Part One: P. Diddy: A Life in Crimes

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One – P. Diddy: A Life in Crimes

Behind the Bastards, hosted by Robert Evans and Will Greasy, delves deep into the lives of some of history's most notorious figures. In this inaugural episode, titled "P. Diddy: A Life in Crimes," the hosts unravel the complex and often dark journey of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. This summary captures the key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, complete with notable quotes and timestamps to provide a comprehensive overview.

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1. Introduction and Guest Introduction [03:29]

Robert Evans opens the episode by expressing excitement about discussing P. Diddy, despite recent negative news headlines. He introduces his guest, Will Greasy, a Grammy award-winning audio engineer and his friend of 15 years.

Notable Quote:

Will Greasy [03:29]: "Great human, but like, you know, great human."

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2. Setting the Stage: P. Diddy's Criminal Allegations [05:08]

The hosts transition into the main topic, addressing the dark side of P. Diddy’s reputation. Will Greasy shares his anticipation of the ensuing discussion, highlighting the rampant rumors surrounding Diddy’s alleged involvement in sex trafficking and other criminal activities.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [05:08]: "As a representative of the hip hop industry, it's appropriate that we are gathered here to talk about P. Diddy."

Will Greasy [05:27]: "If somebody is sex trafficking across countries, I'm not laughing at the sex trafficking. I'm just happy that he got caught."

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3. P. Diddy's Early Life and Family Background [10:51]

The conversation shifts to P. Diddy’s upbringing. Sean Combs was born on November 4, 1969, in Harlem, New York. His mother, Janice Combs, was a former model and later a teacher's assistant. His father, Melvin Earl Combs, served in the Air Force before becoming a drug dealer for the infamous Frank Lucas, depicted in the movie American Gangster.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [10:51]: "Frank Lucas... If you've seen American Gangster, that's the guy. Denzel plays an American gangster."

Robert Evans [11:13]: "He was assassinated. Shot dead in his car in Central Park when he was 33 years old."

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4. Tragic Loss and Its Impact on P. Diddy [12:05]

Melvin Combs was murdered when Sean was just two years old, a pivotal event that Sean claims instilled in him a desire to rise above his circumstances and avoid the pitfalls of a life involved in crime.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [12:05]: "Sean is 2 years old at the time, so he never really knows his father. As a little boy, his dad's death served as a constant reminder of the consequences of crime as a lifestyle."

Will Greasy [12:23]: "Seems more like it was like a lesson on, like, don't be the guy in the car getting smoked at 33."

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5. Questioning the Authenticity of Diddy's Hardship Stories [14:25]

The hosts critically examine Diddy's narratives about his challenging upbringing, suggesting possible exaggerations. They highlight that despite claims of growing up in poverty, Diddy attended a prestigious private school and had a relatively stable early life.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [14:25]: "We shouldn't minimize his dad getting shot when he's 2, but his mom is like Tupac's mom... his family is very Catholic."

Will Greasy [14:41]: "Kid says he wants to be a CEO. Look, I'm not saying you should do this legally, but maybe get him into drugs, you know, slow him down a little bit."

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6. P. Diddy's Entrepreneurship and Education [21:02]

Diddy's entrepreneurial spirit is showcased through his early ventures, such as operating a shuttle service and selling old term papers and T-shirts while attending Howard University. However, these endeavors are juxtaposed with skepticism about the authenticity of his claims.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [21:02]: "He types inspirational stories about sleeping with cockroaches on his face to motivate his success."

Will Greasy [21:30]: "It was a lot less inspirational to be like, 'my story'... That's not an inspirational story."

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7. P. Diddy's Career in the Music Industry [44:25]

Sean Combs transitions from his studies to the music industry, securing an unpaid internship at Uptown Records. His relentless work ethic and keen eye for talent quickly elevate him to an A&R executive by 1991, positioning him as a significant influencer in the burgeoning hip-hop scene.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [44:25]: "By 1991, Harrell had installed him as an A&R, and Combs was forging a reputation for identifying and molding top-tier talent."

Will Greasy [46:23]: "It's like, you know, Sophie's podcast skills but in the music industry."

---

8. The Fatal Charity Event: Mismanagement and Tragedy [42:12]

One of the most critical points in Diddy’s career, as discussed in the episode, is a poorly organized charity basketball game at the City College of New York. Advertised as a philanthropic event, it disastrously turned deadly due to overcrowding and inadequate security measures, resulting in the asphyxiation of nine young attendees.

Notable Quotes:

Will Greasy [53:01]: "I mean, if you have never seen a crowd or been in a crowd, like even I is like... it's easy for a crowd to just crush the shit out of some people."

Robert Evans [53:46]: "One EMT who showed up on scene described the result as a plane crash without a plane."

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9. Accountability and Legal Fallout [58:00]

Despite the catastrophic outcome, P. Diddy faces minimal legal repercussions. The lawsuit primarily targets the City College of New York, leaving Diddy largely untouched due to his influential status and limited personal assets at the time.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [58:56]: "He's a kid. He didn't go after him; they just went for the college."

Will Greasy [58:48]: "So he literally wrote, 'I'll be missing you.' Like, I'll be missing you about the people he got crushed today."

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10. Character Analysis and Public Persona [57:41 - 59:38]

The hosts delve into the dichotomy between Diddy's public persona and his alleged actions. While he portrays himself as an inspirational figure overcoming adversity, underlying accusations suggest a manipulative and opportunistic character who exploits events for personal gain.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [57:41]: "A lot of people have had that experience. A lot of people deal with that now."

Will Greasy [59:38]: "He did right away. It's a thing that always works for him."

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11. Conclusion: P. Diddy's Legacy of Negligence and Unaccountability [60:03 - End]

The episode concludes with a critical view of how P. Diddy has managed to escape meaningful accountability despite the tragic consequences of his actions. The hosts emphasize the lack of repercussions and the perpetuation of his influential status within the industry.

Notable Quotes:

Robert Evans [59:38]: "He did right away. It's a thing that always works for him."

Will Greasy [60:06]: "Another movie idea. You guys are welcome."

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Takeaways and Insights

• Discrepancy Between Image and Actions: Sean "P. Diddy" Combs projects an image of a self-made mogul overcoming adversity. However, the hosts suggest that his narratives may be exaggerated and highlight instances of negligence and exploitation.

• Impact of Privilege: The episode underscores how privilege and influence can shield individuals like Diddy from facing appropriate consequences, even in the face of tragedies directly linked to their actions.

• Critical Examination of Success Stories: By dissecting Diddy's rise and the subsequent disaster, the hosts encourage listeners to critically evaluate the legitimacy of success stories and the true cost behind them.

• Systemic Flaws: The discussion highlights broader systemic issues within the music industry and law enforcement, pointing out how powerful figures can manipulate systems to their advantage while contributing to societal harm.

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Conclusion

In this detailed exploration, Behind the Bastards paints a multifaceted portrait of P. Diddy, juxtaposing his celebrated career with the shadows of his alleged criminal undertakings. Through incisive dialogue and critical analysis, Robert Evans and Will Greasy invite listeners to question the narratives constructed by influential figures and to seek the often uncomfortable truths that lie beneath the surface of fame and success.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

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[Will Greasy]

Interesting figures, from legal injustices to body.

[Robert Evans]

Snatching, and tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story.

[Will Greasy]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jourdan or Joho. And we are the Black Phat Femme Podcast, a podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Ooh. Chat. This year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeartRadio app, AVA podcast or wherever you get your podcast girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Need something to level up while you juggle work and life? I'm Dr. Amantha Imber, an organisational psychologist and the host of the podcast How I Work. It's a show where I interview some of the world's most successful people who share their unique tactics, routines and strategies for balancing work, family and personal growth. How I Work will give you practical tips to turbocharge your career and your life. Search for How I Work on the free Iheart app or in whatever podcast app you're listening to. Callzone Media. Oh, welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast being recorded on a shockingly good week. We've all been in a real downswing since the election, but some great news lately. Fantastic. A thing happened that we probably shouldn't joke about. But you know what it is? Bashar Al Assad fled Syria. Nick Fuentes got arrested. And our guest today is one of my favorite people. Someone that the audience has not met before, but someone who has been a friend of mine for like 15 years. Great human. Very excited. I have told some stories about great.

[Will Greasy]

Human, but like, you know, great human.

[Robert Evans]

My humanitarian friend Greasy Will Greasy with a Z. Grammy award winning audio engineer.

[Will Greasy]

Yes. And proof that you can accomplish great things with half of a brain.

[Robert Evans]

For the album. You win that Grammy for the album Michael by Killer Mike. My audience will also know you as the other person in that story where I had a light bulb fight in Santa Monica.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, man. Amazing times. Good times.

[Robert Evans]

You and I have had some adventures. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

And you know what's cool is like, I mean, you know, I'm gonna have my best etiquette today because I am a Behind the Bastards fan because I listened to this show because it's like hanging out with my friends still. You know, it's like every day that we've ever been together is like, Robert gets. I'm like, hey, man, you guys ever heard that story about the Egyptian guy? No. Tell me more.

[Robert Evans]

Tell me more about this fuck up dude. And we had a lot of conversations about when we were going to introduce.

[Will Greasy]

You to the behind the Bastards audience. And I have made a request for three separate topics.

[Robert Evans]

And I have never told people those.

[Will Greasy]

Three topics that I have requested Robert.

[Robert Evans]

To write about, but one of them is today.

[Will Greasy]

And I desperately wanted you on these episodes.

[Robert Evans]

So I'm very, very excited about this. As a representative of the hip hop industry, it's appropriate that we are gathered here to talk about P. Diddy.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Sean Puffy Combs.

[Will Greasy]

It has been an amazing opportunity to be here for this because, you know, there is a certain. And I'm going to try and be careful today because like, there's. When you're in the industry as deep as I am, I'm 15 years into doing this. It is. It's damn near impossible to miss the rumors. Right? It's like. And I actually had a. A huge viral like TikTok right at the beginning of all this. When the first lawsuit dropped, when the Cassie lawsuit dropped, I Had a viral TikTok that got like 10 million views. Because I was like. Immediately, I was like, oh, Diddy's going down, dude. Because there's certain people in the industry you've heard so many things about for so long that when that thing comes out and like, the first damn breaks, that first little. The Dutch boy pulls his finger out or whatever, you know, it is going to start uncovering ridiculous things. And I even said at the moment, I was like, if the tabloids are starting to run with this stuff, it is only a matter of time before the feds get involved. Like, the feds don't like looking stupid. They don't like looking bad like that. And when somebody is sex trafficking across.

[Robert Evans]

Countries, I'm not laughing at the sex trafficking. I'm just happy that he got caught. Yes.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like, you gotta know. It's like this was coming. It was going to happen. And when it opened up, when the dam opened up, it was like, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens.

[Robert Evans]

Let's see when this final. Yeah. At one point, Robert was like, he had new baby goats.

[Will Greasy]

What kind of goats were they?

[Robert Evans]

That is the story that opens this podcast. Yeah. Because you started by being, like, in the industry. I've been hearing fucking rumors about P. Diddy for years. Well, roughly a year ago, my goat had little baby goats. And one of them was a hybrid Nigerian angora mix with the softest hair I have ever felt on an animal that's not a chinchilla. Beautiful animal. Previously, I had gone with the rubric of naming my livestock after famous historic dictators because it amused me to have to, for example, cut the shit out of Joseph Bro Tito's ass. Dreadlocks. Like, that's just kind of funny, right? But this particular goat was really cute. So I decided I wanted to give him a mirthful name. And I told Sophie, my producer, I'm gonna call him P. Diddy. Now, let me say here, I'm not a pop culture guy. I didn't know anything other than, like, P. Diddy was like, a rapper. I actually didn't realize how into gangster rap he was. Cause again, super aware of all this stuff. I was just like, oh, he's like a Snoop Dogg type figure. Right?

[Will Greasy]

His image has never particularly been gangster rap. Like, not. Well, I mean, like, his earliest.

[Robert Evans]

Not since he was having people killed.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He definitely took more mogul.

[Will Greasy]

Yes, absolutely. That is a great way to say it. It's like he was the guy who has companies, the alcohol, Ciroc. He's got this, he's got shoes, he's got clothing, he's got all this stuff. Like he definitely shifted like Ice Cube did to Disney movies. It was like that immediately. Oh, man. You can get away with not accusing Ice Cube of anything, but you can get away with so much more if you look a different way than the guy who's involved in multiple deaths and shootings.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, sure, you know, yeah. And yeah, so like that was. I was like, I'll just name P. Diddy. That's a fun name, right? Anyway, Sophie did her job, which is to dive in front of bullets for her host as a producer. It's called a Wednesday. Yeah. And said, no, you cannot name your goat after Diddy because he's a monster. And I was like, oh. And I looked into him and there was. Wasn't a ton out at the time. And then he get rated by the FBI a few months later.

[Will Greasy]

So feel it only took a minute. It's only going to take a minute.

[Robert Evans]

Did not take long. It was a well known secret. Most of my entire life living in Los Angeles, I had missed it.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, everybody, everybody. If you're like in a certain like kind of scene around the world in like the, in the industry in la, it's like you will always hear that like some old like, you know, it's like the caterers, it's the people that are like the service workers of the world, the engineers, the white dude in a room full of rappers sitting at the desk that's like, oh, shit. Like really? They just say this out loud and it's like sometimes it's secondhand sometimes, but it's like you'll hear these things and it'll be like some older like grizzly dude that's like, yeah, man, don't ever, don't ever work for Kanye, man.

[Robert Evans]

Or famously. Don't go to a Diddy party. Don't go to a Diddy party.

[Will Greasy]

Don't hang out with Diddy.

[Robert Evans]

I had even watched earlier this year that movie Blink Twice. And I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. And then I find out later like, oh, it's supposed to be about Diddy. This was a veiled way of talking about this guy. So if you're like me or if you're someone who knows more about Diddy, the question is, how did all this, how did this guy get to where he is and get to do what he did for so long without having a downfall? And we are going to answer that question and More this week on behind the Bastards, a podcast about people I almost named goats after. And we're back. So Sean John Combs, which is kind of Sean John, which is the name of the clothing brand he's going to make later, was born on November 4, 1969, in Harlem, New York. He was the son of Janice Combs, a former model who worked as a teacher's assistant most of his childhood. His father, Melvin Earl Combs, has served in the Air Force, but later in life became a drug dealer. He worked for a guy named Frank Lucas. And does the name Frank Lucas mean anything to y'all?

[Will Greasy]

No.

[Robert Evans]

He is. If you've seen American Gangster, that's the guy. Denzel plays an American gangster. Sean's dad works for a very serious gangster, played by Denzel. Serious, right. It's as decide if your goal is to make a movie about, like, crime is bad. Don't have Denzel play the gangsters. That's just going to make me want to be a gangster.

[Will Greasy]

Everyone wants the Aaron Taylor Johnson of situation, you know, you got to get, like, you know, the right kind of feel for people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Denzel is so handsome. What are they doing? It was like the Gladiator 2 movie. Really wouldn't like. It would have been a time.

[Will Greasy]

I thought he was a good guy the whole time. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I was watching.

[Will Greasy]

I watched the whole movie, thought he was a good guy. Get him.

[Robert Evans]

I guess you're supposed to like this guy.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, is he bad? I'm so confused, man.

[Robert Evans]

It's Denzel. He's wearing purple. What's not to like?

[Will Greasy]

He looked regal as fuck. I was just like, oh, man. I just.

[Robert Evans]

He should be the emperor.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah. This seems fair.

[Robert Evans]

Um, yeah. So tragically, Melvin Combs was never played by Denzel in a movie. Instead, he was assassinated. Shot dead in his car in Central park when he was 33 years old.

[Will Greasy]

Yikes.

[Robert Evans]

Shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is Diddy's dad.

[Will Greasy]

That is a young one.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. Sean is 2 years old at the time, so he never really knows his father. As a little boy, his dad's death served as a constant reminder of the consequences of crime as a lifestyle. Or at least that's what he would say. I don't know how true that is, because, again, very involved in crimes, you.

[Will Greasy]

Know, seems more like it was like a lesson on, like, don't be the guy in the car getting smoked at 33.

[Robert Evans]

You know, be the guy who Denzel winds up playing.

[Will Greasy]

Right. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Be up a couple levels.

[Will Greasy]

You know, you got some more wiggle room up there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Don't be a private. Be a general. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

So his mom moved the family out of Harlem not long after Melvin's death, taking them to Mount Vernon, a suburb in Westchester County. Now, as an adult, going by the name P. Diddy, Sean would make a lot of statements about the poverty he was raised in. Because if you are coming up in hip hop in the way he did, you wanna, like, act like you came from a really hard background.

[Will Greasy]

For sure. I mean, this is. We will probably talk about this, I'm sure, eventually, at some point. But, like, this is the Tupac thing. Like, he went to, like, a performing arts school. Like, he didn't grow up. I mean, his mom was a revolutionary, you know, activist or whatever, but he came up in a pretty decent kind of lifestyle. And it wasn't until he got into that East Coast, west coast beef that he gangstered up hard.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Whereas, I mean, we're gonna talk about Biggie. Biggie does come from, like, a rough background.

[Will Greasy]

Like, Biggie is selling cocaine instead of making record deals.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, and obviously Sean is massively exaggerating how rough his background was. I don't want to minimize his dad getting shot when he's 2, but his mom is like Tupac's mom, one of these people who works incredibly hard and is very responsible. She gives her kid a good degree, kids a lot of stability and comfort. Sean goes to a prestigious private school, Mount St. Michael. It's a Catholic school. His family is very Catholic. He wears a uniform, he plays football. His mom describes him in interviews as having been an entrepreneur from a young age, starting his own paper. And not in the way that you often mean that in hip out. He starts. He starts a paper route as a kid. Right. In order to make money. She told the New Yorker, we had a Cadillac car and a house, and he liked life like that. Right. So, yeah, Was the actual quote that he was an entrepreneur at an early age? That was a direct quote. Yeah. There will be a boy.

[Will Greasy]

Ashley Connor. Roy was interested in politics at a young age.

[Robert Evans]

There will be a lot of other stories like that.

[Will Greasy]

Again, I mean, this has been brought up many times on this show, but when kids show too much aptitude for something at a young age, you gotta worry about it, you know, when your.

[Robert Evans]

Kid says he wants to be a CEO. Look, I'm not saying you should do this legally, but maybe get him into drugs, you know, slow him down a little bit. Slow him down a little bit.

[Will Greasy]

Look, I got two kids now, you know, it's not. You don't just give them drugs. You leave them around, leave them on.

[Robert Evans]

The street, they'll figure it out.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put em outside and don't watch them enough, you know, like my parents did.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, that's. And we all turned out great. Your children could also be having light bulb fights in the streets of Santa Monica and winning a Grammy.

[Will Greasy]

And winning Grammys. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So one story Diddy likes to tell is of the time his aunt babysat him at her home, which was in a public housing project called the Patterson Houses in the Bronx. So again, his mom gets out to the suburbs, they own a home. Other members of his family obviously are a lot less comfortable. And the story he tells is that he wakes up sometimes. He'll say, I woke up with 15 cockroaches on my face. Which you didn't count the cockroaches. Nobody would in that situation.

[Will Greasy]

You can feel a dozen cockroaches, but you can't count them as fat.

[Robert Evans]

You don't know the exact number, man. And in other recitations, he's less specific. I'm not saying this didn't happen. It probably did, just knowing the other stuff about his life. But he also plays I've lived in.

[Will Greasy]

Decent places where eating cockroaches were on my face.

[Robert Evans]

I too have woken up with some cockroaches on my face. This apparently inspired him to seek wealth and success. Quote, and this is from him years later. I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to be somebody. I'm going to own something and be able to take care of my family. I don't want to live in these conditions no more. And again, maybe something like this happened. He also does bring it up exactly the way you would if you're trying to lie. Throw out in interviews scenes that people will put in a biopic about you. Right, right.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, for sure. That one sound bite that grabs you at the perfect time and they're like, yeah, man, like that's it. You're never gonna be anything, P. Diddy. You'll never make it, kid.

[Robert Evans]

You're gonna go down just like your.

[Will Greasy]

Father, dead in the back of a car.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Diddy would later claim that the memory of this harrowing event inspired him. Whenever he made a change in his career, it was something that just kind of snaps on. You don't take less in life and fight back those roach. Still to this day, whenever I get comfortable, I just remember them. I remember living In a situation where babies weren't changed for two or three days and everything smells and there's no food, the memory is the thing that really fuels me to make sure that one day none of us have to live like that. And, Diddy, you didn't do anything to make sure none of us had to live like that. And you didn't live like that. Right?

[Will Greasy]

You made sure he don't live like that. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You made sure you didn't have to live that way. But fair enough. Yeah, fair enough.

[Will Greasy]

I mean, like, that is often, you know, whether true or not, you know, I. Like, there's definitely probably essences of that, you know, like, of being true. Because, like, you know, like, that is the story of a lot of people in America right now. It's, like, going through some really tough times and, like, seeing. Trying to, like, get through. And, like, that is often the story, especially when it comes to successful people.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Will Greasy]

The music industry is like, hey, man, I come up hard. Used to be. Anyways, it's more Nepo babies these days. Yeah, it's more Nepo babies was the great equalizer. You know, it's like you could be poor and from nowhere and become the biggest in the world. That's what music used to be. So.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's. I mean, like, everything. It becomes more oligarchic as it fucking ages and gets sclerotic. But, like, it's also not weird. You know, I can say. I wouldn't say I had a hard upbringing. My parents were, like, poor when I was a little kid. Financial stress is, like, a lot of my earliest memories. And that's definitely part of why I have gone after as an adult. Right. Is because, like, I didn't want to have screaming fights in front of my partner about the fact that we couldn't afford rent or whatever, you know, That's. Yeah, that sucks.

[Will Greasy]

Absolutely.

[Robert Evans]

Like, that's.

[Will Greasy]

Absolutely.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of people have had that experience. A lot of people deal with that now. It sucks ass. Like, so I. I don't doubt that some version of this is true. Right. That he encountered a lot of poverty around his family and was like, well, fuck that shit. Right? Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I do think it's interesting that, like, his connections with financial desperation are not direct. They're family members. Right. So he always. There's always this sense of, like, I'm separate, too, from this, from the hardship. Right. Like, it's not direct to me, which is interesting. Now, it's worth noting that Diddy, as an adult, told lots of inspirational stories about moments from his childhood that inspired him to later greatness. And maybe all of these are bullshit, but, you know, let's hear him out.

[Will Greasy]

Here's a quote that's definitely a market he has is like the inspirational. I climbed out of this, like, even in his verses, so can you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Will Greasy]

But that's not also. That's not exclusive to him. That's a lot of rap as well, you know, like, so, you know, it is, it kind of goes hand in hand. It's a, it's a bit of that, like, that, that tale of like rising up out of the worst situations that makes like so many people respect and understand you as a, as a rapper. So.

[Robert Evans]

And I'll even say that's not, you know, that's a thing that rap gets from the same source that a lot of other cause. You see that in evangelical Christianity. The whole like, I was, you know, down and out loading high rising and low, sliding popping reds and busting heads, kicking indoors and banging whores. And then I met Jesus, you know, that sort of fucking deal.

[Will Greasy]

Praise the Lord.

[Robert Evans]

But it's this thing everybody gets from like, you know, power of positive thinking, like hustle culture, where it's like, okay, you gotta have like the down and out story. And then I had my realization and like, you can do it too. It works for everything. It's not just MLMs.

[Will Greasy]

And just to tag onto that. I literally was just making fun of Nepo babies because so it's like the opposite is literally when it comes to most of creative culture, to be considered the worst, you can be to have privilege and everything. That's considered like the worst. Cause it's like, oh, well, you didn't have to learn guitar on a guitar that only had three strings and was given to you by Blind Willie down on the corner, who definitely had tuberculosis and left us early type of shit, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, that's just the way you like frame things if you want Americans to. If you want to be a fucking mogul. Anyway. Here's a quote from something he said later in a CNN article. One day when he was a child, he asked his mother for a new pair of sneakers, but she couldn't afford them. He recalled in a 2016 CNN interview that his mother almost began to cry upon hear request. That day he said, my hustle was born. And he's got a lot of that day. My hustle was born.

[Will Greasy]

That was the one day his mom.

[Robert Evans]

Being like, we had a Cadillac. Maybe she's exaggerating because she doesn't want to admit that things were harder than they were. But I kind of think it might just be more that he wanted expensive sneakers. And his mom wasn't like, no, we don't have the money. His mom was like, no, you don't need those sneakers. Yeah, I'm not going to spend $200 on fucking sneakers for you.

[Will Greasy]

Like, it wasn't. It wasn't my mom being like. Like, we could go to Goodwill and find you a nice pair that you'll grow into type thing. It was like, oh, you want $300 Nikes? Like, hard pass.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's a lot less inspirational to be like, my story, which is like, I wanted a computer that could play Starcraft, and my mom said, no, you don't need that. I was like, well, I want to be able to buy my own computers when I grow up. Right. That's not an inspirational story. Yeah, nobody's going to put that in the biopic. The music swells and you get a fucking razor. So, yeah. One thing that we can definitely mark as a turning point in his life was a football injury that he acquired while playing for Mount St Michael Academy. He will always say, I was going to be in the NFL. I was good enough to be in the NFL. He'll kind of insinuate he was being scouted by the NFL. I don't know that he was.

[Will Greasy]

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure he's like five nine or something. Right? He's like, he's not a big guy.

[Robert Evans]

He's not a big guy. But there's positions for shorter guys.

[Will Greasy]

Sure, for sure.

[Robert Evans]

Just to say for the record, the amount of men that have told me I was going could have been a contender I was going to be in. Insert professional sporting league here. Yeah. You're like, sir.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, for sure. When I was in the Marines, there used to be a joke about, you know, everybody was going to go to a great college. They had a full ride to go to a great college. And they were all varsity whatever, and they were going. One of the dudes in my platoon, he. It was so funny. He started off saying that he was going to be. He was scouted to be the quarterback at usc. And when everybody was like, dude, you were not scouted to be the quarterback. That's a prestigious position. We could have. We would have seen that. You would have been like, in the news and shit. Like, that's a big deal. And he was like, I didn't say quarterback. I said cornerback. You know, that was his way out of It. Cornerback. You know, one dude, I remember he used to. He had like one of his pecs was bigger than the other. And he said, yeah, man, I was, I was going to play quarterback and, and that my coach always had me. Me benching one side only, you know. And that's why my. I was like, what? No one would do that.

[Robert Evans]

No one would ever.

[Will Greasy]

So I swear to God, every guy in the entire world, if they played sports for like 5 seconds has like a. Oh, I was almost, you know, story could have been great.

[Robert Evans]

Could have been great. Then I broke my leg. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

I ran for 12 touchdowns.

[Robert Evans]

If you've ever done that to me, just know I was like, bullshit.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. There's a certain inner bullshit detector. I feel like you definitely have like, you kind of like. It's like the Sophie eye roll where it's just like just. Yeah, that right there. The smirk and the. Huh?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, sure, pal. It's a crucial life skill to develop. Sure.

[Will Greasy]

You've won a Grammy. I bet you have.

[Robert Evans]

That's why you keep it directly behind you. Oh, man. Now I will say whether or not he was almost in the NFL, his team was very good. They won the division title in 1986, I think when he's a junior. So like he does play in a very, very good team. I'm sure he was not bad at it. I just don't know that he was in the NFL. That said, he does break his leg in his last year of high school badly on the field, which ruins his pro dreams now, man. As a fun aside, Will, while I was reading. You're going to love this. While I was researching these articles, I found an old 2012 interview in the New York Times with Diddy. This is back during his mogul, generally popular phase. The article was about a movie that he had helped produce called Undefeated. This was based based on an Oscar nominated documentary about a real life high school football coach named Bill Courtney, who was apparently pretty good. I don't know much about high school football coaches.

[Will Greasy]

You're from Texas. How do you not know much about high school?

[Robert Evans]

I developed. I fucking played high school football from middle school. I forget which year I was in football, but I played football.

[Will Greasy]

I did a sport once.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I was not almost in the NFL.

[Will Greasy]

It wasn't as fun as drugs.

[Robert Evans]

Now that I could have gone pro in, Will. Absolutely. I could have been Hyree. Really could have been in the, in the NFL of drugs.

[Will Greasy]

Absolutely. I still feel like I have a chance. Like I feel like I got like a field of dreams chance in fact, you know, like, I do.

[Robert Evans]

I do want to see the field of Dreams of drugs, where it's like they put up a table in a field and just like, drugs start materializing. Fucking John Belushi walks out of a cloud.

[Will Greasy]

Willie Nelson is like, he's not even dead, but he's the guy that gets to walk back on the field and get younger. He's the Ray Liotta Randy Dick Pol.

[Robert Evans]

Himself up out of a sewer.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, my God. If you build it, they will come. Just the biggest bong ever and just like a table of cocaine.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, we could make this movie.

[Will Greasy]

I feel like someone is going to rip this off from us. We better act quickly.

[Robert Evans]

Back to this story. So Diddy helps to produce this movie about this high school football coach named Bill Courtney, and he's interviewed in the Times about it. And in the interview, Combs talks and about his own football experiences in high school. And he laments, I didn't have a coach like Bill Courtney who stood by me and helped motivate me in everything. I was envious, to be honest. He's kind of insinuating that a better of coach might have helped him overcome his broken leg or whatever.

[Will Greasy]

Anyway, he could have healed me with his witch doctor ways.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right, right. Anyway, the best part of that interview, though, is that Combs was working as a producer on the remake of that documentary with the Weinstein Company. And the interview with him in the Times includes this line. Next quote. Combs said he and Harvey Weinstein had been trying to do something together for seven years. And yeah, bro, I'll bet you guys were. Yeah, I'll bet you had a couple projects you were in on.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It is almost like, I hate whenever people start, like. Cause like, every time some of this stuff comes out, you know that like, a certain person's like a grease bag. Then it's like, massive suspect. Every person that's ever been in a picture with them is suspect, you know, and it's like, oh, this person, this person, this person. And it's like, yeah, but like, not all those people are actually doing bad shit. Some of them are just taking advantage of somebody's status to up themselves a little bit or meet people or whatever. But also, yeah, a lot of times they are all.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, a lot of times the whole Harvey Weinstein connection maybe should have been a sign.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, a lot of times they're absolutely running a fucking little circle jerk over there with each other, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Now, it was during Sean's high school years that he first acquired. Oh, actually, you know what, speaking of Sean's high school years, you know, it'll help you get through high school school drugs well, and the products and services that support this podcast. Fair enough. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. There's some dark stuff going on in the world right now, but it's also the holiday season. This is my favorite time of the year. I love going out to Christmas markets, I love going on cold hikes, and when the weather gets crummy, I like staying inside and watching movies. But when you're cooped up inside, sometimes in these long, dark winter winters, it can be easy for some of the stuff in our heads that's dark and less pleasant to bubble up and trouble us. Therapy is a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away. It can help you work through some of those problematic things in your head. It can help you learn positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, you should consider giving BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com behind Life comes at you fast, which is why it's important to find time to relax a little. You time. Enter Chumba Casino with no download request. You can jump on anytime, anywhere for the chance to redeem some serious prizes. So treat yourself with Chumba Casino and play over 100 online casino style games, all for free. Go to Chumbacasino.com to collect your free welcome bonus. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law 18 terms and conditions apply. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan or Jo Ho. And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Oh chat. This year we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Femme podcast on the I Heart Radio app Ava Podcast or wherever you get your podcast girl. Oh, I know that's right. Need something to level up while you juggle work and life? I'm Dr. Amantha Imber, an organizational Psychologist and the host of the podcast How I Work. It's a show where I interview some of the world's most successful people who share their unique tactics, routines, and strategies for balancing work, family, and personal growth. How I Work will give you practical tips to turbocharge your career and your life. Search for How I Work on the free iHeart app or in whatever podcast app you're listening to. And we're back. I hope you've all graduated and you are ready for the rest of the pod.

[Will Greasy]

And don't join the military like I did, because it is not going to be a good idea when you graduate, man. Do anything else.

[Robert Evans]

But the recruiter says, I can even pick my mouth.

[Will Greasy]

Did I ever tell you that I had a friend that thought he was joining the Marine Corps snowboarding team? His recruiter literally showed him pictures of dudes on snowboards and was like, yeah, man, if you. He was like, from Colorado. And he thought he was joining, like, he was like, two weeks into being in the fleet.

[Robert Evans]

And he was like, so when does the snowboarding start?

[Will Greasy]

Is the guy from the snowboarding team gonna, like, hit me up? Or like, how do I get over there? Like, bro, we are deploying for Iraq in like 7min. You are not going to the Marine Corps. There isn't even a Marine Corps snowboarding team.

[Robert Evans]

There ought to be like an Olympic for military recruiter lies.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Snowboarding ones up there.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, my God, there's so many beautiful. I had another friend who literally, the recruiter, he came in and he was like, yeah, man, I want to be in infantry. He's like. And the recruiter, like, slow played him. He's like, well, I don't know, man. It's pretty exclusive. And he got on the phone with, like, his master sergeant in the back room.

[Robert Evans]

He's like a car dealer being like, my boss. Agreed, we never do this.

[Will Greasy]

We're gonna do what we can for you. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna hook you up, man. You seem like a pretty, pretty wise individual. You know, you really. You belong up in infantry, man. We can get you in, man. Fuck.

[Robert Evans]

So it was during Sean's high school years that he first acquired the nickname Puffy. And we have two different stories for how that happened. Here's the first. As related in an article on Hip Hop Insider. He used to puff out his chest to make his body seem bigger, which is where the name originated. Maybe that's true.

[Will Greasy]

That's what his mom said. I remember seeing his mom in an interview that said, the same thing that. That's where it came from that he used to. Because he wasn't a big dude. Back to the point earlier.

[Robert Evans]

And there's a slightly different story that he told in 1998 to Jet magazine. Whenever I got mad as a kid, I used to always huff and puff. I had a. That's why my friends started calling me Puffy. Yeah. But, you know, they're not necessarily.

[Will Greasy]

I mean, you know, they're not at odds with each other. They might be both the same. He likes to puff.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like he's like one of those fish.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. Anytime he's threatened, he gets big.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, man. And puffer fish, infamous sex criminals. Do not let your friends go home alone with a puffer fish.

[Will Greasy]

I remember that in Finding Nemo, that was one of the subplots of finding you as a puffer fish were sex criminals.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

At least. Pests. They're sex pests.

[Robert Evans]

Sex pests. Sex pests. Yeah. So with football out of the way, young Sean leaned into the other, less discussed aspect of his personality, which was that he was kind of an artsy theater kid. Diddy had a reputation at his private school for being neatly dressed, you know, and in college for wearing designer clothes, which he funded through a variety of legal entrepreneurial ventures. For example, in between classes. This is again, when he's at college, he's at Howard University. He would operate a shuttle service to the airport, and he would also sell his old term papers, T shirts, and soda to his classmates. So, again, entrepreneur, but not exactly a gangster.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Ro Ronan's book, Bad Boy, which covers Diddy's influence on the hip hop industry, paints a picture of a young man who was beyond everything else, an opportunist. At one point, while he's at Howard, there's this massive protest campaign on the campus over the presence of Lee Atwater on the university board of trustees. And again, Howard is a historically black university. Lee Atwater is the author of the Republican Party's independent, infamous Southern Strategy, which I cannot relate directly to you without using the N word repeatedly.

[Will Greasy]

You had me at Republican Party. I was there. I was there already. You're just edging me from there.

[Robert Evans]

The basic idea of the strategy that Lee Atwater helps put together is that you can't campaign in 1968 or before 68. You can campaign by just screaming about black people and saying you want to hurt them. Right. By 68, you can't do that. So you have to instead campaign on issues that will hurt black people. But that you can pretend aren't racist. Like fiscal conservatism. Cutting programs that help black Americans without calling them slurs. Right? That's Lee Atwater. So obviously, Howard University students are like, the fuck is this guy doing on the board of trustees?

[Will Greasy]

Hey, bro, you forgot your hood, man. Let me set you up.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That is essentially the tenor of the protest campaign. Now, Sean's peers rightly thought it was fucked up for this guy to have a seat on the Howard board. And they do win. I'm gonna. Spoiler, he winds up stepping down.

[Will Greasy]

Hey, man, every now and then, plugging a CEO in broad daylight on a city street d something, right? Protests work.

[Robert Evans]

Protests can work. So there's this big protest campaign. There's like clashes with riot police. They occupy buildings on campus. It's a whole thing.

[Will Greasy]

How far you have to go to get one white man fired from one white man fired.

[Robert Evans]

In the book It Was All a Dream Culture journalist Justin Tinsley writes this of sophomore Sean Combs involvement in this protest camp. For Combs, the student protest in the spring of 89 presented an opportunity to unite the student body and put some money in his pockets. At the same time, Combs took images from the protests. Photos of students and police clashing and students being whisked away and printed up some posters. And he like sells posters based on this. So he's like. He's a profiteer. A write up by Chris Malone goes further. Future producer and coworker of Diddy's, Derek Ddot Angeleti was at Howard at the same time as Diddy and saw how he made a quick buck from the protests in the 2000 Notorious B.I.G. documentary. Unbelievable. He spoke about Diddy's photo enterprise during the protests. He made hundreds of them and sold them for $10 and $15 apiece. Angeletti said, that's the type of guy I saw. All this protest shit is well and good, but who's getting paid off it? He was ready. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

This is the 80s.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. 89.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. So I mean, yeah, so 10 to 15 bucks, that's. That's a lot of money too. That's not. That's not cheap. Like, we think of 10, 15 bucks now. But in 89, 10 to 15 bucks.

[Robert Evans]

Like, yeah, it was like 700, $800. Yeah, it's a lot more money.

[Will Greasy]

Whatever the math works out to. But yes, absolutely, it's a lot more money.

[Robert Evans]

This was back when a dime bag cost $10, and that wasn't cheap.

[Will Greasy]

There used to be.

[Robert Evans]

I remember we used to be a country.

[Will Greasy]

We had onions on our belts. It was a style at the time.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Amusingly enough, in 2009, Diddy made statements in support of another protest movement at Howard promising. I got y'all back and saying, do what we did. And over. Let's go and do it in a peaceful way, but do it. And again, you did not take anything over. You sold pictures of people doing that.

[Will Greasy]

We're looking back through a lens, so it's easy to like, see like, oh, he probably was kind of. But you want to believe that, like, any. When you heard this earlier, you know, Diddy telling this story, you were like, yeah, good for you, Diddy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, good for you. Speaking up for the kids.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, you did it, man. But like. And then like, hearing it in retro, he's just like, you know, you know, everything that he did was slimy. Yeah. He was just always pulling an angle. He was always doing stuff.

[Robert Evans]

You're not facing a riot line to get at water fucking fired.

[Will Greasy]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

If you're one of those, if you or your parents did, good for them, that's pretty cool.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, good for them, man.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So a good deal of our knowledge of college age Diddy comes from Derek Angeletti, who I quoted earlier. He's the guy who described young Puffy as a flashy guy. Quote, he was always out at the clubs and the young girls loved. That's a creepier line in modern context. He'd be in the middle of the floor doing all the new dance moves. And his style of dress was a little more colorful, bolder. Everyone took notice of this cool, overconfident young dude. I was DJing at the time, and one night he came up to me and said, I'd like to throw a party with you. You're pretty popular. And that's kind of how Diddy did. He's really good at recognizing people that other people, like, that's his primary talent. He becomes a billionaire off the basis of that.

[Will Greasy]

You will definitely see, especially in the music industry, there are so many. There's such a wide ranging culture of that being the thing, you know, it's like the Lou Pearlman or the. Or the. Or, you know, or the Diddy or the Jay Z with Rock Rockefeller, you know, Roc Nation, you know, it's like all these different organizations, that's what they're looking for all the time is like, who is the thing that other people can look at and be. Because like, that's what it takes. You have. You have to have a stable of people for everything to have a party, you gotta have the best caterer in the world, but you also gotta have the best dj, and you also gotta have. You know, it's like, that's what all those people are the best at, is collecting a whole bunch of the best ofs that they know.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And that's like. I mean, honestly, like, that's also just an entertainment industry thing. Like, you know, Sophie and I, that's a skill we have in a different way, right? Like, yeah, yeah.

[Will Greasy]

You got a stable of really cool podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

A year or so ago, I'm reading this Ed Zittron guy, and I'm like, I don't. I bet he could be a podcaster. You know, like, that's just. That is just kind of the industry, too. That's like how you. You know, and he's going, diddy's gonna be one of the best.

[Will Greasy]

One day, you will unify the entirety of all podcasters in the world. Take over, or start an east coast.

[Robert Evans]

West coast podcast rivalry. Get Ed shot in a fucking conflict with one of the NPR guys.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, man.

[Will Greasy]

Another movie idea. You guys are welcome.

[Robert Evans]

Great movie. I'm making Ed the Biggie Smalls of podcasting.

[Will Greasy]

Sorry, man. You cooked.

[Robert Evans]

Enjoy the next couple of years, buddy. So Combs took things a few steps further than most people who throw popular parties on campus by sometimes successfully convincing or paying celebrities to show up. He included his name on flyers with their name, which is part of how he would brand himself. Right. You're attaching yourself to celebrity. You're also just making sure everyone who goes to this huge party with, like, 1500 people knows that's a ditty party, right? Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

Reputation is everything.

[Robert Evans]

That, and he's good at reputation management. He prints business cards for himself that he hands out. They have his name engraved on them as Sean in parentheses. Puff Combs. Just one F. So he's still working on the nickname. Right? It's a process. It's a process.

[Will Greasy]

I'm workshopping some stuff here, guys. I'm doing the best I can.

[Robert Evans]

I knew you before you were greasy.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. His friends are like, puff, puff, P.

[Robert Evans]

U, F. There should at least be two Fs.

[Will Greasy]

It's like, damn near poof, bro. Like, I don't know, man. It's going to be confusing.

[Robert Evans]

Just a boardroom of guys. Oh, man, that's one of my. One of my. By the way, speaking of, like, wasted O. People are lying. One of my. Because this. This comes up periodically when people will, like, lie about having been in the military or Special Forces. If anyone ever tells you they served and they had a really cool nick full of shit. Yeah, nobody gets called the Avenger or fucking killer or whatever. Like, no, it's always like, sack or.

[Will Greasy]

Like two thumbs, shit stain. You're like, oh, man, there's nothing about thumbs. That could have been a good story. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So these parties with Diddy grow to be sizable affairs, but the biggest of them was a homecoming event at a Masonic Temple. 1500. Which actually does sound pretty cool.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, that sounds banging.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. 1500 attendees were expected, but Sean's marketing of the event was so successful, more than 4,500 people showed up, which causes a problem when three times as many people show up. And this is going to be a continuing problem for him. Angeletti later claimed the D.C. police shut down the whole block and brought out the dogs. We had to get on our knees and beg them not to lock us up. Which, again, not super gangster.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, getting on your knees and begging is not exactly fuck the police.

[Robert Evans]

No Biggie wouldn't have done that, I'll tell you that much.

[Will Greasy]

Tupac would have shot those cops. 100%. Tupac would have shot those cops, and he wasn't even that gangster, man. But he would have shot them cops. Snoop Dogg would have shot them cops. Man, we forget, man, this guy's hosting New Year's celebrations and shit. But that guy would shoot some cops.

[Robert Evans]

That guy was hard. Now he's Martha Stewart's friend. Weekly parties were all well and good for getting attention, but Sean wanted much more out of life. And he quickly decided a business administration degree from Howard wasn't going to get it for him. So he drops out and he starts begging record executives in New York for jobs, using his party planning career as a resume. This did not work. But when he reduced the request from job to unpaid internship, he got a yes from Uptown Records. Is Andre Harris. Now, this is not a guy I'd heard of before, but Sheila Flynn for the Independent describes him as the man who, quote, famously coined the term ghetto fabulous. So, yeah, that's. That's Andre Harrell. He's a big guy in the industry. She describes his time interning for Uptown this way. Combs initially commuted weekly between college and his hometown, working 80 hour weeks as he literally ran to complete errands for his record superiors. And it wasn't long before he quit Howard altogether. By 1991, Harrell had installed him as an an, and Combs was forging a reputation for identifying and molding top tier talent. So he goes very quickly from unpaid intern to paid executive. He's very good at this. He works like crazy, and he's got an incredible eye for talent. And this is also 91. Rap is exploding.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect timing for it all. So just for the. There's an actual term for that in the interview called a runner. It's literally because you are, in fact, running for everything you do. You go and get things all throughout the day. It's the first job you do in almost any, like, music industry position. So it's like, this is what I did. I was an intern, and then I became a runner and then an assistant engineer and then an engineer. But that's how you, like, work up with and. And it's crazy. Something that people don't like. It's not like. It's not like being an actor, right? Like, doing some of these jobs. Like, like, what. What did he did here? Some of these jobs. It's not like being an actor. You get out here and you're competing against just like, everybody working at every diner in all of Los Angeles, right? Like, doing some of these specific jobs, like ANRs or produce engineers. You can get into the industry and be one step away from the top immediately. There's so many stories of that. Is like, you get it your first. My first job, I lived in Texas. Where we met in Texas, I was playing in a metal band, and then I was like, oh, I should maybe, like, do music for a career. I went to school for nine months, graduated from a tech school, and started at the biggest studio in the world as a runner. But I was so good because my background in the military and all the stuff that I was in, I was a runner for, like, three weeks before I was, like, working for the studio as an engineer. So it was like, you're only a very, very short insert. It's like attacking the industry from a secret angle because you can do things. Like, it's so fast. It's like your first job might be working for the president of a label. You know, if you have the right aptitude for the type of stuff, it could happen just like that. Now it's still competitive and everything, you know, and it's really hard, but it's a different thing from, like, being, like, an actor or a musician, where you're competing against thousands and thousands of people in the same proximity trying to do that job. It's kind of like a hack to get into the industry.

[Robert Evans]

Well, there you go, folks. You could have your own Grammy. You're welcome. And maybe even be a guest on this podcast and more tips.

[Will Greasy]

Like this on my TikTok greasy will music.

[Robert Evans]

I don't have any tips for becoming a journalist or a writer. It's very hard and it seems like no one's doing it anymore. Yeah, I don't know how it worked for us.

[Will Greasy]

Get ChatGPT and just plug a subject in and then post that on a website. There you go.

[Robert Evans]

You're entitled the Lord of the rings into ChatGPT. And you too can be a novelist or sued by the Tolkien estate. Either way, same diff. Yeah. So he's by 91, he's an A and R executive. So he's doing. While he does that, he continues throwing parties. He understands that that's number one. That's how I'm going to meet people. That's how I'm going to run into DJs, the people that I'm going to poach as talent. He would throw what is described in one source as racially mixed. Daddy's house parties for street kids and preppy students from Columbia University and New York University. And this is where. That's Ronan, who wrote a book about his role in hip hop, says that's where he saw what fans were dancing to and wearing. This is also how he stays plugged in. Now, you know, I should say it's also how he's going to be committing a lot of his sex crimes, but we'll get to that in a minute. Yeah, Daddy's house parties don't go great for a lot of people.

[Will Greasy]

He's a drug.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. You brought your soundboard. So I had two choices. And he makes the choice next to kill nine people. So he's 22 years old. He's going as puff with one. He's a college dropout and an employed record executive. And one of the acts that Sean helps bring to prominence is Jordeke. J O, R, D, E, C. I don't know if it's Jordash.

[Will Greasy]

The Gene Company.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. He discovers that Jordiki is an R and B duo who are blowing up by 91.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, jodeci. Wait, what are you saying?

[Robert Evans]

Is it Jodeci? It's J O, R. It can't be, right?

[Will Greasy]

Oh, you're saying.

[Robert Evans]

Hold on, Jodeci.

[Will Greasy]

I'll look it up. No, no, no, I can't. No, no, no, it's not. Oh, my God, it's not. So hold on, what's the name? J O, R, D. No, no, no.

[Robert Evans]

The way that Robert has it spelled, there's an R in there.

[Will Greasy]

But I think.

[Robert Evans]

I think Will is right. That it's Jodeci. Is it Jodeci? Okay, we'll. We'll say it's Jodeci because there. That's an R B duo.

[Will Greasy]

Duo, yes.

[Robert Evans]

Then that's. Then it's called, Look, I don't know these. You know, me and pop culture.

[Will Greasy]

It's a Jo.

[Robert Evans]

There's a D in there.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah. I mean, you know, it could be. I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Jodeci. No, no, no, it is. It is. Yeah. Combs decided a good way to increase Jodeci's visibility was to throw a charity basketball game pitting two teams of rappers against each other while fans watched. The event was to be held in the City College of New York gym. Once again, Diddy did what he does best, which is promote. And so a shitload of people show up. In fact, several times, as many people as can fit in the actual gym itself. This becomes a problem because Sean doesn't do anything but promote the event.

[Will Greasy]

And any of the safety measures, any of the staff, any of the bathrooms, none of that.

[Robert Evans]

He has two of his assistants who have never run large gatherings do that, and he does not inform them. By the way, every time I do something, several times, as many people as we can actually support show up, could be a problem. He just tells his assistants to handle it and then forgets all about it, largely because his attention is occupied by executing fraud to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Because the game had been advertised as a charitable event. But, like, he hadn't told anyone what charity. And in actuality.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, what kind of charity? You know, it's like, kids with stuff that need stuff, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, kids with problems.

[Will Greasy]

As someone who has been that assistant that had to organize, like, I've been this guy. I've been this guy that had to put together a house party with three bands, and, like, 500 people show up, and the LAPD is circling with a helicopter, and then I have to be the representative of white people to go out and talk to cops so that it's okay. You know, one of the artists I used to work with, he used to always be like, yo, hey, man, the cops are here. So, yeah, you want to go? You go talk to him. Oh, yeah, man. He's like, you know, you speak like cops and, like, white people and stuff. Like, all right, I got it, I got it. You know, go outside, like, hey, gentlemen, how you doing tonight? Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. You know, oh, the dogs. You don't need those.

[Robert Evans]

So there's no beneficiary actually selected for this party and for the more than $24,000 in 1990s money that had been raised for the event. Further blame for what's about to happen goes to the police on duty. Sean's assistants had only coordinated with Pinkerton security guards hired by the university. Yeah, there's Pinkertons in this.

[Will Greasy]

Everybody legendarily protective of people and safe and everything. Never hurt nobody.

[Robert Evans]

Them Pinkertons and the university had increased the number of security guards to 23. Cause they started getting worried before the event. But the NYPD just sends a few guys. And when it becomes clear that more than twice as many people as expected showed up, the sergeant on scene doesn't call for backup until it's too late. Eventually there are like 60 something officers in attendance, but it takes a while. And the sergeant on duty also ignores repeated calls by the university being like, there's way too many people. There's way too many people. You need to do something. There's going to be a riot. And in fact there is.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, they ignored the neighbors at our parties too, man. They just did not listen to them.

[Robert Evans]

So once it becomes clear, because they have to tell this huge crowd, most of you are not getting in. And then the crowd gets rowdy and violent and a riot begins. The NYPD officers who are there are as useless as the NYPD tends to be when they're ever there. Actually needed for something. And things go very badly at 7pm with far too many people crowded into the venue. The single door they had been using to funnel people in was shut. Since that door was steel and at the bottom of a stairwell with the crowd basically pushed up against it, it create solid barrier in a room that has far more people than are supposed to be in it. People panic and a crush develops. Dozens are injured and nine young people are crushed to death, Literally asphyxiated by the weight of the crowd. Medical examiners will note that like none of them had broken bones. They are just suffocated by the mass of people.

[Will Greasy]

I mean, for those of, you know, like, I have been to a lot of concerts, I've been into metal music. Sometimes it feels, feels kind of, you know, like, how could you be killed by a bunch of people? But like if you have never seen a crowd or been in a crowd, like even I is like. I mean I'm a fairly large person myself. Like I'm not huge or anything, but like I'm. And I'm pretty okay with like bad situations. Yeah, I've been in some crowd crush situations that have terrified Me, where I'm like, this is like, scary. Like, this is bad. If you've never been in those situations, it's really easy to understand if you have, like, what? What that's like. It's like. It's like even a few hundred people can be like that. And you're talking about three times the capacity of a venue. You know, that's like so easy for a crowd to just crush the shit out of some people.

[Robert Evans]

It like. One of the best survival advice pieces I can give you is if you are ever in any kind of event and upon entering, you're like, your only way to get in is to push through a crowd of people with absolutely no gaps in it. And you immediately have like the hair stand up on the back of your neck and wonder, are there too many people in this room? Fucking back the hell out. Get out.

[Will Greasy]

There is.

[Robert Evans]

Go, leave.

[Will Greasy]

There absolutely is. And it is not a good idea.

[Robert Evans]

Don't fuck around with situations like that.

[Will Greasy]

Next thing you know, you're gonna be surrounded by a bunch of juggalos at an ICP concert at the Electric Factory and feel really uncomfortable, you know, so.

[Robert Evans]

This is a horrible. Again, nine people die because of this thing that Diddy has orchestrated. One emt, this is early.

[Will Greasy]

This is episode one for death. Is there more in one episode of this or we.

[Robert Evans]

One episode. There's two episodes. There's more deaths to come.

[Will Greasy]

There's two.

[Robert Evans]

There's two. But, Robert, I kind of feel like we can do this as a three parter. I don't know. Maybe. We'll see.

[Will Greasy]

Let's see what happens.

[Robert Evans]

One EMT who showed up on scene described the result as a plane crash without a plane. There were bodies all over, people calling for help. That's a very bad way for your party to be. Although you and I have both thrown parties that I would describe as looking like a plane crash afterwards.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Robert Evans]

Cool plane crash.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, it's a very cool plane crash, man.

[Robert Evans]

You just feel like you're dead.

[Will Greasy]

It's like where people are like, man, that was the best night of my life type plane crash.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Like the plane crash in yellow jackets. I haven't finished yellow jackets. I assume it goes well for those girls.

[Will Greasy]

It goes well. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

No cannibalism.

[Robert Evans]

This would mark the first time that Sean Combs drew media attention in a big way. New York Newsday was one of the papers who first got reporters on scene. And years later, one of them recalled being told by a colleague the organizer was some guy called Puff Daddy. In the days that followed, it became clear that a substantial amount of the blame for this disaster lay with Pup Daddy. Puff Daddy. Pup Daddy. A report compiled afterwards by the mayor's office read, Mr. Combs spent little time making the actual preparation for the game and delegated most, if not all, of the arrangements to Lewis Tucker and Tara Getter, both of whom claimed to have no prior experience with such events. I found a fun article in the Columbia Journalism Review by one of the reporters who covered the crush. And this is, you know, him writing after Diddy has been disgraced. His piece ended with this line. I do remember thinking, man, this Puffy guy can't have much of a future after this, man. Let me tell you about America, my brother.

[Will Greasy]

This is the thing, though, too, is like. It's like, you know, that happened, right? But I can't tell you how many events, how many things I've been to that have been like, you know, thrown like this, like concerts, like, dude, I've been at a riot fest, which is like a major concert that has felt like this, where it's like, they didn't plan this very well. There's not enough things here. It seems dangerous. And the fine line between, man, we just pulled off this crazy party and nine people died is. It's razor thin. You know, there is sometimes where it's like, this is the coolest party I've ever been to. And then. And it doesn't go completely wrong, but it could have at any time. One of those house parties, we had 200 people, and they're raging in the living room. And I thought for. I started standing closer to the wall. Cause I was like, this floor is gonna give.

[Robert Evans]

And there's no way this could end badly.

[Will Greasy]

This house could not be designed to have this many people jumping up and down like this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of being happy, especially, like, being happy about how you spent your 20s, is getting as close to that line as you can get without crossing over into the. Killing nine people at City College.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Risking it. Yeah. I've been on the edge. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The edge is a place, but it's also a place that's called the edge for a reason. Because sometimes nine people fall off of it. Yeah.

[Will Greasy]

Legends are made, Robert. You just, you know, hey, man, you know, sometimes you gotta get right up to the edge and just live in life, man. L F I N. Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Hunter Thompson wrote eloquently about the edge and also died unable to hold in his bowels. So, you know, that is the consequence.

[Will Greasy]

It's not a long life.

[Robert Evans]

It's not a long life. Not a long life. So because this is America, getting a bunch of people killed due to your own staggering negligence does not mean that.

[Will Greasy]

You don't have it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, none at all. And Puff Daddy proves immune to consequences for his actions, even though, again, every review of the disaster is like, he's to blame for a lot of this. Now, again, I don't want to say all of it, because let's not forget the nypd.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, of course.

[Robert Evans]

They also got those kids killed.

[Will Greasy]

Look, there's never a time where the NYPD hasn't been a little bit negligent in some people dying in New York City. It's like, you know, it's what they do best.

[Robert Evans]

That's part of their. That's what they get paid for. Of course.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

The NYPD operates one of the largest surveillance apparatuses on the planet so that they can know more. More places to get kids killed. So Puff Daddy winds up testifying in court about the disaster when the families of the dead and the survivor sued the college after a 1998 court appearance he filed.

[Will Greasy]

Oh, so they didn't go after him at all? They just went for the college?

[Robert Evans]

No, go after the college. I think at this point, the college is who has money. He's not rich.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

He's a kid.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah, good point. Yeah. No reason to go after him. He's got nothing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. What's he gonna do for you? After a 1998 court appearance, he told reporters that, like, I think about it every day. I think about, you know, the dead every single day. You know, I'm always. My thoughts are always with them, quote. But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.

[Will Greasy]

So he literally wrote, I'll be missing you. Like, I'll be missing you about the.

[Robert Evans]

People he got crushed today. Yeah, yeah.

[Will Greasy]

Like, right off the. Every day, man. Every time I pray, man, I'll be missing you. Yeah, he hit him early with that. He did.

[Robert Evans]

He did right away. It's a thing that always works for him.

[Will Greasy]

Get the hits, man. Play the hits.

[Robert Evans]

I can't wait till we have our first dictator who takes a note at. Who, like, fucking, like, uses chemical weapons on a crowd of protesters and is that then gets in, like, a studio and sings. I'll be missing you. Pro tip. For the future dictators who listen to this podcast, there's gotta Be one of.

[Will Greasy]

You and ready to go.

[Robert Evans]

Have a banger ready to go. And look, if you do succeed in becoming a dictator, just give me a province. Just one province is all I ask.

[Will Greasy]

Oh hell yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, let me, you know, I'll make a golden house for my. Of course I'm gonna make a golden house, you know, but like it'll be, it'll be gold plated. I'm not that much does one does. You can bring your grand over to my gold plated house, Will.

[Will Greasy]

Yeah man, we'll take shots out of it. Hell yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Now speaking of, I'll be missing you. I'm gonna be missing you all. Because this is the end of part one. But don't worry folks, we have a lot more coming. This whole week is going to be diddy week here at behind the Bastards.

[Will Greasy]

Ah, Diddy week.

[Robert Evans]

Will, my friend. You have a TikTok to plug?

[Will Greasy]

I have a TikTok. I am greasy Wheel music. I have a podcast podcast that's called. That sounds about right. I have a Instagram that you can find me Greasy. I'm greasy, Will. G, R, E A Z y W I L1L. Because the second one wasn't pulling any heavy weight and I decided I was wasting time doing it. Yeah, that L. But I am highly googleable. I am all over the Internet. I can be found almost anywhere. You could even send a telegram to me. Still, I. I accept accept telegrams as long as they are Western union and contain money as well.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yeah, yeah, I send you telegrams, but entirely about our oil business down in the Arizona territory.

[Will Greasy]

I drank your milkshake.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right. That's how you and I spend our free time being old timey oilman. It's a great time, everybody. Well, until next next week, folks. Become an old timey oil man yourself. You know, start an oil rig somewhere. Next week. Next part. Next part. Yeah, next part. Not next week. We'll be back tomorrow probably.

[Will Greasy]

Anyway, minutes from now.

[Robert Evans]

Just hold your breath. We're going to keep recording.

[Will Greasy]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Anyway, I love you all. Go to hell.

[Will Greasy]

Behind the Bastards is a production a cool Z Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.

[Will Greasy]

Or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behind the Bastards. You wake up, put on your ray ban meta glasses. You living all in. You realize you need coffee so you say hey Meta, how do I make a latte?

[Robert Evans]

Brew two shots of espresso.

[Will Greasy]

After Meta AI gets you caffeinated, you're ready for some beats.

[Robert Evans]

Hey Meta Play hip hop music.

[Will Greasy]

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[Will Greasy]

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[Will Greasy]

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[Will Greasy]

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[Will Greasy]

Void where prohibited by law. See Terms and Conditions. How do you feel? Can you switch to Geico and save on your car insurance? It's like getting right out of bed. Late for work, yet your hair looks immaculate.

[Robert Evans]

No blow dryer, no comb, no sculpting gel.

[Will Greasy]

Just a flawless look as if you walked out of your house and straight onto the COVID of a men's fashion magazine. Good morning, Stephen. Oh, have you done something new with your hair?

[Robert Evans]

It looks amazing.

[Will Greasy]

They don't have the slightest clue you were half asleep drooling on your pillow not ten minutes ago. Yep, switching and saving with Geico feels just like that. Get more with Geico.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, Me Wheezy wtf and Me, Mandi B, as we dive deep into the world of non traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex and love. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. Tune in and join the conversation Conversation Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tramorky. And I'm Holly Frey. Together we invite you into the dark.

[Will Greasy]

And winding corridors of historical true crime.

[Robert Evans]

Each season we explore a new theme. From poisoners to art thieves, we uncover the secrets of history's most interesting figures.

[Will Greasy]

From legal injustices to boxes snatching.

[Robert Evans]

And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story.

[Will Greasy]

Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.