Diddy does it again! After recently making generous donations to HBCUs and the Earn Your Leisure podcast, Diddy aka Love is back to show more love on top of the love he has already shown.
According to a report from Variety, Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs has “decided to reassign his Bad Boy publishing rights back to all Bad Boy artists and writers who helped build Bad Boy into the powerhouse it is today,” a source close to the situation confirmed to Variety on Monday.
The artists receiving this show of gratitude include the Notorious B.I.G.’s estate, Faith Evans, Ma$e, the Lox, 112 and “many more” unspecified creators. Specific details were not made known, but the assets are said to be valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
The value of those assets has risen tremendously in recent years as artists or estates representing the music catalogs of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, Luther Vandross and many others have acquired nine-figure deals in selling or partially selling the rights to those catalogs.
The source notes that Diddy has received multiple multi-million dollar offers for the rights to the Bad Boy publishing catalog, but he instead has decided to reassign the rights to the songwriters. The source added that most, but not all, of the recipients have been located, contacted and signed the necessary paperwork.
Mase, a multi-platinum-selling Bad Boy artist who made many appearances on songs with Diddy, has often called out Diddy over money allegedly owed; Diddy countered that argument on the Breakfast Club last year, stating that Mase actually owed him $3 million, which Mase disputed aggressively. Mase said in 2020 that Diddy had refused his $2 million to buy back his publishing.
Recently, Mase’s longtime friend and co-host for It Is What It Is sports podcast, Cam’ron, shared the news of the publishing arrangement in an Instagram post late last week: Referencing his friend’s original rap name “Murda Mase,” Cam’ron wrote in a post about “The Lost Files,” his forthcoming mixtape, “My n—a murder had to sit this one out. He just got his publishing back from Puff. Just finished the paper work for that yesterday. Congrats @rsvpmase.”
During the 90’s it was a common practice for labels or label owners to take a percentage of an artist’s publishing as part of a record deal. Today that practice is phasing out as artists and songwriters become more aware of the value of their publishing.
“Combs sees it as part of a broader goal of promoting economic empowerment for Black artists and culture,” the source says.
Diddy has a new album, “The L.O.V.E. Album: Off the Grid,” featuring Justin Bieber, the Weeknd, Swae Lee, Mary J. Blige and others, releasing September 15th.
Maybe Diddy is going “off the grid” and is showing some love before he makes his departure into the night or off into the sunset…
Either way, I know the former Bad Boy artists and estates are celebrating this act of love.
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