With the recent trial of Sean (Puff, Diddy, Love) Combs, the conversation in the community is either disgust, vindicating, or clout. As details of sex acts and comments from Bad Boy employees or extra activity NCPs discuss their roles in the criminal charges that brought Diddy to jail. All coming down to Cassie Ventura and the video played in the hotel.
The Fault Error
Compared to most current/popular music “moguls” Diddy was an on looker for many years before the lucrative culture of hip-hop. By the 1990s he took his college and corporate experience to legitimately learn the business. After the death of Christopher “Biggie” Wallace, he saw the writing on the wall, the quality of superstar in rap was becoming more dog and pony but the culture of hip hop was growing into a lucrative industry with the need of marketing and planning. Hiring suburban Blacks or street unprofessionals that both lacked the understanding of a PowerPoint, that’s when he said fxck it, let me do it all.
The Shinny Suit man era wasn’t really the fault error, despite hip hopculture purists, Shinny suit man was evolution of 30+ years of hip hop at the time and if it planned on being a lasting staple, there needed to be Kenny Gs amongst Coltrane’s. The fault error was the staffing around the culture itself. Once people were getting hired for vibes and wave riding most labels such as Bad Boy started to fall off.
What most don’t understand many people in the industry around the 2000s were not trained in anything. Their resume was being someone’s girlfriend/boyfriend, weed handler, bodyguard, or cousin. The industry became overrun with fans that wanted the glitz of the industry but lacked any real talent or skillset. And when working wasn’t feeding their ego, they wanted to be the artist themselves to distance from the new generation of unqualified clout chasers that too aspired to be peers.
By the time Cassie came along, she really didn’t put in the work we saw on Making the Band seasons. There were barely any promos of her practicing or training to be the next big thing. Her training seemed to present as perpetually getting ready. The fans now with behind the scene access to the industry, started to feel “who are they? We should be entitled too.” The easy access to fame was cheapened and talent seen as an accessory. What does that mean? All of the strategy Diddy learned had no audience to understand what he actually brought to the table. That’s why Dirty Money failed. The Black audience wasn’t prepped to understand the significance of Dream Pop (yet) and most were still learning about non Top 40 Hip Hop. And then there was Cassie, the last shot at big mainstream, the gamble that led him to blow up his golden goose (Danity Kane) for her.
Let’s face Cassie was supposed to be his Britney Spears his pop thropple threat sensation but she was lazy. And I can’t help feel the abuse and control over Cassie was based on animosity of listening to her say “I got this, drop this act, sabotage those or that” and then not even come through. If you’ve seen Godfather 1 and why the horse head happened you get it. Capricorn Clarke who was responsible for Cassie leveling up, her qualifications was knowing someone famous and then supplemented her PR by fishing for ideas on Tumblr, lastly staging a pseudo relationship with Kid Cudi to recreate the illusion of relationship woes as her marketing plan all to uphold a multi million dollar company. Even the girl who worked on the Revolt Film project also had no prior experience and once all of these Office 365 skills lacked, sexual relationships became the resume filler.
It also feels like the money from these projects, once they flopped, all of these women with issues with Diddy started. It’s clear the hedonistic life was something used as a backup plan, because the opportunity to walk away was there, especially once they realized they were in over their head or Diddy was an unrealistic boss. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the freak offs started as a ploy, or some form of monetized artist development that went too far. Understand this, walking to get cheesecake was artist development by Diddy standards when you put that in perspective of teaching the art of hustle.
When I look at the industry now, it’s overrun with clout zombies, stealing ideas off the corners of the Internet the unlearned avoid and present as new and original. Your average industry person now is some out of touch, high school minded grad or prior social worker who’s the baby momma of someone or some guy using a name dropper as a resume filler. The fact is Diddy was still learning under Andre Harrell and everyone was just excited to present like they’re apart of something. But the image started to outweigh the requirements. He essentially was one of the last old school generation contributors that legitimately learned industry.
Diddy had slim pickings for what was culturally relevant and qualified. Bad Boy staff became people who essentially failed his business. And the only thing left before Caresha speaks, was promotional parties that turned into sex parties that turned into what he’s now on the hook for with the court of law. And maybe that’s why Caresha was rewarded because she care through in Diddy’s eyes. I didn’t see a empty abuser, I saw a man who tried to bully and drill sergeant greatness into people who shouldn’t have been in that space to even fake it. People who in their world had always used sex, looks, infringement, or blackmail as their only way to get their foot into the door, with Diddy’s manic behavior seeing everything coming to an end.
After this Diddy has to ask himself, if he should become a content creator, marry Caresha for image and stop hiring industry help as VPs.