Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is repaying the artists that helped make him into the mogul he is today.
Combs is reassigning publishing rights to singers and rappers that were signed to his Bad Boy label he launched in 1993. The process was about a year and a half in the making, as reported by Billboard. The outlet also said Combs didn’t move forward with acquisition offers for the entire Bad Boy catalogue because of the reassignment deal he’d made with the artists, to which most of the roster had already agreed to the terms on.
According to Billboard, Faith Evans, Mase and the estate of Biggie Smalls are among some of the parties taking part in the deal.
This follows an explosive claim in 2020 made by Mase, in which he says he made Combs a $2 million offer to regain ownership of publishing rights. The offer was not accepted.
“Your past business practices knowingly has continued purposely starved your artist and been extremely unfair to the very same artist that helped u obtain that Icon Award on the iconic Badboy label,” he wrote in an Instagram post he later deleted.
He added: “For example, u still got my publishing from 24 years ago in which u gave me $20k. Which makes me never want to work w/ u as any artist wouldn’t… This is not Black excellence at all.”
This is the latest headline-making move Combs has made recently.
As previously reported by ESSENCE, he set the record straight on the racial discrimination lawsuit between him and spirits seller Diageo during Earn Your Leisure’s Invest Fest convention in August.
The hip hop mogul spoke with EYL hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Billings about the ongoing issue with the spirits maker he once had a 15-year-long partnership with. The rift first became public earlier this summer, when Diddy filed a racial discrimination against Diageo, stating it treated the joint venture DeLeón Tequila unfairly.
“The situation is in the courts now, so I’m going to share with you all what I can,” he said to the crowd of about 20,000 attendees.
He later added: “No one is coming to save us,” Combs said during Invest Fest. “Out of all the business revenue in America, only 1% goes to black businesses. But then it’s an accountability from us because we have $1.8 trillion in buying power, and only 2% of that recirculates. So, we can’t complain. We know what it is. It’s time to change the call. We have to unify our dollars or nothing will change.”
