Sean Combs Research Paper
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs
NAME
DATE
CLASS
PROFESSOR’S NAME
[pic]
Sean “P Diddy” Combs
Sean Combs also known as Puff Daddy is one of the most influential music composers/ producers in hip hop today. He has overcome poverty after growing up on the hard streets of Harlem New York to become one of the biggest names of today’s celebrities. Of course he didn’t attain this goal without a lot of hard work in producing number 1 hits with artists such as Mary J. Blige and the Notorious BIG. Diddy has come a long way in his life and now is very successful in the music, television, and fashion industries. He is the true epitome of an entrepreneur, and as he would say, “ Don’t chase the money, chase the dream” (Puff). P Diddy is responsible for more classic hip hop records than most artists, mc’s, or producers to date (Ronin). Sean Combs was born in Harlem New York on November 1, 1970. His mother Janice Combs worked as a model and his father Melvin Combs worked for a huge drug kingpin by the name of Frank Lucas whose life is portrayed in the 2008 film “American Gangster” (Gelfand). When Sean was three years old his father was murdered while sitting in his car at a Manhattan park (Torres). Given his fathers high profile with Frank Lucas, the …show more content…
murder was surely committed over drugs or money. After his fathers murder, his mother decided to remain in Harlem because she wanted her kids to experience the diversity of city life (Sean “Diddy”). After his years in Harlem, his family decided to move to Mount Vernon New York where Combs would attend private school (Sean “Diddy”). This is the school where Sean was given the name Puffy by one of his football teammates (Puff). He said that Sean would always like to puff his chest out to make him look larger than he was; it was a means of intimidation directed at the opposing teams (Ronin). Sean’s entrepreneurial qualities started coming out at a young age when he decides to work two paper routes (Sean “Diddy”). Along with the income of his paper routes, he would also promote music at house parties and concerts to help with the financial costs of attending Howard University in Washington DC (Ronin). While studying at Howard University, he discovers his love for marketing and party promotion (Torres). Shortly thereafter, at the young age of nineteen, he accepts an internship at uptown records where his fruitful career will begin under the supervision of a man named Andre Harrel. Combs has never married but is the biological father of five children (Gelfand).
His first biological son was conceived with his high school sweetheart and designer, Misa Hylton Brim (Gelfand). They named their son Justin Dior Combs who was born in December of 1993 (Gelfand). His second child, Christian Casey Combs was born in April of 1998 with his girlfriend Kim Porter (Torres). Kim porter also birthed Diddy’s twin daughters, D’lila Star Combs and Jessie James Combs in December of 2006 (Gelfand). Just recently in 2007, Sean took custody of his fifth child Chance Combs from his ex Sarah Chapman (Gelfand). Today Diddy is in good health and plans on keeping it that way for the sake of his family and
business. Ever since Saun was a child he was always actively involved in sports and very healthy (Puff). On November 3, 2003 Combs ran the New York City marathon in an effort to raise one million dollars for the Children’s Hope Foundation and New York city’s surrounding public schools (Sean “Diddy”). Health in the workplace is also very important to Diddy. He does not like his assistants or anyone who works for Bad Boy Records to smoke or drink. In his opinion, maintaining good health is vital for focus and efficiency in the work place. As far as ambition goes, Diddy is still very much and entrepreneur. He is always finding new avenues that will promote his empire to new heights. Just recently he held auditions for a band to perform live with him after the release of his new album. Also numerous TV shows, clothing lines and Fragrances help make his business more and more profitable. Diddy’s career path has been long and arduous but eventually gave way to many new business endeavors that would sky rocket him to the top of the industry. As soon as he got that internship with uptown records, his business took off. Because he was traveling to Howard University in Washing DC and back to Uptown records in New York, he decided drop out of college and focus all of his attention on his work with Andre (Sean “Diddy”). Harrel saw his devotion to the company and decided to promote him to director of A&R (Sean “Diddy”). During his time spent at Uptown he helped solidify the careers of Mary J. Blige and Jodeci by setting up shows at surrounding colleges and venues (Puff). Shortly after his success at Uptown, Andre Harrel fired Sean because he may have been too ambitious (Music). Harrel said, “ There can only be one lion in the jungle.” It seemed as if Andre was afraid that Diddy was trying to take over his company. After being fired, Diddy wanted his own business venture to take. During 1993 he worked as a remixer when he decided to create Bad Boy Records (Puff). He went into Arista records and pitched the idea to help distribute the music that his own company was producing, Arista accepted. Now that he had a means of distribution, his business skyrocketed and in the first four years of opening he pulled in two hundred million dollars (Music). Sean signed artists such as Mase, and Craig Mack but also worked with outside artists such as Aretha Franklin and Sting (Puff). Of all the artists there was one in particular who was his main focus. His name was Christopher Wallace, also known as the Notorious BIG or Biggie Smalls (Music). Diddy says, “ If you sat in the dark and listened to a Biggie track, you see a whole movie in front of you” (Torres). Biggies first album with Puff titled “Ready to Die” went double platinum making Biggie one of the greatest names in hip hop. After the release of “Ready to Die”, Big and Puff started on their second album named, “Life After Death.” Unfortunately tragedy struck before the release of the second album. Notorious BIG was murdered in March of 1996 while leaving an album release party in Los Angeles. Their Car was stopped at a red light when an unknown gunman pulled up next to them and fired seven bullets into the passenger side of the car. Biggie was hit five times in the chest; the doctors pronounced Wallace dead on arrival. Other than Mary J Blige, Biggie was his number one artist and his best friend (Sean “Diddy”). After Wallace’s demise, the “Life After Death” album went on to sell over ten million copies in the first week producing two number one singles. Deciding not to let the death of his best friend stop him from fulfilling his dreams, Diddy decided to make his own album under the name of Puff Daddy in 1997 (Music). His first single, “Cant nobody hold me down” was a huge success and spent six full weeks at number one on the billboard hot 100 (Sean “Diddy”). This track can be found on his debut album of 1998 titled “No Way Out” which was nominated for a Grammy and won for best rap album (Puff). Diddy then chose to release “Ill be missing you,” a tribute to the Notorious BIG which also made number one on the top 100 (Puff). His success as an artist was great until the late 1990’s when his music was heavily criticized for being too commercial and using too many other artists for collaboration on his tracks (Music). Even though Comb’s was under criticism as an artist, he didn’t let that stop his business ambition to grow an empire. So he took on other business ventures. In 1998 Combs started his own clothing line called “Sean John” (Puff). Sean John was nominated for the CFDA, “The council of fashion designers of America.” In 2004 he won the award for “Menswear designer of the year” (Sean “Diddy”). Along with his men’s clothing line he also released his own fragrance under the Sean John brand named “I am king,” dedicated to Barack Obama, Muhammed Ali, and Martin Luther King. The “ I am king” advertisement is currently the largest billboard in Times Square (Puff). After Comb’s took on the fashion business he moved on to the food and liquor industry. He opened two restaurants named “Justin’s” after his son. One restaurant is located in New York, and the other is located in Atlanta (Gelfand). Since the opening of his restaurants he signed a deal to help develop a new super premium vodka line under the “Ciroc” brand. His partner, named Diageo, agreed to split the profit 50-50 with comb’s for his assistance; assuring combs that he would pull in a cool one hundred million dollars for his enterprise (Puff). Since then combs has been ranked number one in the list of the top ten richest people in hip hop by Fortune Magazine (Sean “Diddy”). In 2006, his estimated worth was about three hundred and fifty million dollars (Puff). Today he is working on possibly his final album entitled, “Last Train to Paris.” He developed a band named “Dirty Money” to perform this album live after it is released in 2010. Along with the album, he has developed a television series on VH1 called “Making His Band” in which the audition and hiring processes of his musicians is documented. P Diddy’s style in music has changed since the days of the Notorious Big. Comb’s in his earlier days was known as the master of hardcore gangster rap from the work that he did with Christopher Wallace. This is the time that I personally took the most interest in. What Bob Marley was to reggae, or what the Beatles were to rock is exactly what Diddy and Big were to rap music. All the music created with biggie is very polyphonic. His use of layering sounds and vocals is incredible and very important to the mood of the song. Lets take one of my personal favorites for example, the song “Notorious Thugs.” This song is in the key of C, and it starts with a piano arpeggio and vocals that are over dubbed and harmonizing. Next he uses really soft chimes to introduce the high hat rhythm that comes in and stays steady for two measures. When you hear the chimes again, the bass beat of the drums come in for two measures and then claps are added. So now we have the piano, the harmonizing vocals, the cymbals, the bass beat, and the claps. This will continue the same for another four measures when he decides to add in the low bass strings; which almost sound like a cello or double bass. Next Notorious Big comes in for the first verse but to make his vocals more prominent and pronounced the high hat cymbals, the bass drum, the soft chimes, and the strings doing the low bass are the only sounds behind his voice. Eventually during the pre-chorus of the songs, the piano will come back in with the arpeggio. Biggies lyrics do sell, but without the composing ability of Sean Combs, this song wouldn’t be as great as it is. The next song that stands out to me is entitled, “The Sky Is the Limit.” It begins with Biggies mom speaking about her son with orchestral accompaniment behind it. As her speech is coming to an end the orchestra does a crescendo to an abrupt stop. This is when the vocals turn over to biggie whose voice is accompanied by a xylophone, cymbals, bass drum, and a guitar that has a small amount of delay on it. When the song comes to the chorus the strings are brought back in, and the xylophone continues but in a different variation of the melody that it was playing earlier in the song. As the song comes to an end he slowly starts minimizing the layers as he takes them off 1 by 1, until the song fades out. Today, Diddy’s music is completely different than everything he did with Wallace. His album that is to be released in 2010 is a mix between electronic, soul, hip- hop and rhythm and blues. Although on record, it seems as if it would be impossible to perform live because of all the electronic timbres, but he has arranged a group of musicians that are skilled enough to do this. Also unlike the music he used to produce, this music does not contain as much rap. He mostly sings along with the help of two other girls, Dawn Richards and Kalenna. Diddy says that “Last Train to Paris” is going to be a concept album. He said that he wanted it to be full of emotions, like love and loss. In his opinion most of the popular music today is shallow and lacking any kind of emotion that you can connect to when you are listening. He’s made announcements that this album may take getting used to because he believes that it is ahead of its time. Sean “P Diddy” Combs is the epitome of a “rags to riches” story. From living a life with a single mom working 3 jobs just to make ends meet, to being one of the biggest “A” list celebrities to date. Because of P Diddy’s musical genius, Notorious BIG will rest forever a legend and be considered the king of New York. Today Diddy still supports charities that benefit kids, schools, or cancer, and every year he donates an undisclosed amount of money. His music will go down in history as being some of the greatest tracks of all time.
Works Cited
Gelfand, Dale. Sean Combs. New York: Facts on File,Incorperated. 2007.
Music. 5 December 2009.
Puff Daddy Biography.1999. 5 December 2009.
Ronin, Ro. Bad Boy: The Influence of Sean “Puffy” combs on the music industry. Simon and Schuster Adult.2001.
Sean “Diddy” Combs Biography. 2008. 5 December 2009.
Torres, John. P Diddy (A Blue Banner Biography). New York: Mitchell Lane Pub Inc. 2004.
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[pic]
NAME
DATE
CLASS
PROFESSOR’S NAME
[pic]
Sean “P Diddy” Combs
Sean Combs also known as Puff Daddy is one of the most influential music composers/ producers in hip hop today. He has overcome poverty after growing up on the hard streets of Harlem New York to become one of the biggest names of today’s celebrities. Of course he didn’t attain this goal without a lot of hard work in producing number 1 hits with artists such as Mary J. Blige and the Notorious BIG. Diddy has come a long way in his life and now is very successful in the music, television, and fashion industries. He is the true epitome of an entrepreneur, and as he would say, “ Don’t chase the money, chase the dream” (Puff). P Diddy is responsible for more classic hip hop records than most artists, mc’s, or producers to date (Ronin). Sean Combs was born in Harlem New York on November 1, 1970. His mother Janice Combs worked as a model and his father Melvin Combs worked for a huge drug kingpin by the name of Frank Lucas whose life is portrayed in the 2008 film “American Gangster” (Gelfand). When Sean was three years old his father was murdered while sitting in his car at a Manhattan park (Torres). Given his fathers high profile with Frank Lucas, the …show more content…
murder was surely committed over drugs or money. After his fathers murder, his mother decided to remain in Harlem because she wanted her kids to experience the diversity of city life (Sean “Diddy”). After his years in Harlem, his family decided to move to Mount Vernon New York where Combs would attend private school (Sean “Diddy”). This is the school where Sean was given the name Puffy by one of his football teammates (Puff). He said that Sean would always like to puff his chest out to make him look larger than he was; it was a means of intimidation directed at the opposing teams (Ronin). Sean’s entrepreneurial qualities started coming out at a young age when he decides to work two paper routes (Sean “Diddy”). Along with the income of his paper routes, he would also promote music at house parties and concerts to help with the financial costs of attending Howard University in Washington DC (Ronin). While studying at Howard University, he discovers his love for marketing and party promotion (Torres). Shortly thereafter, at the young age of nineteen, he accepts an internship at uptown records where his fruitful career will begin under the supervision of a man named Andre Harrel. Combs has never married but is the biological father of five children (Gelfand).
His first biological son was conceived with his high school sweetheart and designer, Misa Hylton Brim (Gelfand). They named their son Justin Dior Combs who was born in December of 1993 (Gelfand). His second child, Christian Casey Combs was born in April of 1998 with his girlfriend Kim Porter (Torres). Kim porter also birthed Diddy’s twin daughters, D’lila Star Combs and Jessie James Combs in December of 2006 (Gelfand). Just recently in 2007, Sean took custody of his fifth child Chance Combs from his ex Sarah Chapman (Gelfand). Today Diddy is in good health and plans on keeping it that way for the sake of his family and
business. Ever since Saun was a child he was always actively involved in sports and very healthy (Puff). On November 3, 2003 Combs ran the New York City marathon in an effort to raise one million dollars for the Children’s Hope Foundation and New York city’s surrounding public schools (Sean “Diddy”). Health in the workplace is also very important to Diddy. He does not like his assistants or anyone who works for Bad Boy Records to smoke or drink. In his opinion, maintaining good health is vital for focus and efficiency in the work place. As far as ambition goes, Diddy is still very much and entrepreneur. He is always finding new avenues that will promote his empire to new heights. Just recently he held auditions for a band to perform live with him after the release of his new album. Also numerous TV shows, clothing lines and Fragrances help make his business more and more profitable. Diddy’s career path has been long and arduous but eventually gave way to many new business endeavors that would sky rocket him to the top of the industry. As soon as he got that internship with uptown records, his business took off. Because he was traveling to Howard University in Washing DC and back to Uptown records in New York, he decided drop out of college and focus all of his attention on his work with Andre (Sean “Diddy”). Harrel saw his devotion to the company and decided to promote him to director of A&R (Sean “Diddy”). During his time spent at Uptown he helped solidify the careers of Mary J. Blige and Jodeci by setting up shows at surrounding colleges and venues (Puff). Shortly after his success at Uptown, Andre Harrel fired Sean because he may have been too ambitious (Music). Harrel said, “ There can only be one lion in the jungle.” It seemed as if Andre was afraid that Diddy was trying to take over his company. After being fired, Diddy wanted his own business venture to take. During 1993 he worked as a remixer when he decided to create Bad Boy Records (Puff). He went into Arista records and pitched the idea to help distribute the music that his own company was producing, Arista accepted. Now that he had a means of distribution, his business skyrocketed and in the first four years of opening he pulled in two hundred million dollars (Music). Sean signed artists such as Mase, and Craig Mack but also worked with outside artists such as Aretha Franklin and Sting (Puff). Of all the artists there was one in particular who was his main focus. His name was Christopher Wallace, also known as the Notorious BIG or Biggie Smalls (Music). Diddy says, “ If you sat in the dark and listened to a Biggie track, you see a whole movie in front of you” (Torres). Biggies first album with Puff titled “Ready to Die” went double platinum making Biggie one of the greatest names in hip hop. After the release of “Ready to Die”, Big and Puff started on their second album named, “Life After Death.” Unfortunately tragedy struck before the release of the second album. Notorious BIG was murdered in March of 1996 while leaving an album release party in Los Angeles. Their Car was stopped at a red light when an unknown gunman pulled up next to them and fired seven bullets into the passenger side of the car. Biggie was hit five times in the chest; the doctors pronounced Wallace dead on arrival. Other than Mary J Blige, Biggie was his number one artist and his best friend (Sean “Diddy”). After Wallace’s demise, the “Life After Death” album went on to sell over ten million copies in the first week producing two number one singles. Deciding not to let the death of his best friend stop him from fulfilling his dreams, Diddy decided to make his own album under the name of Puff Daddy in 1997 (Music). His first single, “Cant nobody hold me down” was a huge success and spent six full weeks at number one on the billboard hot 100 (Sean “Diddy”). This track can be found on his debut album of 1998 titled “No Way Out” which was nominated for a Grammy and won for best rap album (Puff). Diddy then chose to release “Ill be missing you,” a tribute to the Notorious BIG which also made number one on the top 100 (Puff). His success as an artist was great until the late 1990’s when his music was heavily criticized for being too commercial and using too many other artists for collaboration on his tracks (Music). Even though Comb’s was under criticism as an artist, he didn’t let that stop his business ambition to grow an empire. So he took on other business ventures. In 1998 Combs started his own clothing line called “Sean John” (Puff). Sean John was nominated for the CFDA, “The council of fashion designers of America.” In 2004 he won the award for “Menswear designer of the year” (Sean “Diddy”). Along with his men’s clothing line he also released his own fragrance under the Sean John brand named “I am king,” dedicated to Barack Obama, Muhammed Ali, and Martin Luther King. The “ I am king” advertisement is currently the largest billboard in Times Square (Puff). After Comb’s took on the fashion business he moved on to the food and liquor industry. He opened two restaurants named “Justin’s” after his son. One restaurant is located in New York, and the other is located in Atlanta (Gelfand). Since the opening of his restaurants he signed a deal to help develop a new super premium vodka line under the “Ciroc” brand. His partner, named Diageo, agreed to split the profit 50-50 with comb’s for his assistance; assuring combs that he would pull in a cool one hundred million dollars for his enterprise (Puff). Since then combs has been ranked number one in the list of the top ten richest people in hip hop by Fortune Magazine (Sean “Diddy”). In 2006, his estimated worth was about three hundred and fifty million dollars (Puff). Today he is working on possibly his final album entitled, “Last Train to Paris.” He developed a band named “Dirty Money” to perform this album live after it is released in 2010. Along with the album, he has developed a television series on VH1 called “Making His Band” in which the audition and hiring processes of his musicians is documented. P Diddy’s style in music has changed since the days of the Notorious Big. Comb’s in his earlier days was known as the master of hardcore gangster rap from the work that he did with Christopher Wallace. This is the time that I personally took the most interest in. What Bob Marley was to reggae, or what the Beatles were to rock is exactly what Diddy and Big were to rap music. All the music created with biggie is very polyphonic. His use of layering sounds and vocals is incredible and very important to the mood of the song. Lets take one of my personal favorites for example, the song “Notorious Thugs.” This song is in the key of C, and it starts with a piano arpeggio and vocals that are over dubbed and harmonizing. Next he uses really soft chimes to introduce the high hat rhythm that comes in and stays steady for two measures. When you hear the chimes again, the bass beat of the drums come in for two measures and then claps are added. So now we have the piano, the harmonizing vocals, the cymbals, the bass beat, and the claps. This will continue the same for another four measures when he decides to add in the low bass strings; which almost sound like a cello or double bass. Next Notorious Big comes in for the first verse but to make his vocals more prominent and pronounced the high hat cymbals, the bass drum, the soft chimes, and the strings doing the low bass are the only sounds behind his voice. Eventually during the pre-chorus of the songs, the piano will come back in with the arpeggio. Biggies lyrics do sell, but without the composing ability of Sean Combs, this song wouldn’t be as great as it is. The next song that stands out to me is entitled, “The Sky Is the Limit.” It begins with Biggies mom speaking about her son with orchestral accompaniment behind it. As her speech is coming to an end the orchestra does a crescendo to an abrupt stop. This is when the vocals turn over to biggie whose voice is accompanied by a xylophone, cymbals, bass drum, and a guitar that has a small amount of delay on it. When the song comes to the chorus the strings are brought back in, and the xylophone continues but in a different variation of the melody that it was playing earlier in the song. As the song comes to an end he slowly starts minimizing the layers as he takes them off 1 by 1, until the song fades out. Today, Diddy’s music is completely different than everything he did with Wallace. His album that is to be released in 2010 is a mix between electronic, soul, hip- hop and rhythm and blues. Although on record, it seems as if it would be impossible to perform live because of all the electronic timbres, but he has arranged a group of musicians that are skilled enough to do this. Also unlike the music he used to produce, this music does not contain as much rap. He mostly sings along with the help of two other girls, Dawn Richards and Kalenna. Diddy says that “Last Train to Paris” is going to be a concept album. He said that he wanted it to be full of emotions, like love and loss. In his opinion most of the popular music today is shallow and lacking any kind of emotion that you can connect to when you are listening. He’s made announcements that this album may take getting used to because he believes that it is ahead of its time. Sean “P Diddy” Combs is the epitome of a “rags to riches” story. From living a life with a single mom working 3 jobs just to make ends meet, to being one of the biggest “A” list celebrities to date. Because of P Diddy’s musical genius, Notorious BIG will rest forever a legend and be considered the king of New York. Today Diddy still supports charities that benefit kids, schools, or cancer, and every year he donates an undisclosed amount of money. His music will go down in history as being some of the greatest tracks of all time.
Works Cited
Gelfand, Dale. Sean Combs. New York: Facts on File,Incorperated. 2007.
Music. 5 December 2009.
Puff Daddy Biography.1999. 5 December 2009.
Ronin, Ro. Bad Boy: The Influence of Sean “Puffy” combs on the music industry. Simon and Schuster Adult.2001.
Sean “Diddy” Combs Biography. 2008. 5 December 2009.
Torres, John. P Diddy (A Blue Banner Biography). New York: Mitchell Lane Pub Inc. 2004.
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