Best Of: Rhiannon Giddens / Investigating Diddy’s Rise & Fall

0:00This message comes from Midi Health. Most women never get real answers about their hormonal health. Midi is changing that with virtual care covered by most major insurances. Understand your hormones. Visit JoinMidi.com to book your first visit today. From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley in Los Angeles. That's today's guest, Rhiannon Giddens, playing the opening banjo riff on Beyonce's hit Texas Hold 'em. Giddens doesn't usually play pop music. She comes from the black string band tradition, is the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble, and studied opera in college.

0:43It's not a usual path from opera to the banjo. There's nothing about you that is usual, as far as I can tell. Also, Rolling Stone investigative reporter Cheyenne Roundtree talks about her new book, Bad Boy for Life, which tells the story of Sean Combs across the names he gave himself, Puffy, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, and Love. Plus, Justin Chang reviews the new film, Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, starring Mahershala Ali. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums.

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2:41Learn more at LegacyBox.com slash NPR. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Terry has our first interview. There are many ways you may know my guest, singer, banjo player, fiddler, and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens. Early in her career, she co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which played music from the black string band tradition dating back to slave times. She's since recorded several solo albums. On one of them, she recorded and wrote several songs based on slave narratives, and one song based on an ad from a slaveholder looking to sell a young enslaved woman, offering the buyer the option of buying the woman's nine-month-old baby.

3:24Giddens studied opera singing in college and won a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the opera Omar about a Muslim scholar from Senegal who was sold into slavery in the U.S. She also was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. She's now the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble, which was founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and is dedicated to playing with musicians from around the world, drawing on their musical traditions. If all that isn't enough to spark your interest, it's time to bring in the name Beyoncé. It's Giddens playing banjo on Texas Hold 'em, the hit track on Beyoncé's country music album Cowboy Carter.

4:05We'll talk about that a little later. Rhiannon Giddens has a new album called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. The title track is the title of an Emily Dickinson poem that Giddens has set to music. She's brought her banjo and fiddle and will play and sing a little later in the show. Let's start with a track from the new album. This is Step Away Blues, which she co-wrote. Step away, step away, I've got my soul in my hand.

4:42You better get my name out your mouth You'll never understand

4:56I'm tired of taking off my skin So you can see my heart Riannon Giddens, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Such a pleasure to have you back. Step Away Blue is what you co-wrote. You write in the liner notes that you think it definitely feels like a song for your crone ears. And crone isn't a kind of archaic word for people who don't know the definition. It's basically a condescending and contemptful word for an old woman who typically is ugly if the word crone is used. So when you say your crone years, what do you mean and why is that a song for your crone years? You know, there's words that have dictionary definitions.

5:48There's words that have connotations that were generations ago. And then there's words that are being reclaimed. And I feel like crone is one of those words. because women who have gone through menopause tend to disappear in societies, including ours. And I think we are all looking for ways to reclaim that time because it actually is a time of great power, which is why, of course, it's been under attack for all of patriarchal history, you know. So for me, that's the way I use crone is actually in more of a reclamatory, is that a word? a reclamation sense of, you know, it just means I'm in this period of my life.

6:25And so that's kind of the spirit of me using that word is not in a denigration to myself, but more of a reclamation kind of spirit, if that makes sense. So in what way is that song a defining song for your crone years? Well, it's, I'm entering in that time, I'm 49 years old, you know, and so I'm just kind of entering in this space of this chapter where I just don't care anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I just want to say what I have to say. And, you know, it will be taken the way it's taken. I mean, obviously, within reason, but I need to step into that a little bit, because I've spent a lot of my career sort of, you know, being the peacemaker, being the mediator, sort of trying to represent things in a way that's not too offensive, but that, you know, really sits in of an emotionally hard space.

7:17And that's a very difficult thing to carry, and I've been carrying it for a long time. And I definitely am feeling like I need to let some of that go. And, you know, if I come out with something a little stronger, if not now, then when? You know, so I'm feeling that coming on, and that song kind of represents that for me. So in Step Away Blues, part of the lyric is, I'm tired of taking off my skin so you can see my heart. Yeah. Where were you in your life when you wrote that, that you thought about that line?

7:53It's been challenging. The work that I do, you know, I'm really lucky to get to do what I do, and I feel really so blessed, right? So let's get that out of the way. Like, I have privilege. I have a great team, everything. However, the work that I do is very culturally difficult because what I'm doing is, in a large part, I'm talking about very difficult things in our history to mostly white audiences, you know. So every night I'm sort of just burying everything, you know, so that people can have an emotional connection to some really, really difficult history. I shouldn't have to do that, you know.

8:38And so I'm happy to do it, but it wears on you. It wears on you and the years pass and you continue to perform blackness for people in a way that is palatable, right? In a way that keeps everybody there and not walking out the door. And that is only something I can do for so long, you know? And so it kind of combines with this age thing where I'm kind of hitting this time where I'm like, do I want to keep doing this? I don't know. So part of the ability of engaging in art, making songs, making visual art, whatever you're doing, dancing, is a way to get out some of the emotions that you're feeling about things in a way that maybe other people can draw strength from.

9:19Well, you're in an interesting spot because you represent, just as a person, a lot of different traditions mixed into one human being. So it just seems to parallel the music that you play and the traditions that you draw on. But drawing on so many black traditions as part of your music, you've felt uncomfortable performing mostly for white audiences and frustrated that black audiences often don't seem interested in the music and assume that it's not really black. And you've said that the first times you felt really accepted by black audiences is when you performed at Sing Sing Prison in New York and when you were on Beyonce's country album, Cowboy Carter.

10:01So can we talk about Sing Sing for a moment? Yeah. And just to be really specific, that's just the blackest audience I'd ever had. You know, it was the audience, the fullest of black people, which, of course, is like so overwhelming. You know, all of the layers that that represents, you know, that I'm in a prison and then, you know, looking at the carceral system is so messed up and is so overrepresented by black and brown people. And I mean, that's a whole history, right? But then the cultural response that I got on that night, I had never really gotten before because I'd never had a majority black audience, you know.

10:37And so it's just so many layers. I've had black people at my shows always. And I always know all of them. I see them all. I kind of count them. You know what I mean? And like I've said many times, like I love my audiences no matter what. But like my thing has been I want to get I wanted to get more. I wanted the black. See, it's like it's so complicated because it's like there's black people who know my work. Right. So when you're talking about black mainstream media, like, OK, is that really how much do I need to worry about that? So I've kind of like struggled with that. And that's why doing the Beyonce song, doing Sinners, like being a consultant on Sinners and having a song on that soundtrack, those are mainstream things, you know, that were then also connected to, you know, in Sinners and the Beyonce song, Black culture in a way that I couldn't cross into just doing my folk circuit and doing what I do.

11:39So those things were really strategically like I was like, I just want anybody who's in the mainstream black community who may not, you know, come over to the banjo and the fiddle world because of the story that's told around it, because of the assumption that it is white music. I wanted it to be there so that it's another way in. I just want people within the black community to know this is also an option for you. And you can do it in a way that doesn't feel like you're asking permission. Like I had to go through that. But there's so many people in the black community who are starting to realize this is this is something that is for them as well.

12:17And it's part of their history. And they're picking up, you know, gourd banjos and fretless banjos. And it's small, but it's growing. So that's really wonderful. And like, that's why I do those things. They're very difficult to do, like existing. Dealing with anything in the pop world is hard, you know, because I'm a I'm a folky to the to the bone. Since I brought up Beyonce and Texas Hold 'em, did she tell you what she wanted you to play? Did she have something in mind or did she just say like, do what you think is best that makes sense for the song? Because you open the recording. You're the first thing we hear.

12:52I wrote that lick and I wrote the viola that's also on there. So that is something that I came up with. So let's hear a little bit of it. This is Texas Hold 'em with Rhiannon Giddens on banjo. and viola if we get that far into the recording.

13:20This ain't Texas. Ain't no holdin'. So lay your cards down, down, down, down. So park your Lexus and throw your keys up. Hey, stick around, round, round, round, round. Stick around and I'll be damned if I can't... So that was Rhiannon Giddens on Banjo on Beyonce's Texas Hold 'em from her country album, Cowboy Carter. I love that track. And I think it sounds great with you on it. So, like, how did that change your life, if at all? Because you're not used to being part of, like, the mass media mainstream. I mean, when that album came out, everybody was talking about it. So did that like change your life in any way or change your perception of what it's like to be in the center of like the pop music world and the black pop music world?

14:19It didn't change my life because I wasn't in the center of it. You know, my sound, that sound was and that was wonderful for me. It's all I ever wanted. I didn't want any more than that. It was there to be discovered. It's there to be discovered. I watched all the line dances to it on Instagram and TikTok. And I was just like, that was really exciting for me. And that's all I wanted from it. I continued to do the work that I've always done. I did a lot of free emotional labor during that time, advocating for anyone's right to this music from the Black community because of the history of it. And I have receipts.

14:56So I wrote, you know, opinion articles for The Guardian and I did interviews and I was constantly asked about this. And to my ability, you know, given legalities, what I did is I used it as an opportunity to advocate for the true history, the true cross-cultural history of country. And that's what I always try to do. Anything that I do, it is for that purpose. It is for the mission of uplifting voices that have not been previously really uplifted and to try to burst the mythology that has been set up around this music, which is, you know, white supremacist and nationalistic, you know, and it's very clear that these narratives are there to do damage.

15:38So I'm always trying to try to correct that. I'm not interested in it for my own, you know, my own gain. Not interested. I really am there to tell the story. And that's what I did over and over and over again when Cowboy Carter came out. So it gave me that opportunity to have that platform. Myself, you know, I maybe gained a few more followers or whatever. And also cachet. I got cachet in the black community for that. That to me was priceless. Like, if I talk to a black person and I'm like, and they're like, what do you do? And I'm like, you know, I play the banjo and they're like, huh? And I'm like, you know, Texas Hold 'em, you know, that was me.

16:15And then they go, oh, you know what I mean? And that's like, that's amazing. So as a black banjo player who has, you know, been trying to advocate within our own culture for this, that was a huge, that's a huge card for me to be able to play. And it gives you a chance to tell more people that the banjo has African origins and that, you know, it's not a white mountain instrument. It comes from black tradition. And then white people picked it up, too. And but that's how music is. It travels through all these different cultures and circles and things mix and it just keeps growing. That's exactly it.

16:54And the thing is the banjo is all of those things also. It is and also because other marginalized groups, you know, when you think about people who settled in the Appalachian Mountains, they were poor. You know what I mean? And they were under attack by the, you know, by people who wanted the resources of the mountains. And they adopt this instrument so thoroughly that it becomes their own as well. So everybody played the banjo. You know, it starts as an African diasporic instrument invented in the Caribbean under duress in a time of unimaginable slavery in the Caribbean. We think slavery is bad.

17:27Whatever we think is worse when it comes to the Caribbean. Right. And it's a crucible where a lot of actually what we think of as American creolization happens in the Caribbean first and it comes up with enslaved people who are brought from there. So the banjo is coming up as a part of that, and it becomes the fabric, part of the fabric of the new emergent American culture. We're listening to Terry Gross' interview with Rhiannon Giddens. Her new solo album is called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

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19:21Listen on your preferred podcast platform. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Let's get back to Terry's interview with Rhiannon Giddens. Her new solo album is called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. She's also the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble and started her career playing music from the Black American string band tradition dating back to enslavement with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which she co-founded. You decided to go to Oberlin College and study opera singing there, which you never really pursued because you found the Black string band tradition. Yeah, it's kind of, it wasn't, it's not a usual path from opera to the banjo.

20:07There's nothing about you that is usual. That's true. As far as I can tell. Yeah. Okay, so you don't sing opera, but you do the black string band tradition. And since you have the fiddle with you, can you talk about what is the black string band tradition? You studied with somebody or your mentor in that tradition was Joe Thompson, who played music from that tradition and lived not far from you and grew up in the same town as your maternal grandmother. Yes. So there was an immediate connection there when you met him, I think, at like a music conference. The Black Banger Gathering, yeah. He was 86 and he was the last of his family to play this music.

20:53And they were the Thompson family band. So it was him and his brother first and then him and his cousin. And then it was just him when we met him. And it had been passed down as this sort of family tradition. And it can be traced back to the time of slavery. And the Black String Band tradition used to be enormous. Everybody, there were Black String Bands everywhere. I kind of call them like the jukebox of the pre-recording era America. But the basic thing is that the Black String Band was a big thing. And you cannot take it out of the history of American music. Like everything collapses like a souffle.

21:26So the ability that we had to go study his music, to be his apprentices, because this is the old style of apprenticeship. You just go play with the other person, you know, like we would sit with him on Thursday nights and we would just play his tunes over and over again. So it is a part of everything that I do is that. And I know how privileged I am the older I get that I had a living link, an elder, somebody that I'm related to in the family tree. it's so rare in this kind of music in the black community because we were erased so much and because people who were watching it and recording it weren't interested in what we were doing you know so to have that as a real real gift um so yeah i play i do play fiddle like um i i played banjo with joe but um i there's a old-time tune on the new record um but i can play i'll play a joe because I think that's more useful.

22:20This is called Black Annie.

22:53Oh, black金aign gonna wait Oh, black金aign gonna wait Oh, black金aign gonna wait right down

23:25Oh, it was great. So that's Black Annie, and I learned that from playing with Joe. And there's so many aspects of that that feels like his music, his family's music, you know? But the fact is that he's playing tunes that also other people in the region play, you know, white musicians played. Like music really was regional and we tend to divide it into racial categories because of the commercial music industry. That's really when that starts. Because like back in the day, you just played the music that you played and you heard what somebody down the street was playing. And you know what I mean?

24:00So, again, that commercialism has really messed with us, you know, in so many ways. You know that kind of like double time Boeing that you did? Is that something you learned from Joe? Yeah, it's like, you know, Justin Robinson is really the main proponent for his fiddle style these days. But...

24:32You know, this...

24:40You know, this... His bowing was very particular, and it was really beautiful. I can only do an approximation of it, but things like, you know...

24:53He did this pushing up thing, you know, Justin calls it the barking puppy.

25:06Yeah, I feel like there's times when I feel like I'm falling into his vibe, you know, and it's like, that's the other important thing about this music is that it is really ancestral. like and that's for everybody like you know this music has such a history and that's why it's so important to keep alive it's such a history and there's times when I'm playing it there's times when I'm playing the banjo and I just like feel like I feel the ancestors like I feel the the the spirits come through and it's like that's the only thing that's kept me going in this industry is knowing that I'm connected in that way to the people who came before and that like my nephew is 27 and he was five when he met Joe and he plays banjo and he plays bones.

25:48And like, when I hear him, I'm like, when I'm dead, you know what I mean? It's again, that it can't stop with you. Rhiannon Giddens, it has been such a pleasure to have you back on our show and to hear you sing. I love your voice so much. And you're playing to you. But you are one of a kind. Thanks for having me. It was really, really nice talking to you. Rhiannon Giddens' new album is called Hope is the Thing with Feathers, and she spoke with Terry Gross. Hope is the thing with feathers, perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all, and never stops at all.

26:34Sweetest in the gay lizard It's all must be the storm They could have bashed the little bird They kept so many warm They kept so many warm

26:49Hope is the thing with feathers It perches in the soul It sings the tune without the words It never stops at all It never stops at all In the new action thriller, Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, the two-time Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali plays a devout Muslim family man who also happens to be a deadly assassin. Bassam Tariq directed the movie, which opens in theaters this week, and our film critic Justin Chang has this review. Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother opens with a murder in a public restroom in Houston. The victim, a man, is never identified. The killer is a professional assassin named Latif, played by Mahershala Ali.

27:37As their bloody struggle plays out, we hear a solemn voiceover explanation of the film's title. It's rooted in a hadith, a record of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. A man approaches the Prophet and asks, Who deserves the best of me? The question is posed three times, and each time the Prophet responds, Your mother. Right from the start, the Pakistani-American writer-director, Bassam Tariq, clearly delights in outrageous juxtapositions. Latif is not your average contract killer. He's a husband, a father, and a devout Muslim. And he justifies his profession by only targeting victims that he believes society would be better off without.

28:20out. He also never uses a gun. A saber is his weapon of choice. It's not an easy thing, killing people and raising a family. Just ask Tony Soprano. And it's about to get a lot harder for Latif. Right after this latest job, he gets the tragic news that his wife has died of an illness. Latif, not the most attentive of dads, is suddenly left to raise a teenage daughter, a preteen son, and a baby by himself. Assassins don't get bereavement leave, and so Lateef remains under enormous pressure from his employer, a Muslim crime boss. Much of the pleasure of Tarek's movie comes from trying to get a handle on his gonzo vision of Houston's religious criminal underbelly.

29:05It's a wildly stylized world of bright neon lights and ugly strip malls, where it can be hard to tell a house of sin from a house of worship, and even the most unsavory characters live by a particular creed. Latif is ordered to protect his boss's nephew, Hadi, an online pornographer who offers halal-certified smut. Hadi, played by Abu Bakr Ali, has run afoul of a local Christian pastor who's on a brutal anti-porn crusade. Played by a terrific John Cho, wearing gold dental grills and a cowboy hat, The pastor is one of the film's more fascinating creations, a gun-loving ex-military man who shares Latif's belief in the cleansing power of violence.

29:51One especially chaotic scene takes place at a mosque, where Latif and his kids have a run-in with the crime boss, the pornographer, and a vanload of sex workers. Afterward, Latif scolds his daughter, beautifully played by the actor Adia, for having stolen some milk from the mosque for the baby. That leads to a tough conversation about their struggles with faith, including the difficulties of making dua or praying. You want to explain to me why you stole from the mosque?

30:25You want to explain to me why your homies brought hookers to the mosque? They were there to learn about Islam. You really want me to believe that? Ella is a turner of hearts. Instead of being judgmental, she make the wild for those sisters. Yeah, yeah, I'll make the wild for them. Like I made the wild for Mama to come back.

30:53I'm talking a joke to you, right? That's funny. Yeah, people praying to nothing is funny, Baba, and I know you feel the same. You stop praying, too. Mm-hmm, I pray. Come on, Baba, we didn't even go to Juma today. Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother has an interesting origin story. Several years ago, Tarek was set to direct Ali in a new movie about the Marvel comic book antihero, Blade. But after numerous delays, Tarek left the production, and the film fell apart. Years later, the two have reunited on what feels like a more original version of the movie they planned to make. Lateef may not hunt vampires as Blade does, but he's no less deadly with a knife.

31:39Nearly a decade ago, Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar for his gorgeous performance in Moonlight. It's great to see him play such an unconventional Muslim protagonist here, and to balance his quiet depth with a lethal display of action prowess. Tarek can stage a set piece with energy and verve, and there's something fitting about the way he uses violence to call out the blood that has been spilled in the name of religion. And it all builds to an undeniably gripping climax that reaffirms the power of faith and surrender. Even so, the action remains by far the most generic aspect of Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother.

32:20And I couldn't help but imagine a different version of the movie that didn't fall back on so many familiar hitman thriller beats. But perhaps those genre moves are what allow the movie's gentler, funnier moments to resonate. I'm thinking of Giancarlo Esposito's lovely performance as a mosque leader who disapproves of Latif's career and tries to steer him right. I'm also thinking of the story's most grounded and compelling subplot. For much of the movie, Latif is driving around Houston, desperate to find breast milk for the baby, who can't keep formula down. Fortunately, a lactating sex worker, played by Tiffany Boone, is on hand to save the day, which she does with the utmost generosity.

33:06In Tarek's bracing film, mercy can come to us all in the most mysterious ways. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother. Coming up, investigative journalist Cheyenne Roundtree talks about her new book, Bad Boy for Life, The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Thumbtack. Some tasks can feel easy, but home projects can bring second guesses. Is that noise normal? Is that water damage? Who should be called?

33:46That's where Thumbtack comes in. Just upload a photo or voice note, and it uses AI-powered search to match with the right top-rated local pro. So instead of guessing, there's clarity and confidence when hiring. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today. This message comes from Rinse. With Rinse, your laundry will come back fresh, folded, and ready to wear right on schedule. One tap or text is all it takes. No calling, no reminders. Same as always. Rinse. It's time to be great. More at Rinse.com.

34:44This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. For 30 years, Sean Combs was one of America's most visible men. As a producer, he helped shape Mary J. Blige's early sound, signed the Notorious B.I.G., and built Bad Boy Records into a powerhouse that carried hip-hop into the mainstream. Then he turned himself into a brand as a rapper with a clothing line, a vodka partnership, TV appearances, movies, and parties so lavish that presidents sent birthday wishes. He even got the world to call him by a new name every few years. Puff, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, and finally Love. My guest today, Cheyenne Roundtree, is an investigative reporter for Rolling Stone, and in her new book, she examines whether those reinventions also helped Combs make a fresh start, a way to make the public forget about the scandals that came before.

35:41A note to our listeners, before we go further, this conversation includes descriptions of sexual violence, drug use, and other adult subject matter. Combs is now serving a four-year federal prison sentence. A jury convicted him last year on two counts of transporting people for prostitution. The trial centered in part on what Combs called freak-offs, sometimes days-long, drug-fueled sexual encounters involving his girlfriends and male escorts that he directed and often filmed. Jurors acquitted him of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. The federal investigation began after his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, filed a 2023 lawsuit describing years of beatings and sexual coercion.

36:32Her account of one beating was later corroborated publicly when CNN aired hotel surveillance footage showing Combs attacking her. In May 2024, Roundtree and her colleagues at Rolling Stone published a six-month investigation into Combs' history of violence. They contacted more than 300 people, and more than 50 agreed to speak. The book builds on that reporting with more than 100 sources, along with police and FBI records, court documents, text messages, and emails. Her book is called Bad Boy for Life, The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs. And Cheyenne Roundtree, welcome to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me.

37:15One big truth is that he was extremely powerful in the music industry and entertainment overall. How much of Combs' behavior was kind of like an open secret within the industry? It seemed to be this just kind of background music to whatever he was doing. I think the spectacle of P. Diddy Puff Daddy was bigger than these incidents that were popping up along the timeline with him. And he was able to overshadow any of these accusations, any of these lawsuits that came up or police reports of minor infractions. And it just kind of kept getting bigger and bigger. And it was one of the things that really surprised me throughout my reporting was the amount of things that were well documented either in the press, newspapers, or little police reports that just disappeared, went away, and there wasn't really much mainstream attention put on it.

38:13You actually call Combs one of the original influencers. This is long before social media because he didn't just know how to promote a record or throw a party. He seemed to understand how to control a story, how to turn attention into power. Even the story of how he got the name Puffy continually changed throughout the course of his career, especially early on. Is that one of the earlier signs of his skill at being, I guess, kind of like a myth maker? I think so. I think it was the first instance that he created a persona around himself. And his first explanation was really early on, and it was explained as, oh, he just had a temper and he ballooned up in anger.

38:59And then at some point, he didn't even want to talk about the origin of it. And it's a question mark of it's kind of an innocent nickname, really, when you think about as a kid. Why would you tell Oprah that you can't talk about it? So it feeds into this mysteriousness that he cultivated at an early age or in his early 20s, and then how he was able to shed that as time went on. And he just really had a great handle on who he wanted to be seen as. And the biggest shift we saw was when he went from Puff Daddy, Puffy to Diddy, which came after the criminal trial in 2001 when he was accused of carrying a firearm into a crowded nightclub where people were injured.

39:39And he actually says at one point, you know, no more Puff Daddy, I'm going by Diddy. And that was a turning point for him kind of being this mogul business type figure versus this hip hop music executive. What's interesting about that is there are just so many stories that are happening underneath their whisper network. Even some of the executives who worked with Combs and complained about him still wanted to get into his parties. And those parties became places where music, nightlife, and celebrity all came together. What did Combs understand about access, creating this type of environment as a form of power?

40:28He was the gatekeeper to Coulter in New York City at that time. And he was able to kind of leverage these connections of going to a cool party, controlling this guest list, that it's not just music people that wanted to be invited to. It was power brokers. It was models. It was actors. And being able to control that environment and curry favor with people just to have access to these spaces, he was able to leverage into business deals later on. and to be this guy that everyone wanted to be in his good graces so they can have fun. And yes, people were drinking and things might have gotten a little bit crazy, but it was all done at first under this guise of just having a good time and letting your hair down with people in your social circle.

41:19And later on, that became more called into question. And, you know, there was civil lawsuits filed that claimed that that's where they were sexually assaulted. But in the beginning, it was just people coming together to have a good time. I mean, by the 2000s, he wasn't just selling records. He had his clothing line and vodka and restaurants and television and movies. And one pattern in your book is that, and it's very much in line of someone that you write about he greatly admire, and that is our now president, Donald Trump. because it seems like with every scandal, he not only survived it, he often came back bigger.

42:02I mean, that's the case like in the early 2000s with him changing his name after that criminal case. But was there a point when success itself started to protect him? I would say the success always protected him. His earliest encounter with kind of a scandal was the City College of New York tragedy where there was a stampede at a charity event he hosted. It was because he already was proving to be successful at Uptown Records that that institution protected him. There was insurance and obviously there was a lot of civil lawsuits that came later about finding Blamer who was responsible for this tragedy because people died.

42:49But there was that backing and support that he had from a record label because he was proving his worth at that time. And by the time the case was kind of wrapping up, he was working on Mary J. Blige, who became obviously a superstar. But I would argue that his success has always protected him and it's always carried him through to the next high. That event at City College, he helped promote that. It was oversold. It was a charity event, as you mentioned, a basketball event to raise money for HIV AIDS. Nine people, as you said, died. Did he face any consequences at all? There was an investigation and he was assigned partial responsibility for not having enough security there.

43:39But in the end, he did pay out a significant amount of money to the victim's families. But in terms of his reputation, in terms of his career, nothing really happened. It was kind of business as usual. And then it was a few years after that that he founded Bad Boy. In the book, you go back to Sean Combs' Before the Fame. His father was killed when he was a toddler. His mother moved him out of Harlem to Mount Vernon. She was determined to give him opportunities, but you actually spoke to people who also said another mission of hers was to make him be tough. And there's one childhood story that seems to capture that toughness from his family.

44:29his grandmother, sent him to the store for cigarettes. And he tells this story as a tale of just how his family kind of built fortitude within him. What happened? So the story was that he was sent by his grandmother to go buy cigarettes from the corner store, the bodega. And along the way, he encounters this bully who basically snatches the cigarette money from him. And he goes back home and his mom, Janice, tells him, you are not coming back into this house until you get that money back. Kind of instilling this idea of you're not to be a pushover. And he went back, got beat up by the bully, but he was able to get the cash back.

45:17But he told this story of kind of how he learned to toughen up at a young age, But he kind of says, my mom would have let me slept out on the street all night. Like I had to come back. That facing the bully was better than facing Janice. There's also this story. He actually talked about it on Fresh Air with Terry Gross when he did an interview with her some years ago. That when he learned that his father had been involved in the drug trade, he said, I'm definitely like him. but I'm just doing it in a legal way. What did his father's story come to represent to him? He idolized him, but he also viewed him as this cautionary tale of why he didn't want to get involved in the street life.

46:07He saw himself as being a hustler, being charismatic, being a go but doing things a different way. So that meant through music, through music entrepreneurship, through businesses. But he idolized his dad. There was a point that he started wearing a medallion with his face on it. And there was this kind of remorse he had for not being able to have a father-son relationship that he really seemed to crave throughout his life. What's your relationship to the music, to the persona of Combs? I grew up in the 90s, 2000s. So to me, he's always been Diddy. He made Shake Your Tail Feather, BTUK, Bump Bump Bump.

47:01And obviously he founded Biggie, but he's kind of always been part of the culture. My relationship with the music, listening back to the music as I was working, the songs are incredible and they still stand the test of time and it has been hard to listen to some of that music and his direct influence especially some of the songs like last night where he's in the outro kind of referring to a bust up between him and a girlfriend about not answering his phone call so you're listening to the music with fresh ears especially with his most recent album Homecoming, where he talks about Cassie saying, Cece, come home.

47:43The whole album is meant to be a soundtrack to a freak off. So I don't know where I kind of land on some of the older music and how I view him in relationship to it. For 30 years, like we've all consumed the music and the movies and the shows and we've been fans. But in many regards, so much of this was in plain sight. And it's the same way with R. Kelly. It's the same thing happening and it's disturbing. It's hard to wrap your head around. And as someone who came of age with Diddy's music, it's almost overwhelming to think that something like this could continue to be pervasive and we all just kind of accept it.

48:30Yeah, I think that's the hardest like reckoning kind of beyond this is just like, was I complicit? Did I even recognize the signs that are in front of me? Or, you know, there's interviews that he was kind of telling on himself about certain things. And when you see all these things stacked up and this temper and it's like, we didn't have the full picture. And once you have the full picture, you're horrified. and a lot of people also that had seen maybe these early bursts of domestic violence not with Cassie but with another woman they thought it was a one-time thing and I think again when instances like R.

49:14Kelly and Sean Combs that there are master manipulators and not to say that that's a pass for people not saying something. But again, they are cultivating this dynamic where you do think that this is a one-time thing or that you actually didn't get the whole grasp of it. I don't know what's the understanding. I'm just going to take their word for it. And I think it's a lesson for everyone that, you know, when they think something's wrong, to find an avenue to say something about it or to confide in someone else about it. Combs is currently projected to be released sometime in early 2028. What did you learn about maybe even the next reinvention already beginning?

50:05There was a Netflix documentary that came out at the end of last year. 50 Cent produced it. It recently won an Emmy for editing, I believe. And there is this remarkable footage of real time right before he's arrested in September of 2024. And he is planning a doc of his own and his own comeback story. And it just reinforced this idea that he has always been in firm control of his image. And we should expect no less whenever he is released. and there was reports recently about he was trying to talk to a digital comms person to keep a finger on the pulse of his public perception on social media.

50:57So he's very attuned to what people are thinking and saying about him and I have no doubt that eventually whenever he is released that he will come forward and he will say everything he has to say over these past few years. Cheyenne Roundtree, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Cheyenne Roundtree is an investigative reporter at Rolling Stone and the author of Bad Boy for Life, The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs.

51:35Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. This week's engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Schorrock, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacunde, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

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