There may be all the time a distinction, typically slight and typically expansive, between an individual’s non-public self and the character they current to the world. However Combs has labored mightily to assemble a public-facing facade that has him within the starring function of an American success story. Combs started his journey as a hip-hop producer and performer however then did his stage greatest to take the ensuing cash and fame and refine it, utilizing the mythology of the American Dream, the glories of self-made males and the thought of wealth as synonym for racial justice.
As a lot as any of the early gamers in hip-hop, Combs mainstreamed the cash that got here out of a brand new form of music and the tradition that surrounded it. Whereas others might need emphasised their tough-guy bona fides, their experiences in jail or the risks of their childhood, Combs painted an image of arriviste hero. He put a Gatsby-esque sheen on no matter he touched. And he had his palms on every thing.
In 2001, Combs was on trial for unlawful gun possession and bribery, for which he might have been sentenced to a 15-year jail time period. The precipitating incident occurred two years earlier and concerned a protégé who glided by “Shyne” and a bodyguard often called “Wolf.” Again then Combs was often called “Puffy” and was relationship “J-Lo” and your entire trial sounded prefer it was inhabited by cartoon characters. Nevertheless it was severe enterprise and so Combs had legal professional Johnnie Cochran on his staff and offered himself to the jury in an outsized go well with that made him look straight out of the waif-fashion period. He was additionally clutching a inexperienced Bible that he made certain was cracked open. Combs was acquitted. However the trial was a reminder of what all that delicate focus gloss may very well be obscuring.
In vogue, he broke down limitations along with his Sean John line that put Black males on the runway in fits, furs and cashmere, and compelled the business to ask itself why it insisted on referring to his assortment, which launched in 1998, as “city” when it had extra in frequent aesthetically with the world of McMansions, golf programs and yachts. He obtained encouragement from Tommy Hilfiger — whose runway present he as soon as walked in. He cuddled as much as journal editors. He confronted the problem of race in vogue by merely persisting in what he was doing till the business’s main commerce group named him menswear designer of the 12 months — marking the primary time the award had been given to Black individual.
Combs threw events within the Hamptons to which friends, Martha Stewart, Paris Hilton, Al Sharpton, and numerous entertainers, have been instructed to put on pristine white — and solely white. Beige might get one turned away. He styled himself within the spirit of a cinematic main man from the black and white period, showing in commercials for Ciroc vodka and within the pages of Vogue dressed like a rakish suitor to an haute-couture clad Kate Moss.
He helped to launch a constitution college in Harlem. He pledged $1 million to Howard College. Combs used tuxedos and tailor-made fits as placards of protest. Garden events have been a press release of Civil Rights. Strolling up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork as a visitor on the Costume Institute’s Met Gala was a revolutionary act.
He led the best way in turning hip-hop right into a gold rush. Hip-hop wasn’t bootlegging, nevertheless it wanted some sprucing; it wanted that means. And Combs was the person for the job.
Like his contemporaries, Combs labored exhausting to make his manner into boardrooms and construct companies of his personal, however he additionally dabbled in appearing on the Broadway stage as Walter Lee Youthful in “A Raisin within the Solar” in 2004 and on display screen three years prior with “Monster’s Ball.” He was horrible within the former and passable within the latter. However principally the 2 performances painted Combs as a person who believed himself able to succeeding at something on which he set his sights.
There’s one thing distinctly American in that: an optimistic perception that something is feasible, a reckless propensity to declare oneself certified for any endeavor.
Time and again Combs is described within the public sphere as a hip-hop mogul or producer or rapper. He’s these issues however he’s one thing extra, too. He’s a testomony to the religion that inexperienced is the one shade that in the end issues in an America the place being wealthy can typically make individuals look invincible. Is the highway to nice wealth inevitably strewn with the wounded, the disillusioned, the cheated and the disillusioned? Is philanthropy merely a manner of making an attempt to make amends for all of the ache?
The sight of legislation enforcement officers raiding Combs’s properties is startling due to the horrible allegations that introduced them there — allegations which have precipitated companies and organizations to sever their relationships with Combs. However the present of drive additionally disrupts a revered idyll. Combs labored exhausting to forged his success as a part of a sweeping American story, to have it thought of in the identical mild because the titans of the Gilded Age whose names are carved on enduring establishments and the good inventors who modified our mode of transport and the methods by which we talk.
Tactical automobiles ripped by the gloss. They executed search warrants. So the world might see precisely what sort of harm would possibly lie beneath.
