Rappers are accustomed to using pseudonyms. But Sean Combs has accumulated them like no one else. Since his early days in the 1990s, the New Yorker has gone by the names Puff Daddy, Puffy, Diddy and P. Diddy. This is a reference to the nickname "Puff" given by those close to him when he threw a tantrum as a child, coming from the expression "huff and puff." It was under these nicknames that he became one of the world's most famous rappers and producers, a blinged-out media figure with a cigar in his mouth and diamonds around his neck. But it's Sean Combs who's in the spotlight today.
In November 2023, he was accused by his ex-girlfriend, singer Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura), of multiple crimes (rape, emotional abuse, violent assault). He is now under federal investigation for potential sex trafficking, following accusations of rape by several women, all of which he has denied.
The events are said to have taken place at parties organized by him, where drugs were distributed and young women, some of them minors, were forced to have sex. In September, he was incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, one of the toughest jails in the United States, pending trial.
His appearances in the pages of Le Monde had already indicated a record of violence, even if it wasn't sexual at the time. On January 1, 1997, music journalist Stéphane Davet wrote an article titled "American rap is sick of its godfathers." At the time, a battle was raging between the East and West Coast music scenes; of the latter, singer Tupac Shakur was the hero, and his murder a few months earlier in murky circumstances had signaled the culmination of this rivalry. "Insults rain down," wrote Davet. "It's like a gang war. Some were deliberately targeted, such as Sean 'Puffy' Combs and The Notorious B.I.G., heads of the New York label Bad Boy Entertainment." The Notorious B.I.G. was in turn killed two months later.
Disreputable methods
On November 25 of the same year, Davet explained the rapper's influence within the music industry. "Today, the 'king of New York' is called Sean Combs 'Puff Daddy.' A product of the Harlem middle class, this 28-year-old rap producer reigns (...) over the new Black music empire." His methods were disreputable. "Rumor has it that you now have to pay $10,000 for Puff to agree to listen to the tapes you send him." On a strictly musical level, Le Monde didn't care much for the New Yorker. On May 30, 1998, culture journalist Samuel Blumenfeld called him "highly overrated," accusing him of turning Aretha Franklin, whom his production team had just worked with, into "a Whitney Houston repeat, in other words, an FM machine designed to churn out hits and sing nonsense."
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