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The bad boy - rapper/producer Sean 'Puffy' Combs, Puff Daddy - The Many Ways of Looking at a Black Man - Cover Story - Interview
Joan Morgan
What the difference between mogul Sean `Puffy' Combs and the average Black man? Oh, about $100 million. Though his rise to fame and fortune has been shadowed by death, Puff Daddy still reigns supreme.
Back in 1992, when money in Black entertainment was plentiful and new, and hip-hop wasn't quite innocent but was still unscarred, then-Uptown Records prez Andre Harrell used to throw these ridiculously fly house parties. In his palace in the New Jersey suburbs, the YBF (Young, Black and Fabulous--or those aspiring to be) would sip champagne, dance to Kid Capri, eat nouvelle soul food and get high on the exhilarating ability to be both "ghetto" and "fabulous" at the same time. Rush played basketball, Andre ate barbecue, and Veronica Webb swam laps in the pool. While the rest played, Uptown's VP of A&R--a skinny, well-dressed and palpably ambitious 22-year-old named Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy)--made moves. Briefcase in hand, he was busy showing off the logo for the company he dreamed he'd have one day. Said he'd call it Bad Boy.
Five summers later, Combs has a palace of his own, and his mentor, Harrell, has tumbled to earth. It is Combs, baseball-capped, bare-chested and glistening with sweat--Biggie's name tattooed above his right breast and a diamond- encrusted Jesus medallion resting protectively over his heart--who dominates newsstands across America. Rolling Stone magazine declared him "The New King of Hip-Hop."
The fact that Combs's company, Bad Boy Entertainment, has sold more than $100 million worth of music makes him a major contender. And his emergence as "Puff Daddy," CEO as rap star, cinched the title. His debut album, No Way Out, reached the top of the Billboard charts, with two hit singles, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "I'll Be Missing You," the latter becoming one of the biggest songs of the year. The ultimate coup: Combs signed a deal with Arista Records, which reportedly includes a $50 million credit line, a $6 million cash advance and a salary of $700,000 a year with the option to buy the company outright in the year 2001. By all accounts, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs is primed to be one of the youngest and most successful moguls in Black music.
His reign represents a kind of new Black power. The multimillionaire status of Russell Simmons and Andre Harrell was proof positive that the Buppie--prep-school--Ivy League college-investment-banker route was not the quickest way to the lucchini at the end of the rainbow. Hip-hop's billion-dollar success meant it was not only possible but crazy lucrative to market the culture that White folks and integrationist-minded elders once convinced us to assimilate out of.
For this gang of Black nouveau riche (which includes Rowdy Records' Dallas Austin, So-So Def's Jermaine Dupri, Vibe's Keith Clinkscales and Violator Record's Chris Lighty), success means simultaneously keeping a finger firmly on the pulse of Black street culture, while infiltrating the upper levels of lily-White corporate America. As members of the first generation to grow up with all the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and the first to see them erode, they are acutely aware that America has long recovered from her racial guilt. For them, it's less about arguing for affirmative action than hustling to make those Benjamins by any means necessary. And the brothers are doing it lovely
Combs's rise to fame, however, has been as rocky as it has been meteoric. For the 27-year-old wunderkind, the old adage rings painfully true--it's an uneasy head that wears the crown. "One of the saddest things about me is that people really don't know me," says Combs. "And they won't know me until I'm gone."
Against the backdrop of his Long Island, New York, oceanside home, surrounded by his Bad Boy family and other members of the new Black entertainment elite--LL Cool J, Missy, Veronica Webb and John Singleton, to name a few--an MTV-style beach jam is in full swing, and Combs seems at ease, fully in charge of getting his thing on. It I s easy, then, to see why people forget he is in mourning for the Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy's undisputed star and his ally and best friend. Later, however, when the cameras are gone and Puff Daddy has left the spotlight, Combs downshifts into that disarmingly soft "Sean voice," and his pain is palpable. He searches for words to describe his loss.
"Biggie was somebody who came into my life right on time," says Combs. "When I met him, I had this dream of a company, and all he wanted to do was be a rapper. I thanked God, not because he sent me a dope rapper, but because he sent me somebody who cared for me. I needed that.
"I miss him, but his presence is so strong. I still talk to him--like I'm crazy. I used to do s-- like touch his big face--and now I feel his face in my hands all the time. I still pray I'm in a coma, that I'm having this long dream. I pray that I'm going to wake up."
This isn't Combs's first brush with the Dark Angel. During his ascendancy he has made repeated trips to the abyss and always managed to struggle back. While a freshman at Howard (where he was already starting to gain renown as a party promoter), Combs hustled his way to an internship at Uptown Records. At 21, he got Harrell to hire him as vice-President of A&R. With a wizardlike touch, Combs pooled his talents as A&R man, producer, stylist and video director to give birth to hip-hop soul-sending the careers of megaplatinum sellers such as Jodeci and Mary J. Blige soaring. He soon found himself producing everyone from TLC to Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey. When he wasn't creating music that rocked urban behinds, he was hosting parties that did. His hip-hop party, Daddy's House, was known as the flava on both coasts. The general rule in hip-hop then: "If Puff Daddy throws it, they'll come." For a while, be seemed indomitable.
The first of several calamities hit in 1991. As promoter of a highly publicized celebrity basketball tournament staged at the City College of New York, Combs was accused of overselling tickets and inadequately controlling the crowd after the event resulted in a stampede that claimed nine lives. Although he was eventually cleared of criminal negligence, there are still folks who will not absolve him of guilt, claiming Combs's insatiable greed and ego were to blame. Then in 1993, at the seeming height of his career, Harrell fired him from Uptown. (There is much speculation about the whys of all this--chalk it up to that old African saying "Two rams can't drink from the same watering hole.") Arista Records, however, offered him a $15 million distribution deal, and Bad Boy Entertainment was born. And then in March of this year, Biggie was murdered.
To add to the documented troubles are the ever-persistent rumors. They range from the mundane--"He's power-hungry, plays dirty, can't be trusted, would sell his own mama if it meant winning"--to the trifling--"Girl, did you hear Wendy Williams [New York City's Hot 97 radio personality and relentless gossip] said Puffy's gay?"
And the sinister: In a jail-cell interview, Tupac Shakur accused both Combs and Biggie of being responsible for the highly publicized attempt on his life. Adding fuel to an already incendiary situation, Death Row's Suge Knight--self-appointed Bad Boy nemesis--accused Combs of commandeering the murder of one of his boys. And when Tupac, was murdered last year, both the media and detractors implied once again that Combs could possibly have blood on his hands. The most sinister of all, however, are the rumors swearing Combs was responsible for Biggie's murder--with the supposed motive of jealousy--because he allowed Biggie to be in a clearly Biggie-hostile environment without enough protection from bodyguards. There are even those who laughingly claim his days are numbered, in the same matter-of-fact tone one reserves for the weather. Others callously await his demise. For every fan who admires Combs's phoenixlike ability to come back better, harder and stronger, there is a detractor who despises his seemingly unnatural resiliency.
And Combs is by no means immune to the criticism; he takes it hard. Responding to the heat, he seems downright depressed. He sounds more like the hurt little middle-class "good boy" raised by his mother in Mount Vernon, New York, than the bad-boy, sunglasses-wearing, media-savvy rapper. "It hurts to do three and four years of busting your ass and have all your fame be about Biggie and Tupac's death. But that's a reality for me.
"I know what they say about me, that I'm just this guy who doesn't think about what he's doing, doesn't give a f--, is only on a mission. I can't take that people think that about me. What gets me through is that God knows the truth."
It's a Sunday afternoon in Astoria, Queens, and Puffy is not happy. The correct clothes weren't at the video shoot, and he's being asked too many questions. He needs his staff to take more initiative so he can free up some space in a head that's crowded with the monumental responsibilities of being both a CEO and pop star.
But being in charge also means coming down hard on some folks, a role Combs is not comfortable with: He likes being Mr. Nice Guy. On this day, his manager, Benny Medina (who also works with box-office honey Will Smith and with Babyface) is doing the dirty work. His job is to make sure that Combs does not allow Puff Daddy, the very lucrative, chart-macking artist, to get lost in the shuffle. Medina's priority is efficiency, and he doesn't mince words about Combs's dream to have a company full of young, hungry kids learning the ropes--as he once was. "I know seasoned experts," says Medina, "who know exactly what to do with this level of celebrity."
Although it's clear Combs agrees (Medina was hired for his knowledge of the celebrity game), his body language is a clear indication that he's not having fun. He's slouched and petulant and whining a little. "This is all too stressful for me. I don't want to be an artist no more," he says. Anyone in earshot smirks at the BS inherent in this comment. Puffy has always wanted to be a star.
Truth be told, he owes much of his success to his penchant for self-promotion. Working both the media and pop culture's obsession with celebrity, Combs emblazoned himself into our consciousness. If he produced a record, then he spoke on it. If the artists were doing a video, best believe he'd have a cameo. As a result, Puffy emerged as not only a hot producer and A&R man, but he was also a personality. Introducing the masses and hip-hop to some of the finer things in life--Cristal champagne, designer suits and a jetskiing, golfplaying, action-adventure lifestyle--Puffy is a Black Blake Carrington for a generation weaned on eighties excess and Dynasty. And they can't get enough of him.
He is a poster boy for the few, the proud, the elite--pure Black royalty. But while kings may be admired and envied, they are rarely universally loved. And stars become stars because that's what they need most of all--very public, large displays of unconditional love. It's the times this love is present that Combs seems most at ease. Like when he's talking about the marvel of his 3-year-old son, Justin, or his mother and grandmother or reminiscing about Biggie, or when he introduces Kim, the lady in his life, with a smile that stretches from ear to ear. Whether he's performing on Letterman or for a few hundred Black and Latino kids at Daddy's House Boys and Girls Club (part of his nonprofit corporation for urban youths that's run by Sista Souljah), Combs is notably gracious with his fans. He acknowledges every squealing hello or request for a hug, picture or autograph with genuine warmth and sincerity. Still these moments are not enough to completely ameliorate the pain and loneliness he confesses permeate his life.
"You know, it ain't really fly to be successful in young Black America," he says. "You're hated. It's like you walk in the spot, and you got the cake, and niggas is feeling like `I'm working and this nigga just wake up in the morning and shoot a video.'
"There are times when the loneliness just gets to you. I just break down and start crying--just to get it out of my system. It hurts for people to think you have so much, and I do have a whole lot, but I wish I could have this much and be treated regular."
But Puff--Sean "Puffy" Combs--isn't regular. He may get paid because he has an incisive understanding of what regular heads want--the music they need, the fantasies they thrive on--but he is not one of them. Regular twentysomethings will never know his level of drive or focus or what it means to run a hugely successful multimilion-dollar business. They cannot employ their own people or open trust funds and restaurants in their sons' names. They'll never know what it means to be onstage or walk down the street and invoke love from absolute strangers. And while regular people are likely to experience the depths of his pain, most do not possess his capacity for survival.
Instead of sharing the thought, I ask hip-hop's reigning king about an old African perspective that says each of us examines the possibilities of a number of lives and then we choose the one we want: "Is this the life you would have chosen, Puff?"
"Yes," he answers a bit too quickly. "But without the tragedies. I mean the pain that I've seen, it just ain't worth..."
I don't think that would have been a choice. And then, slowly, it seems to dawn on him what the other choice may have been. A pain-free lifetime of regular. "That's ill. You mean I chose this?" he says incredulously. Then he kinda half-smiles.
Maybe he realizes that it wasn't a bad choice. Maybe it was just a brave one.
COPYRIGHT 1997 Essence Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
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