When music producer Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs had his Miami and Los Angeles homes raided on Monday, I already had an idea of what the investigation was about, ahead of Homeland Security announcing it was sex trafficking related.
My X, formerly Twitter, algorithm has been a lot of #blacktwitter (it’s, a thing, just trust me on that) ever since I spent a few days last month interacting with a thread about the worst rap bars of all time. Which, by the way, is absolutely hilarious subject matter. So, when Rodney Jones, a music producer known as Lil Rod, filed a bombshell lawsuit in February, Black Twitter reliably informed me all about it.
I brushed over the details of Jones’ $30 million lawsuit in my initial Diddy-got-raided report, which is one of four civil actions I mentioned that included sexual misconduct allegations. I say “brushed over” because I purposely omitted allegations of homosexual relations, not wanting to exploit a shock factor. But, for the record, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. was added to the suit on Tuesday and is being alleged by Jones to have committed sexual assault upon him.
But, let’s focus on Diddy. I wrote,
Last month, the ‘Bad Boy for Life’ singer, was hit with a lawsuit by music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones alleging Combs and his sons were involved in a 2022 shooting in a Los Angeles recording studio, along with claims of sexual harassment, drugging, and threats during their time working together from 2022 to 2023. The suit also alleges Combs’ involvement in a “RICO enterprise” and a “sex trafficking venture,” including multiple sexual assault allegations.
To be honest, having that kind of information being divulged to me (and who read the lawsuit) made Diddy being raided rather… unshocking. But, in the wake of the law enforcement operation on Diddy’s homes, I began to see mixed reactions on social media.
Hmm… maybe they missed that funny rap lyrics thread and are only getting regular Twitter? Is Candace Owens that out of touch with the black community?
Owens wrote,
The Feds are currently raiding Diddy’s house. They already knew what he was up to but he is going to be the fall guy so that they can protect the people at the top of the ring. They are raiding his home to hide evidence not to find it. That’s how this works.
In fairness, Owens wasn’t the only one posting opinions and even defenses of Diddy on social media. And, some people agreed with her, spouting theories of “what was really going on.”
Fine. I warned people not to run to the defense of predators, citing how 41 people wrote letters to a judge praising Brian Peck, a Nickelodeon employee who was convicted of multiple brutal sexual assaults of actor Drake Bell when he was a minor. You don’t want to be like those 41 people, saying, “He never did anything like that to me, or my friends.”
Now, they are apologizing for defending Peck, a pedophile and abuser.
Everyone hadn’t heard about all the lawsuits and prior allegations of Diddy. Or hear the funny way rap artist and entrepreneur 50 Cent tells curious stories about him in interviews, The Breakfast Club, or Drink Champs.
Or what comedian Katt Williams said in a massively popular episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast with former football player Shannon Sharpe.
I guess those who are expressing shock missed a lot of the aforementioned, publicly available information and allegations.
This brings me to a broader point: even before the recent lawsuits, rumors, raids, and other indicators that something may be wrong in Diddy-land: He never had a good reputation to begin with.
In 1993, the beginning of then-Puff Daddy’s (Combs) career, he founded Bad Boy Records. Shortly thereafter, in 1994 a 23-year-old rapper Tupac Shakur was shot five times during a robbery at Quad Studios in Times Square, where Puff Daddy was that night.
Combs can be seen in this footage taken from the crime scene on November 30, 1994.
A lot of people believe that Combs may have been responsible for the shooting, mostly because Tupac says as much in an April 1995 interview that he gave from the infamous Rikers Island prison. Tupac suggests Combs and rapper Christopher Wallace, known as the Notorious B.I.G., who were at the studio, were aware it was a setup.
In the interview, Shakur notes circumstances and behaviors he found to be suspicious such as their treatment of him and the fact he was wearing less jewelry than many other individuals at the location, yet was the target of a robbery, leaving him with 5 bullet wounds, including one to his head. Shakur said,
Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy [Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean “Puffy” Combs] was there, Biggie… there was about 40 n****s there. All of them had jewels on. More jewels than me. I saw Booker, and he had this look on his face like he was surprised to see me. Why? I had just beeped the buzzer and said I was coming upstairs.
Shakur recalls the aftermath,
I called my girlfriend and I was, like, ‘Yo, I just got shot. Call my mother and tell her.’ Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me. Andre Harrell wouldn’t look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job. Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out.
In a 1996 diss track, ‘Hit Em Up’, Shakur took aim at Bad Boy Records, and included lyrics that further suggest he blamed Combs for the shooting. The 1994 shooting would start an East-Coast v West-Coast gangster rap war. Sadly, Shakur would be murdered just two years later in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada as he was leaving a boxing match at the MGM Grand, cutting his life short at the age of 25.
While a recent arrest was made in the homicide case, there has been a litany of theories surrounding who is ultimately responsible for Shakur’s murder, and some people believe it was unfinished business regarding the prior attempt on Shakur’s young life.
And, that wasn’t the last time Combs would be alleged to be involved in a shooting, far from it, actually. In 2001, Combs was acquitted on five gun and bribery charges stemming from a shootout inside a packed Manhattan nightclub that left three people injured in 1999. It was famed criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran who secured his ‘not guilty’ verdicts.
Instead, musician Jamal “Shyne” Barrow was convicted and sentenced to 10 years for the incident.
Natalia Reuben, a victim who was shot in the face and paid $1.8 million in damages by Combs, is adamant that he is the one who shot her, not “Shyne,” and accused him of paying off witnesses, saying,
I literally told everyone and never changed what I said. I watched him, I got [shot] in the face, I watched him fire the gun. I’ve said it all this time. Even the surgeon who did my surgery testified in the criminal trial that while they were putting me under [anesthesia]. I was screaming, ‘Puffy [shot] me in the face.’… Everybody knew he did it, but he paid off the club bouncer and all these other people to hide the video. That’s his MO.
Combs former bodyguard Gene Deal also alleged that he was responsible for getting Barrow convicted (and later deported to Belize), by orchestrating and curating witnesses before sending them to the district attorney to make statements.
Deal said,
Listen to me, y’all heard it from me, but Shyne said it himself in his interview. ‘You supposed to be my brother and you got people testifying against me.’
Those people were testifying. They were brought to Puff first, saying what they saw against Shyne, what they saw Shyne do. The D.A. didn’t even know those people existed. Shyne said it himself.
In an interview, Barrow suggested that Johnnie Cochran and the “Dream Team’s” position on the matter was that Combs’ net worth too high for the consequences to happen to him, saying,
’Cause Puff is a corporation, he’s a half-a-billion dollar corporation. So, nobody is gonna sacrifice the corporation for anyone else.
Basically, Combs’ walked away a free man from the shooting incident, and many people believe that Shyne took all the blame for the shooting, including one of the victims.
And, that brings us to the fourth and final shooting recap, as outlined in Jones’ lawsuit filed last month which takes place at another recording studio in Los Angeles, per his account.
In this 2002 incident, Jones alleges that after a heated argument, either Combs or his son Justin shot a victim identified as “G” in the bathroom of the Chalice Recording Studio in LA. Jones claims to have heard the gunshots coming from the bathroom and feared a stray bullet traveling through the door. Jones provided aid to G and carried him to an ambulance outside the studio.
The complaint accuses Combs of instructing Lil Rod to lie to the police about the shooting’s location and details. However, the LAPD’s official account differs from Jones’ recollection, and Combs’ attorney states that the shooting did not happen at the studio. Jones describes Faheem Muhammad as fixer and Comb’s head of security. Jones claims Muhammad served as an intermediary between the LAPD and Combs after the Chalice shooting. Jones’ lawsuit claims Muhammad “had the power to make people and problems disappear.”
By the way, Combs’ lawyers have denied any wrongdoing, of course, and also condemned the military-style raid on his homes as “excessive use of force.”
Personally, I expect more wild allegations and even charges to come out against Combs, which is why I caution against making public statements in support of someone with a very spotty past. In conclusion, aside the most recent Homeland Security investigations into Combs regarding alleged sex-trafficking and the multiple civil cases alleging other sexual abuses, Combs simply never had a good reputation: Just ask Pac.
