Bad Boy Records

Founder: Sean ‘Diddy’ Jean Combs
Distributing Label: Warner Music Group

Sean Combs built his Bad Boy empire in 1993 after a faltering relationship as A&R executive for Andre Harrell’s Uptwon Records. After dear friend, rapper Heavy D hooked him up with an internship at Uptown Records to learn the ropes of the music industry from under (CEO) Harrell’s wings at just 19 years young. Combs formerly set up organised hip-hop and basketball events within his Harlem community. Combs worked his way up the corporate ladder at Uptown to A&R executive to eventually vice-president status serving as the executive producer to Mary J. Blige and Heavy D. Combs headed some of Uptown’s most ingenious promotional campaigns stepping over traditional strategies to put together what he called a “street team.” The team would travel out to the ghetto housing projects and set up basketball tournaments with potential record buyers, or visit clubs and talk up new talent as the next big thing in music. This became so effective that similar approaches were adopted by other record companies.

Harrell fired Combs in early ‘93 due to a clash of thought. Combs was fiercely ambitious and fought every chance he could with Harrell’s decisions believing he knew better. Combs then entered the free-agent market and put his junior entrepreneurial skills to play and opened his own recording agency. Bad Boy Entertainment was quickly established as Harrell threw out Comb’s signed acts from Uptown, Christopher Wallace, better known as ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ and Craig Mack. Combs scooped them up and sheltered their talents at Bad Boy. The boutique label of Sean ‘Puff daddy’ Combs was open for business out of his apartment Bad Boy’s first project released was Craig Mack’s single, “Flava In Ya Ear,” followed up with his opus album, Project: Funk Da World released September 20th, 1994. The album spawned three singles and reached gold status by February the following year. The album dropped one week after B.I.G.’s Ready To Die which became the multi-platinum trophy-record for Comb’s Bad Boy Entertainment. Ready To Die is now considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever released. Again three singles dropped from Biggie’s début and glossing over Craig Mack, his records dominated the charts in 1995 making Biggie hip-hop’s biggest star and Bad Boy’s favourite son. the rap world soon began to revolve around Notorious BIG’s spittin.’ 

In 1995, the label continued its success with female group, Total and Faith Evans making platinum recordings for the label. Bad Boy made room and housed a whole gaggle of writer/producers, with: Easy Mo Bee, Chucky Thompson, Nashiem Myrick and D Dot all responsible for the new world sound of Bad Boy’s dominant sounds. In 1996 after signing Mase, and The Lox, Arista chief, Clive Davis was very impressed by Sean Comb’s business he offered a 50/50 partnership. Arista offered financial backing and Bad Boy recordings went through Arista and parent company, BMG as distributors. This joint venture enabled Bad Boy to open a global expansion. During it’s first four years the company sold over $100 million in record sales. Bad Boy had become the most successful east coast record label since Def Jam’s run in the golden age. Their only competition for national sales lay in the West, the Untouchable Death Row Records.

vs. Death Row Records

The heightened emergence and speed in which it got there with mega-star record sales from Notorious BIG, Bad Boy Entertainment was put in parallel competition with Los Angeles based, Death Row Records, home to giants, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and the Dogg Pound and it’s CEO, the criminally-dangerous megalomaniacal Suge Knight. Bad Boy and Puffy Combs sat in Knight’s stomach like sour milk. Up to 1995 Death Row had ruled the commercial scene in hip-hop across both coasts. With the phenomenal attention of Bad Boy’s artists and its East Coast counterpart, Knight’s Death Row stooped to tactics of bullying to prevent sharing the spoils. Knight publicly jeered Combs and Bad Boy at the 1995 Source Awards. Tensions boiled over when superstar-loudmouth Tupac Shakur signed with Death Row, after forging a very-public indignant beef with Bad Boy’s B.I.G. It seemed Tupac had made an alliance with Death Row over a common enemy, anything affiliated with Bad Boy and Biggie. The unfortunate result saw fans buying into some fantasy war between coasts of the hip-hop world. The media dubbed this the, “East v West War”. It turned from a label rivalry into a coastal feud. This led to an astronomically unfortunate outcome, losing two of hip-hop’s golden boys. Puffy Combs had tried to remain as a calming mediator, denouncing any feudal conflicts and gagging many of his Bad Boy artists from responding to threats from the west. By 1996 it came to a head with both camps of Bad Boy-Death Row releasing hostile records toward each other, to the point where bad Boy had hired local Crip gangs to act as security against Death Row’s openly Blood affiliated connections. The alarming results, Tupac Shakur murdered in Las Vegas, September 1996. Regardless of Bad Boy releasing a public statement of condolence, the bad blood waged further and by March the following year Christopher ‘Biggie’ Wallace was murdered. This was right when Bad Boy was gearing up for the follow-up release of Biggie’s album, the double-barrelled, Life After Death. The death of both hip hop legends left both coasts silently mourning for a long time, resenting anything translated as beef toward each other. A new era had dawned upon the rap world. Bad Boy quickly pushed out albums during the aftermath while fans were still mourning. Combs made sure he would not miss an opportunity. After all, this is business.

Life after Biggie

When Life After Death finally dropped in March 25th, 1997 posthumously, Biggie entered into Billboard’s Top 200 Albums Chart at number one. The first two singles, “Hypnotize” and “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” topped the singles charts as well. The album portrayed the same hustler from Ready To Die graduating to an organised crime kingpin, fantasising a Goodfellas / Godfather imagery. In it he featured collaborations with Lil Kim, R. Kelly, 112, Jay-Z, Bone Thugz-N-Harmony, The Lox, Faith Evans, Too $hort, DMC, Carl Thomas, Ma$e & Puff Daddy, plus others. This record cemented Biggie’s legacy as one of the most respected and successful Emcees in hip-hop. Life shifted over 10 million units certifying it diamond by the RIAA in 2000 and stands as 1 of 5 rap albums certified diamond. It was the highest selling rap album in history until May 2006, when it was surpassed by OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

Early 1997 Sean Puffy Combs had entered the market as an artist himself, recording his own début album featuring the first single, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down,” which reached the number one spot on the rap, r&b and pop charts. This was surpassed by his own tribute song to fallen friend, Wallace on “I’ll Be Missing You” featuring songbird, Faith Evans - Biggie’s wife and 112. This held the top spot on the charts for a total of 11 weeks and was soon added as Puffy’s second single for the now-titled, ‘No Way Out.’ Released on summer of 1997, it sold seven million copies. During this period Bad Boy had a very large gap to fill where biggie left behind. Comb’s newest protégée, Harlem’s child, Ma$e was unconvincingly thrown into his shoes. Bad boy was soon pushing out his album, Harlem World in late 1997 which also went 4 times platinum. With or without their king of New York, Bad boy would survive. Through the closing of 1997 and three hot albums later, Combs’ Bad Boy label and brand name had peaked the commercial market. The Lox from Yonkers were to be their next devoted act, promoting them on previous Bad Boy recordings. Their 1998 opus was highly anticipated due to the previous platinum touch of Combs’ Bad Boy releases. Lox’s Money, Power & Respect sold under the belt leaving a bitter taste between them and Puff. Lox departed the label citing Puff was withholding on finances. Their beef would go on sourly until 2005.

The Fall of Bad Boy

Through the next few years Bad Boy went through a hardship, enduring through a steep decline in record sales for the label. In 1999 Ma$e sought a religious change and abruptly retired from the business—leaving a serious void in the company, especially since his second album had just dropped. Bad Boy found limited success with young Brooklyn thug rapper, Shyne who garnered both praise and criticism for his reminiscent flow of the Notorious B.I.G. many considered it to be a rip-off. Also Puffy’s follow up solos failed to live up to his previous game of No Way Out. By this stage Combs went through an almost life-jolting period as he stood trial for weapons violations. The Bad Boy brand was in a state of emergency. In December 1999 Combs and then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez were at a midtown Manhattan club, Club New York when gunfire crackled out. After an investigation by NYPD officers, Sean Combs and rapper, Shyne were arrested on weapons violations and various other charges. Combs’ driver claimed he was bribed by Combs to take the gun out of his hands after the shooting occurred. Bribery charges were added to the list. Combs was attacked daily on tabloids, as well his girlfriend - superstar singer, J-Lo. Combs also attracted several civil lawsuits before the highly-publicised criminal trial was over. Combs retained the services of infamous, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Combs and his bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones were eventually acquitted on all charges, but his rapper, Shyne was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to ten years behind bars. Shyne and Puff fell out over the trial, feeling that Puff distanced himself from his rapper, to save his own hide.

As of 2007 Shyne is still incarcerated and while still in prison, left bad Boy for Def Jam who hosted his second release album. After the smoke cleared from the trial, Sean Combs attempted to change his public identity from Puffy/Puff Daddy to P Diddy. As of 2005, he is simply known as Diddy. However he operates a clothing line under Sean John. As the 21st century approached, Bad Boy stable mates were abandoning ship, with Combs concentrating outwardly on other business ventures under his umbrella. Most of the original cast had left, and the remaining few had seen their unit sales drop as time went on. The label did continue to push new material out and several remixes and hits albums of posthumous Biggie tracks nothing came out to even compete with previous standards. Southern duo, 8Ball & MJG released an album, Living Legends to garner some success in 2004, which prompted the branch-out creation of Bad Boy South; modelled off Def Jam southern branch, Def Jam South. Bad Boy’s south would eventually become home to acts such as Boyz N Da Hood and Yung Joc. In 2002, Combs’ joined the growing list of celebrities to host their version of reality television with MTV’s Making The Band 2—which spun off the Bad Boy assembled act, Da Band. In spite of their MTV exposure leading to gold-selling début album, Diddy later disbanded the group. During this period Bad Boy signed little-known rapper, Aasim, who is still yet to release any work.

With a long-standing relationship with Arista and BMG, in 2002 with Clive Davis leaving Arista’s post Bad Boy severed ties with its distributors. They strategically moved to Universal Music Groups’ Universal Records. However the change of distribution did not increase productivity. In 2005, Warner Music Group bought out the remainder of Bad Boy’s agreement with Universal Music Group, then bought a large minority stake in the label. Today the label is distributed through Warner’s Atlantic division and continues to operate. In 2006 Bad Boy rose again with the lucrative and promising signings of Cassie and Yung Joc. Both artists delivered singles and albums which spent time on the Top Five Singles/Début Album charts. Also that year MTV’s Making The band 3 developed the signing of Danity kane who served to save the day with Bad Boy with his first album topping the charts at #1 becoming the labels first since the Bad Boys II: The Soundtrack three years earlier. It also hosted a top ten single. As of late 2007 Bad Boy Records is continuing as a dominant East Coast recording company with a stake in Block Enterprises (Atlanta-based record label) and Next Selection Lifestyle Group. This is another joint-venture run by Ryan Leslie. As well as these and Bad Boy South growing strong, Bad Boy also holds Bad Boy Latino (co-run with Emilo Estefan) and Grind Music, Inc.

2011-Present

In 2011, Diddy stated he was looking for new talent to add to his Bad Boy roster. Jay Electronica, who had close ties with Diddy, was originally planned to be signed to the label but had signed with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation imprint instead. Machine Gun Kelly announced that he signed to Bad Boy/Interscope on August 3, 2011. Red Cafe, French Montana and Los have also been announced as recent signees to the label.

8 Ball & MJG
112 (band)
Aasim
Black Rob
Boyz N da Hood
B5
Carl Thomas (singer)
Cassie
Cheri Dennis
Craig Mack
Da Band
Danity Kane
Dawn Richard
Day 26
Diddy
Dirty Money
Dream
Elephant Man
Faith Evans
French Montana
G-Dep
Gorilla Zoe
Harve Pierre
The Hitmen
Janelle Monáe
Jordan McCoy
Kalenna Harper
Loon
Los
The LOX
LL Cool J
The Madd Rapper*
Mase
Machine Gun Kelly
Mario Winans
New Edition
Red Café
Shyne
Total (group)
Yung Joc