Sean Love Combs (born Sean John Combs, November 4, 1969), known variously as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Puffy, and Brother Love, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur.
Growing up in New York City, he got his start interning at Uptown Records, before quickly rising up the label's ranks; eventually becoming the youngest vice-president of A&R in the music business at just 19 years old. After being fired in 1993, he established his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, which would go on to feature big names like The Notorious B.I.G., Craig Mack, and Boyz II Men. In 1997, he released his debut album, No Way Out, which was in part a tribute to Biggie, who had been killed that same year. It produced the chart-topping singles "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "I'll Be Missing You", the latter of which held the Billboard Hot 100's #1 spot for eleven straight weeks, while the album itself was certified seven times platinum.
After getting into some legal problems in the late 1990s/early 2000s, he continued to release music, with successful albums like Forever, The Saga Continues..., and Press Play.
Combs has won three Grammies and two MTV music awards. Worth over $820 million, he is also the second richest hip-hop artist in the world, after Jay-Z.
Discography:
Solo Albums
- No Way Out (1997)
- Forever (1999)
- The Saga Continues... (2001)
- Press Play (2006)
- The Love Album: Off the Grid (2023)
Collaborations
- Last Train to Paris, a collaboration with Dirty Money (2010)
Mixtapes
- MMM (Money Making Mitch) (2015)
Notable film appearances:
- Made (2001) as Ruiz
- Monster's Ball (2001) as Lawrence Musgrove
- A Raisin in the Sun (2008) as Walter Lee Younger
- Get Him to the Greek (2010) as Sergio Roma
- I'm Still Here (2010) as himself
- Draft Day (2014) as Chris Crawford
- Muppets Most Wanted (2014) as himself
Contains examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Question: "Coming Home"What am I s'posed to do when the club lights come on?
It's easy to be Puff but it's harder to be Sean
What if my twins ask why I ain't marry their mom?
Damn... how do I respond?
What if my son stares with a face like my own
And says he wants to be like me when he's grown?
Shit... but I ain't finished growing! - Cool Shades: A constant trademark of his throughout the decades.
- Glam Rap: One of the biggest public faces of it, especially in the late '90's, when, after the East-West beef claimed Biggie and 2Pac's lives, Puff consciously steered his and his labelmates' output away from its more violent aspects to instead emphasize the partying, girls, and lavish lifestyles.
- I Have Many Names: As the description pointed out, Combs has been referred to by various stage names.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "I'll Be Missing You" takes a sample of the downbeat "Every Breath You Take" and yet spins everything into a sunny upbeat melody, when it's a Grief Song serving as a tribute to the late Biggie Smalls.
- Meaningful Name: His original stage name, Puff Daddy. "Puff" was his childhood nickname, after how he would huff and puff when he got mad; he added "Daddy" later on to emphasize his authority as a record producer and executive.
- Meaningful Rename: The tweak to P. Diddy came in the early 2000s to help him rebrand his image and weather a storm of bad PR, including multiple lawsuits and his involvement in a nightclub shooting.
- Mid-Vid Skit: "Bad Boy for Life" video features a short skit midway through in which neighbor Ben Stiller visits and unsuccessfully tries to intimidate him. This despite Mr Diddy's first name being "Puff".
- Puff loves these so much that he even does them in other people's videos, like when he played a newscaster in Ma$e's vid for "Welcome Back".
- Rated G for Gangsta: Started as "Puff Daddy", a pot-loving producer-turned-rapper. Now, he owns a clothing line. Sure, he was never actually badass, but still, he went from rapping about toting guns and gangsta excess, to, well, whatever he is now.
- Repetitive Name: Sean, his first name, happens to be the Irish equivalent of the Anglophone name John, his middle name.
- The Rich Have White Stuff: Often wears white in his videos, and in real life, he throws annual parties where everyone is expected to dress in all-white.
- Self-Made Man: Dropped out of college to become an intern at Uptown Records when he was just 20 years old, and from there, he worked his way up to become the mogul he is now.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Enforced, especially in his heyday. From the moment Bad Boy launched, Puffy made sure to always put himself right next to the artists he produced for, often peppering his beats with ad-libs and appearing in the music videos. This only continued once he started rapping and became his own biggest star after Biggie's death, and while it certainly helped him reach where he is now, it came at the cost of alienating many of his Bad Boy signees, who came to resent Combs for hogging the limelight and pocketing the profits, and was an active point of attack for his detractors—most notably Suge Knight in his infamous "Come to Death Row" speech at the 1995 Source Awards.
- Step Up to the Mic: Became a rapper himself at the encouragement of Biggie Smalls shortly before Smalls's murder—though, like his West Coast counterpart Dr. Dre, Diddy often relies on collaborators to write verses for him and has openly called himself a "vibe creator" rather than a full-fledged MC.
