that 12 months, he was accused of legal possession of a weapon after a taking pictures at a New York nightclub he had been at with Lopez. Witnesses advised police they noticed Combs with a firearm on the membership and that rapper Shyne, actual title Moses Barrow, fired into the group.
Combs was later acquitted of weapons and bribery prices, whereas Shyne was discovered responsible of the membership taking pictures and went on to serve greater than eight years in jail. Lopez was not charged with any offence.
In 2001, Combs and Lopez broke up – and Combs additionally modified his stage title from Puff Daddy to P Diddy that 12 months. By this time, he was starring in movies, together with Monster’s Ball, for which Halle Berry gained her Oscar in 2002. He additionally grew to become a producer and expertise scout on the US actuality present Making The Band, placing collectively musical acts Da Band and Danity Kane.
Underneath the P Diddy title, he reached new heights of success. In 2004, he went from performing within the Tremendous Bowl halftime present – the 12 months that grew to become overshadowed by Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” incident – to heading the Vote or Die! marketing campaign for the US presidential election.
Relationship with Cassie – and Model Diddy
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Combs and Cassie in 2017, shortly earlier than their break-up. Pic: zz/XPX/STAR MAX/IPx 2017/AP
In 2005, there was one other title change – a easy shortening to Diddy. It was additionally this 12 months that Combs met R’n’B singer Casandra Ventura, often called Cassie, when she was 19 and he was 37, and signed her to his label.
The next 12 months, he grew to become a father of daughters, having twins with Porter in addition to one other child woman, with businesswoman Sarah Chapman, earlier that 12 months.
His relationship with Cassie reportedly began in 2007 and the couple have been collectively on and off till their break-up was confirmed in 2018.
Throughout this era, Combs was persevering with to construct his empire, signing a deal to turn into the face of Ciroc vodka in 2007. It was this partnership, which resulted in 2023, that at one level led to the majority of his internet price. The next 12 months, he acquired a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame.
In 2013, he co-founded the tv community Revolt; one other partnership that drew to an finish in 2023.
Regardless of leaving Howard earlier than he graduated, Combs acquired an honorary doctorate from the college in 2014. “You cannot achieve success without failure,” he advised college students within the viewers. “Some of my biggest successes come from some of my biggest failures.”
Only a 12 months later, he was dealing with authorized troubles, arrested on prices of assault with a weapon for an incident involving a kettlebell on the College of California, the place his son Justin was on the soccer staff. The costs have been later dropped.
In 2017, Diddy grew to become Brother Love. “I’m just not who I am before, I’m something different,” he mentioned. “So my new name is Love aka Brother Love.”
In 2022, he introduced on social media the delivery of a daughter, named Love, whose mom is cybersecurity skilled and mannequin Dana Tran.
Musical comeback – and Cassie allegations
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Mayor Eric Adams, left, presenting the Key to New York Metropolis to Combs in Instances Sq. in September 2023. Pic: Workplace of the New York Mayor/Caroline Rubinstein-Willis through AP
Whereas Combs continued to provide and collaborate with different artists, after the discharge of his fourth album, Press Play, in 2006, there was a 17-year hole earlier than his return to the album charts. The Love Album: Off The Grid was launched in September 2023, simply days after a efficiency on the MTV Music Video Awards – at which he acquired the worldwide icon award.
Two months later, Cassie filed a lawsuit in opposition to Combs. In court docket paperwork, she alleged she was trafficked, raped, drugged and overwhelmed by the rapper on many events over the course of 10 years.
The lawsuit was settled the next day. Phrases of the settlement weren’t made public however there was no admission of wrongdoing from Combs, and he issued a press release saying he “vehemently” denied the “offensive and outrageous” allegations.
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sits along with his authorized staff as US District Decide Arun Subramanian interviews potential jurors firstly of his intercourse trafficking trial in New York Metropolis. Pic: REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
In Might 2024, footage exhibiting Combs attacking Cassie in a resort hallway in 2016 was printed by CNN. By this level, federal brokers have been investigating Combs, and the next month, he was requested handy again his key to New York Metropolis.
Then got here his high-profile arrest at a resort in Manhattan.
Now, he faces legal prices of intercourse trafficking and racketeering, which he has pleaded not responsible to and strenuously denied, in addition to additional lawsuits which mounted within the wake of his arrest.
Jury choice for his trial is now underneath means – with opening statements set to start subsequent week.
