Puffy Daddy? P. Diddy? Sean John? Whatever you call him, to say Sean "Diddy" Combs wears multiple hats would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. He is a record producer, label executive, rapper, actor, fashion designer, TV producer, party promoter, entrepreneur and, sometimes, dancer. Amazingly, even as he does business in this Attention Deficit Disorder style, the Renaissance man finds incredible success in every field - making him more than the toast of the hip-hop community, but the business community as well.
Like so many hip-hop entrepreneurs of his ilk, Combs had humble beginnings. He dropped out of Howard University to taken an internship at Andre Harrell's Uptown Records. But the young upstart exceeded every expectation, and within a matter of months, he had risen from an unpaid internship to become a vice president at the label. He was just twenty-one years old.
That said, Combs' poor attitude was soon rubbing Uptown's staff the wrong way, forcing Harrell to fire the young executive. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing to happen to Combs. It taught him humility while forcing him to go out on his own, forming his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment.
Bad Boy would go on to have huge success with acts like The Notorious B.I.G., Ma$e, 112, Faith Evans and more. Combs himself came out from behind a desk to take a starring spot behind the microphone under the name Puff Daddy. As an artist he has won three Grammy awards and two MTV Video Music Awards.
Like so many young entrepreneurs, Combs wanted to parlay his music industry success and take advantage of opportunities in other arenas. That said, it would be his clothing line, Sean John, which found the greatest success.
Started in 1998, Sean John is a men's clothing line that merges urban style with mainstream fashion. With annual sales of nearly $500 million, Sean John was nominated for the CFDA Designer of the Year award in 2000 before winning the prestigious honor in 2004.
In 2002, Combs made his entry into television when he began producing Making The Band for MTV. Since then he has added shows like Run's House, I Want To Work For Diddy and The Bad Boys of Comedy to his production slate. He recently produced a mini-series for CBS based on the award-winning Broadway play he starred in, A Raisin In The Sun.
Sean John Combs' success has taken him from the block and into the boardroom, but as it takes him into the future, one thing is certain - he'll be working nonstop and will find success by any means necessary. Did we expect anything else from the original Bad Boy?
