Welcome to Diddy’s Love Era

Vanessa Obioha

It is official! The Sean ‘P.Diddy’ Combs’ ‘Love’ era is finally upon us. On Sunday, the rap mogul deleted his Instagram posts, ushering his over 18 million followers into the love era with a single post on Tuesday, August 3. The post coincided with the publication of Vanity Fair’s cover story on him. Diddy, who recently changed his middle name from John to Love, spoke extensively on his purpose and mission in his new dispensation.

Arguably, the rapper’s over two decades music career has witnessed three distinctive periods. There was the Puff Daddy era when Combs fresh-faced was the emblem for bold and unapologetic hip-hop millionaire. Then, he said, he was doing it for the art and the only thing he knew was hip-hop.

By 2001, the music entrepreneur changed his name to P.Diddy, an appellation given to him by the rapper, The Notorious B.I.G.

“Biggie had called me Diddy because of my bop, the way I walk, my swagger, and they got something called the diddy bop… it’s not me, it was something before me. That’s the diddy bop,” Combs says. “It’s the way a brother would walk around, walk down the street.”

Now, 20 years later, Diddy has started a new era which in the interview he described as a mission and a movement from ‘me’ to ‘we’.

“Love is a mission…I feel like that’s one of the biggest missions that will actually shift things. But besides that, we—the world—is different. We have the internet, we have the power, we have a culture, I have us on a five-year plan,” he explained.

“My people taking time to feel like it’s all right to love. Take time to huddle up your tribe, take time to communicate and know your power. Take time to heal. You know what I’m saying, [taking care of] yourself without feeling like, oh, you’re going to be labelled a racist now because you talk about taking care of yourself.”

To understand his purpose on earth, Combs said he had to reconnect with the Supreme One.

“It clicked in and went from me to we, that [I] was sent here not to just do those things that are kind of rooted in personal success but to be able to transfer to we, and do things that are real change and communal success.”

He continued: “I feel like God sent me, God, put on my heart, ‘What’s your purpose?’ I was looking at all these things, it’s preachers and just different people talking about purpose because I was like, man, purpose is something deep. Have I really found my purpose? I know I’m making money and I’m successful and I’m changing the so-called game, but is that my purpose? And then I really prayed on it and God told me, ‘Your purpose is to play a part in saving the Black race.’ And then I immediately, I was like, I need to talk to Harry Belafonte.”

Harry Belafonte was Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidant and known for using his celebrity status to raise money for civil rights actions and organizations. Diddy talked about social responsibilities for artistes and how Black Lives Matter is a Black renaissance.

However, he is concerned that people are too engrossed with serious stuff that they forgot how to have fun and fun is an integral part of the Love era.

“The fun part [of the Love era] is the music, the beat, the style, the rhythm, the walk, the talk, the fashion, the joy, the travels, the places we have never been before.”

Wrapping up the interview, Diddy disclosed that he was returning to music, but not in the genre he’s famous for. This time around, he is shifting his lens to R&B.

“Yeah, all R&B label, because I feel like R&B was abandoned and it’s a part of our African American culture. And I’m not signing any artists. Because if you know better, you do better. I’m doing 50–50 partnerships with pure transparency. That’s the thing. [The new label is so that] we can own the genre; we don’t own hip-hop right now. We have a chance to—and I’m going to make sure that—we own R&B.”