1 Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Song Infuriated Its Writer So Much
Sean “Diddy” Combs was famous for combining rap with other genres in order to make songs that would appeal to a crossover audience. For example, he fused rap with classic rock on the Led Zeppelin sampling “Come with Me” and with pop on “Coming Home.” In 1997, he made a rare mashup of rap with soft rock that became a huge hit.
Diddy released a hit song in honor of The Notorious B.I.G.
Diddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” heavily samples the instrumental of The Police’s towering classic “Every Breath You Take.” The original song appears to be a comforting love ballad on the surface. However it is about stalking and an unhealthy obsession.
In Diddy’s hands, the song became far more sentimental. Instead of portraying a decaying mind like “Every Breath You Take,” “I’ll Be Missing You” is a heartfelt musical tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. Instrumentally, the tracks are almost identical.
A member of The Police was no fan of Diddy
Andy Summers from The Police is a credited writer of “Every Breath You Take,” meaning some of his work is present in “I’ll Be Missing You,” although he is not listed as a writer of that song. In a 2012 interview with The A.V. Club he said he’s no fan of the later track. “That was the major rip-off of all time,” he said. “I found out about it after it was on the radio. It was actually my kid, who was 10 at the time, said, ‘Hey dad, there’s some girl on the radio who’s playing you guys!’ I went into his room and listened to his radio, and I was like, ‘This is me, what the f*** is this?’
“Anyway, it turned out to be Puff Daddy, a single that sold 30 million copies and all the rest of it,” he added. “Major. The Police is being used a lot in rap. Loads of it. And I mean, it’s very flattering. I guess everybody likes it. You can work yourself up into a fury about ‘Why am I not getting paid for it?’ The Puff Daddy one was weird for me, because, I mean, what do you use with the guitar riff?” Summers noted that his guitar riff appeared in Diddy’s song.
How the 2 songs performed on the charts
“I’ll Be Missing You” became the biggest hit of the rapper’s career. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks. The tune lasted on the chart for 33 weeks. The tune appeared on the album No Way Out. That record was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for four weeks, remaining on the chart for 66 weeks in total. No Way Out remains Diddy’s biggest record.
Notably, the track performed better on the charts than “Every Break You Take.” That song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks altogether. “Every Breath You Take” appeared on The Police’s album Synchronicity. Synchronicity reached No. 1 for 17 weeks and spent 75 weeks on the chart in total. While The Police were one if the defining bands of the 1980s, Synchronicity was the band’s only chart-topping album in the United States.
White Diddy’s life and actions have become extremely controversial, he undeniably knew how to run up the pop charts in the 1990s.
