Pop Shots – Deleting Diddy

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is going to have a more serious tone, as I’m going to discuss doing something we should’ve done a long time ago – delete Diddy.

By now the footage of Sean “Diddy” Combs running down a hotel hallway to assault Cassie, striking her in the back of the head, knocking her down, and kicking her while she’s on the ground, has been seen by nearly everyone.

This is just a fraction of what Cassie has accused him of – which includes physical, and emotional abuse, rape, and sex trafficking – and the fact that it was done in a public setting makes it doubly jarring.

Diddy, clearly, felt untouchable.

It’s sad that only now are we reaching a tipping point with him, because there were numerous opportunities to hold him accountable for his actions sooner.

Diddy, under any pseudonym he’s ever used, has always mistreated people for his own benefit.

Some of us in the industry have talked about it with each other for years, but for many of us, we were already too late. He was already a star, already a “mogul,” and already a serial abuser of people.

It all started back in 1991, at an event he organized at City College of New York that resulted in the deaths of nine people.

Now dubbed The City College Stampede, an extreme overselling of the event led to crowds too big to handle, and the ensuing stampede crushed nine people to death, and left over two dozen others injured.

Diddy, then simply known as Sean Combs, had blood on his hands, but somehow skated. This would start a trend that’s continued throughout his career. 

Maybe had social media existed back then his career would’ve been over before it started, but he created Bay Boy Records, and charmed his way into a label deal.

Of course, after that came the murders of Tupac, and The Notorious B.I.G., which he has been linked to, but, again, he’s somehow remained legally blameless … for now.

After that, in December of ’99, he had Shyne take the fall for him after a shooting at a nightclub. Combs once again skated, while Shyne wound up doing nearly nine years of a 10 year bid.

The woman who was shot, Natania Reuben, says it was Combs who shot her, and she even filed a $130 million dollar lawsuit against Combs in 2008, which was settled in June of 2011.

Again, the brakes could’ve been pumped on his career at any point during all of this, but they weren’t.

Instead, Diddy became emboldened, and would next put his abusive ways on national television in the form of MTV’s Making the Band.

During that show there was the infamous cheesecake walk, where he forced a group of aspiring artists to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn for a piece of cheesecake. Embarrassing them in front of an audience of millions, this was played up for laughs, but was both an abuse of power, and an abuse of every member of the group. What was even worse, however, because it affected the artists’ lives for years to come, was the nightmare inducing contract signing.

For the signing there was a lawyer present, but he seemed to be there just to make sure the papers were signed, and was definitely not advising the artists. He was there for Diddy.

One of the artists, Sara Stokes, wanted to actually read the contract – imagine that! – and discuss it with her significant other. This made made the rest of the group upset, because they were told no one gets paid unless everyone signs.

Diddy was playing mind games with the artists, and essentially forcing them into a bad contract. He knew enough of the artists would sign, and thereby peer pressure anyone who hadn’t signed to do it “for the good of the group,” when in reality it was just for the good of Diddy.

To make matters even worse, the first thing Diddy did after they signed on the dotted line was take them to spend their advance on jewelry. Yes, the money they were going to have to pay him back wasn’t spent on anything album related, but instead was spent on shiny things. He was putting them in debt in ways they couldn’t even imagine.

 Making the Band was more like Making Them Broke

Fast-forward to the present, and we have Cassie’s accusations, the immediate out of court settlement – because Diddy sure as heck didn’t want the details revealed – Diddy’s homes being raided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of a sex trafficking investigation, and now the video footage of Diddy assaulting Cassie in a public hallway.

After the footage circulated around the internet Diddy did the thing all abusers do, he posted an apology video.

I think most of us know the only thing he’s sorry about is that more people are discovering who he really is – a relentless abuser of people.

Peloton has already removed Diddy’s music from their service, and I hope Spotify finds a way to remove him from their playlists, as well.

Just removing his own music isn’t all that hard to do. It isn’t like he’s ever made anything timeless, and while “All About The Benjamins” can still get a crowd hyped, so can hundreds of other songs. It’s disposable.

Removing any song he has a production credit on is a bit trickier, and removing anything he has ad-libs on is damned near impossible.

That said, removing any song where he’s credited as an artist is a step in the right direction.

There’s no reason to have his music in rotation, and there’s no reason to ever book him on any show ever again. Your ratings aren’t worth sacrificing your humanity.

It’s time to delete Diddy.

Suge Knight, during his infamous Source Awards speech, was right (talk about choosing the lesser of two evils. Yikes!).

Tupac, when he dissed Bad Boy Records as a staff, record label, and as a muthaf*ckin’ crew, was right.

Aubrey O’Day of Danity Kane, who has been extremely outspoken about the horrific actions of Diddy, continues to be right.

The way Diddy has manipulated, and abused people throughout his career makes R. Kelly look like someone you’d hire off of Care.com.

Whether or not he ever faces a trial for his actions, we can delete Diddy from our playlists, from the music industry, and from our lives.

It’s the right thing to do.

That’s all for this edition of Pop Shots, but come back next Monday for more shots on all things pop.