Diddy Talks Losing Kim Porter, Says He Wants To ‘Play A Part In Saving Black Race’, Explains Why He’s Not Signing Artists To His New R&B Label: If You Know Better You Do Better
Diddy Talks Losing Kim Porter, Says He Wants To ‘Play A Part In Saving Black Race’, Explains Why He’s Not Signing Artists To His New R&B Label: If You Know Better You Do Better
Sean “Diddy” Combs is in good spirits as he reflects on life, love, and losses.
He covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair and told the magazine,
“I am the happiest I’ve ever been in life, I laugh the most, I smile the most, I breathe the most.”
He credited the ocean view just outside of his Los Angeles home and said,
“I actually sit here every morning, it’s where I come and I meditate.… I’m not going to lie; this ocean saved my life, changed my thinking.”
And what a life he’s lived. He reflected on changing his name from his original stage name Puff Daddy to Diddy, explaining:
“Puff Daddy had just got through East-West war. Nobody wanted to get in the room with me. They thought they was going to get shot. When I changed names, I put periods on those eras.”
He landed his Diddy nickname from his late friend, rapper Notorious B.I.G.:
“Biggie had called me Diddy because of my bop, the way I walk, my swagger, and they got something called the diddy bop, that just, it just happens to, it’s not me, it was something before me. That’s the diddy bop. It’s the way a brother would walk around, walk down the street.”
Considering he now goes by the name “Love”, he also opened up about his love life. He spoke on the loss of his former girlfriend Kim Porter, with who he shares three children (he is also a father figure to her son Quincy Brown), as well as speculation that he and Jennifer Lopez were reconnecting after he shared a throwback photo of the two of them in May. She’s currently dating Ben Affleck. Diddy clarified,
“It wasn’t no trolling involved, that’s just my friend. And I don’t have nothing to say about her relationship or her life.”
He added that if he were to get tied down to any woman, Kim Porter would have been it.
“I had to start to deal with it when I lost Kim. ’Cause I was like, man, you had it. I’m not saying I would do any of it differently. God willing—I would have had more time. I look at my life as I got a second chance. I’m on my second mountain.”
While he has no plans on settling down just yet, he said he’s focused on his God-give purpose, which he says includes “playing a part in saving the black race.”
“I feel like God sent me, God, put on my heart, ‘What’s your purpose?’ I was looking at all these things, it’s preachers and just different people talking about purpose because I was like, man, purpose is something deep. Have I really found my purpose? I know I’m making money and I’m successful and I’m changing the game so-called, but is that my purpose? And then I really prayed on it and God told me, ‘Your purpose is to play a part in saving the Black race.’ And then I immediately, I was like, I need to talk to Harry Belafonte.”
“I was like, we were in similar situations. You know what I’m saying? Coming from where we were having a position of power, being celebrities, and I was wondering, how did [Belafonte] get so dug into [social action]? And really dedicating his life.”
He added,
“The person that was able to go and do Bad Boy, if he’s in charge of bringing us together, it sounds like, ‘That’s the right motherf****r.”
As for those who have publicly taken issue with him in the past, Diddy said,
“I can’t get caught up in that. I know where my heart is at, and you can’t just do it alone with just Black people. You got to have all types of allies. And that’s one thing I’m good at, I’m good at being a unifier, but I’m not going to be in a room with other tribes that protect themselves and make sure that they straight and not make sure that we straight. But also, I’m not a politician, I’m not trying to be the king or the dictator of somebody. I’m a boy from Harlem that came here to make a change. We all have our story.”
He then announced,
“I’m coming back into music, you know?”
theJasmineBRAND previously broke the story that Diddy was working on a new project.
He announced a new album last month.
He also told Vanity Fair that he plans to launch an R&B-only record label, but won’t be signing any artists.
“I feel like R&B was abandoned and it’s a part of our African American culture. And I’m not signing any artists. Because if you know better, you do better. I’m doing 50–50 partnerships with pure transparency. That’s the thing. [The new label is so that] we can own the genre; we don’t own hip-hop right now. We have a chance to—and I’m going to make sure that—we own R&B.”
What are your thoughts on what Diddy had to say? Comment and let us know.