page_title: Sean Combs
section_title: 1988–1996: Career beginnings
hierarchical_section_title: Sean Combs / Career / 1988–1996: Career beginnings
caption_attribution_description: English: Bad Boy Entertainment Worldwide on Broadway. Sean John advertisement on billboard in Times Square towards bottom of the picture.
context_page_description: Sean John Combs, also known by the stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, record executive, entrepreneur, and actor. Combs was born in New York City but was raised in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, in 1993.
  Combs' debut album, No Way Out, has been certified seven times platinum. No Way Out was followed by successful albums such as Forever, The Saga Continues..., and Press Play. In 2009, Combs formed the musical group Dirty Money and released the critically and commercially successful album Last Train to Paris. Combs also produced and cultivated artists such as Mary J. Blige and The Notorious B.I.G..
  Combs has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards, and is the producer of MTV's Making the Band. In 2019, Forbes estimated his net worth at $740 million.
context_section_description: Combs became an intern at New York's Uptown Records. While working as a talent director at Uptown, he helped develop Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. In his college days Combs had a reputation for throwing parties, some of which attracted up to a thousand participants. In 1991, Combs promoted an AIDS fundraiser with Heavy D held at the City College of New York (CCNY) gymnasium, following a charity basketball game. The event was oversold, and a stampede occurred in which nine people died.
  In 1993, after being fired from Uptown, Combs established his new label Bad Boy Entertainment as a joint venture with Arista Records, taking then-newcomer Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G., with him. Both Wallace and Craig Mack quickly released hit singles, followed by successful LPs, particularly Wallace's Ready to Die. Combs signed more acts to Bad Boy, including Carl Thomas, Faith Evans, 112, Total, and Father MC. The Hitmen, his in-house production team, worked with Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil' Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, SWV, Aretha Franklin, and others. Mase and the Lox joined Bad Boy just as a widely publicized rivalry with the West Coast's Death Row Records was beginning. Combs and Wallace were criticized and parodied by Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight in songs and interviews during the mid-1990s. During 1994–1995, Combs produced several songs for TLC's CrazySexyCool, which finished the decade as number 25 on Billboard's list of top pop albums of the decade.
caption: Bad Boy headquarters on Broadway near Times Square. A billboard of Combs is in the distance.
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