All About Laughs
Sean “Diddy” Combs recently changed his name to Love, signifying a shift in his career. However it seems like it will take a lot more than a name change to signal real change in the mogul’s affairs. For years Combs has been criticized for the poorly managed careers of his artists, many of which have publicly called him out for bad deals and bad business. Despite him publicly positioning himself as a champion for the underdog, it seems he’s under fire yet again for stepping on someone smaller to get ahead. This time a young tech developer named Drixxon Kyser is accusing Diddy and his team of stealing his idea for a Black Business App that he’s been developing for over a year.
For years, Combs flagship label Bad Boy Records has carried the stigma of the “Bad Boy Curse”. Over the years various artists have signed to the label, with many showing signs of long-term success. Hits have poured out of Daddy’s House (the studio famously accessible to their roster) for years, holding a tight grip on the radio airwaves and the Billboard charts as well. Unfortunately several of these artists have fallen completely off the map, many claiming to have been wrong in the process by Combs be it through shady contracts, lack of promotion or just being completely ignored by the label head after making him money.
Black Rob scored a massive hit with the label in the early 00’s with “Woah!”. Unfortunately he passed this year, broke. In a resurfaced tweet he talked about how Diddy and Bad Boy turned their backs on him following his success. “Once I caught my bid – or whatever the case may be, [Bad Boy Records] was like ‘f**k you,’” the rapper shared speaking on his past jail stint. “We’re gonna use Black Rob as a springboard for this [Notorious B.I.G. project] – which flopped by the way,” he said of the posthumous “Duets” album.
One of Combs most successful protege’s was Mase. During a recent rant about the Grammys and the unfair treatment of artists, Combs caught the attention of Mase, who quickly reminded him that he too has been unfair to artists in the past and had some wrongs to right. “I heard your Grammy speech about how you are now for the artist, and about how the artist must take back control. So I will be the first to take that initiative. Also, before we ask of other ethnicities to do us right, we should do us, as Black people, better—especially the creators,” the rapper began his lengthy post.
It seems Combs now has his sights set on success in the tech space, launching an app called Shop Circulate geared at discovering black owned businesses. Amazing as the idea is, a young man named Drixxon Kyser just launched a similar app last fall with a similar name. “Have you ever had your heart ripped out of your chest? For the past year, I’ve been building, developing, and promoting my Black business discovery app, called Circulate,” Drixxon Kyser stated in a video. This past Wednesday, P. Diddy announces he’s creating a Black business discovery platform, called Shop-Circulate.”
