*Sean Combs was recently arrested in New York and charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded “not guilty” to all the charges and is currently being held without bond at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.
For those seeing this as a chickens-coming-home-to-roost moment, it’s the time to dig into the past for juice to spice up things with ironies in light of what has befallen Combs also known as “Diddy” and “Puffy,” among other nicknames.
In any event, a Cheatseat story has it that it’s when the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls (real name Christopher Wallace) signed to Diddy’s “Bad Boy Records” that the label began to rank financially.
Biggie was a successful and influential artist. As soon as Diddy signed him, he began bringing in big money for the label. But Biggie was not getting what he deserved, thanks to Diddy’s greed, reportedly. Unfortunately, Diddy simply held Biggie’s publishing rights and refused to give them up.
The devil is always in the details. Biggie indeed realized he had not read between the lines when signing the contract, and towards the end of his life, it’s reported he was planning to leave Bad Boy Records. The contract gave Diddy half his publishing rights. Even other artists under the same label felt this was outrageous.
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In his book, “Dancing With the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of HipHop,” former “Bad Boy Records” rapper Mark Curry wrote that Biggie was trapped in a deal that didn’t favor him.
“Other than Puff, no one else has prospered off the label,” wrote Curry, per Slate. “I was in the same spot as Biggie when he signed with Bad Boy. After Biggie signed the contracts that Puff forced on him, for example, he walked away with only $25,000.”
When Biggie’s lawyers began seeking more control over publishing rights, Diddy fought back relentlessly.
“I will never give it up until I’m dead and my bones are crushed into powder,” Diddy said, according to Rolling Stone.
Diddy/Puffy finally relinquished control of Biggie’s publishing rights over two decades after the latter’s death. That is last year, to be precise. But Diddy did it more for publicity than the need to honor Biggie and the rest, it seemed.
According to a source quoted by Variety, he “decided to reassign his Bad Boy publishing rights back to all Bad Boy artists and writers who helped build Bad Boy into the powerhouse it is today.”
And what does Biggie’s mother think of Diddy following the allegations against him by his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura?
“I hope that I see Sean one day and the only thing I want to do is slap the daylights out of him. And you can quote me on that,” said Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace. “Because I liked him. I didn’t want to believe all the awful things, but I’m so ashamed and embarrassed.”
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