|
 Perhaps
the first hugely successful music industry executive to successfully
jump midstream into an even more hugely successful career as an artist,
Sean "Puffy" Combs, a.k.a. Puff Daddy, rose in 1997 to become the rap
world's preeminent MC with the same precision and skill he brought to
his Bad Boy Entertainment behind the scenes. Though shadowed by
criticism that he built a musical house of cards supported only by
well-chosen samples, Puff Daddy turned the tragedy of friend and
colleague the Notorious B.I.G.'s death into a chart-topping single that
captivated a nation.
Born in Harlem in 1971, Combs grew up not on those mean streets but in
the New York suburb of Mt. Vernon while attending a Catholic, boys-only
high school in the Bronx. While majoring in business administration at
Howard University, he put his salesmanship to work, holding hip-hop
dance parties every week and running a shuttle bus service for fellow
students traveling back and forth from the airport for visits home
(which means that if he hadn't kept pursuing the hip-hop angle, Puff
Daddy might today known as the king of airport shuttling, Sean "Huffy"
Combs).
P Diddy Links
Puff
dropped out of college when he turned his internship at Uptown Records
into a job as talent director, helping guide the careers of Mary J.
Blige and Jodeci. With his own Bad Boy Entertainment, Combs swiftly
became one of the industry's hottest producers, turning out hits for
such artists as Mariah Carey,New Edition, Method Man, Babyface, TLC,
Boyz II Men, SWV,Aretha Franklin, and his most frequent collaborator,
Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls).
The murder of Smalls in early 1997 inspired Puffy's debut single as a
lead rapper (he had made guest appearances on B.I.G.'s and others'
albums), "I'll Be Missing You," which featured Puffy rapping over the
basic track of the Police's "Every Breath You Take," with additional
vocals by Faith Evans and 112. The tribute to the slain Smalls topped
the Billboard singles chart for six weeks and catapulted Puffy's No Way
Out album to platinum status. Though critics carped that the cut was
little more than an overlong sample, even Puffy has gone on record as
admitting that his skills lie less in rapping than in creating an
overall sound. "I'm not an MC," he's said. "I'm a vibe-giver."
In a very short sprint, Puff Daddy has made it to the top of the hip-hop
heap, but only time will tell if he can achieve staying power in a genre
whose throne has never been held for very long by any producer or artist
(Dr. Dre, are you still out there?). But for now, there is no more
popular a hip-hop star than Sean "Puffy" Combs. |
