Sean Combs
On this date in 1970, Sean "Diddy" Combs was born. He is a Black musician and Media producer.
He was raised in Mount Vernon, N.Y. His father, Melvin Combs, was murdered in 1973. His mother, Janice Combs, was a model.
As he had known, "Puffy" Combs began with an apprenticeship as an intern at Uptown Records, a (then) new record company. Puffy convinced founder Andre Harrell to take a chance on him. He was barely 20 years old and a student at Howard University, majoring in business, when he started commuting on the train to Manhattan three times a week.
Puffy constructed the careers of Uptown's Jodeci and Mary J. Blige, starting in 1991-92. In the process, he helped to create a new musical genre: hip-hop soul. In 1994, his collaboration with Blige on her second album, "My Life," produced a classic that spoke to a new generation of youth. That same year Combs created Bad Boy Entertainment and produced his first successful recordings for the new label, including the debut of his oldest friend Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace), entitled Ready To Die.
Bad Boy, a successful Black-owned and Black-operated company, was renegotiated as a 50/50 joint venture with Clive Davis and Arista Records in 1995 as Puffy introduced the debut album by Notorious B.I.G.'s wife Faith Evans.
Combs is the father of six children. His first child, Justin, was born in 1993 to his high-school sweetheart, designer Misa Hylton-Brim but the relationship ended in divorce. Later he was with Kim Porter, and they had one child, Christian Casey Combs, in 1997. One year later, Combs began dating actor-musician Jennifer Lopez; they broke up in 2001. That same year Combs went on trial for weapons charges stemming from a 1999 Manhattan nightclub shooting in which three people were injured; at trial's end, he was acquitted of all charges.
Combs changed his name from Puffy to 'Diddy,' by {Diddy celebrated Bad Boy's 10th anniversary in 2004, the business had grown into a multi-million-dollar empire. His company had encompassed a music label, the award-winning Sean John clothing line, Justin's restaurants, and a wide array of charitable ventures. Diddy is also building an acting career, appearing in movies such as "Made" and "Monster's Ball," and making his Broadway debut in "Raisin in the Sun." He was a first-time host of the MTV VMAs.
Fortune magazine listed Combs as number twelve on their top 40 entrepreneurs under 40 in 2002. Forbes Magazine estimates that for the year ending May 2017, Combs earned $130 million, ranking him number one among entertainers. In 2017 his estimated net worth was $825 million.
In November 2017, Combs announced that he would go by the name Love, stating, “My new name is Love, aka Brother Love." Two days later, he told the press he had been joking, but on January 3, 2018, he announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he had changed his mind again and would be using the new name after all.
