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P Diddy Biography
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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).
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.
P Diddy Links
P
Diddy Official Website |
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