Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs may have bought the silence of his A-list friends by returning the lucrative rights to their music albums in exchange for confidentiality agreements, a former rapper in his orbit has claimed.
A month before Diddy suffered a scathing lawsuit from his ex-girlfriend Cassie that ultimately resulted in criminal charges, Diddy shocked the music industry by returning publishing rights under his Bad Boy label to a host of artists under his control.
While the decision was praised at the time, rapper Mark Curry joined Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial of Diddy this week to offer his insider thoughts on what he believes really happened.
“He gave all the artists back their publishing rights in exchange for a confidentiality agreement not to talk about him,” he said. —Because I think he had some idea that this was brewing.
“I tried to cover his tracks real quick, but it didn’t work.”
Mark Curry joined the Daily Mail’s hit podcast The Trial of Diddy this week to offer his insider thoughts on what he believes really happened.
Curry appeared alongside host Marjorie Hernandez, the Daily Mail’s west coast news editor, in the episode to delve into Diddy’s legacy following his arrest.
The rapper told us that even years after leaving Bad Boy, he still hasn’t recovered financially or emotionally.
After years of touring and writing hits for Diddy, the promise of his debut album never materialized. And the publishing rights to the songs he wrote under Bad Boy didn’t put any money in his pocket, as Diddy and the label owned most of the publishing rights.
Disillusioned, Curry said he made the decision to step away from his rap career and returned home to Georgia. To make ends meet, he became a carpenter.
But the ups and downs of his career with Bad Boy and his dealings with the ‘devil’ (whom he often calls Diddy) continue to haunt him.
In 2009, Curry wrote a book titled ‘Dancing with the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip-Hop’ detailing his often tumultuous experiences working with Combs.
He said the last time he spoke to Diddy was around September 2023, a month before Cassie filed her explosive lawsuit.
That’s when Diddy made his move that shocked the music industry, returning the publishing rights Bad Boy owned to his original artists, including Curry, rapper Ma$e, Cam’ron, Faith Evans, The Lox, 112 and others.
Curry wrote his tell-all memoir Dancing with the Devil (referring to Diddy) in 2009, and said that for years Diddy promised him he would release his own album, but he never did, instead taking credit for his work.
Curry appeared on numerous Bad Boy Records tracks until he left the label in 2005, including the smash hit Bad Boy for Life in 2001.
Diddy at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles, a year after signing Curry.
While many in the industry applauded Diddy’s decision, Curry said he believes the producer already knew the walls were closing in on him.
“He gave all the artists back their publishing rights in exchange for a confidentiality agreement not to talk about him,” he said. —Because I think he had some idea that this was brewing.
“I tried to cover his tracks real quick, but it didn’t work.”
Curry compared the recovery of his publishing rights to “like giving you back a Nissan Sentra when it was new in 2024” when “it wasn’t even valued in the junkyard.”
“Now they have smart cars, battery-powered Teslas and stuff,” he added.
‘I felt like he gave me back a woman I used to love, who he abused and raped, took advantage of, and then gave her back to me. I used to love her… That’s how I felt about it. I used to love her. Then he did that.’
Curry said that “as soon as I got it back, I got rid of it the same way: I don’t want it.”
When Hernandez asked if he had signed a confidentiality agreement, Curry responded, “(Diddy) can’t tell me not to do anything.”
‘Because we had a contract when we started the business and it said that you would help me advance my career. That didn’t work. So now any other contract you have for me, I will avoid that too.
‘So, since we’re going to be disrespectful, we’re going to be disrespectful across the table. It just won’t be you telling me and me listening. Then I’ll be like, cool. That won’t stop me from doing anything.’
Greg Kading, one of the detectives assigned to Tupac’s murder, previously joined DailyMail.com podcast The Trial of Diddy this week to discuss the rap mogul’s alleged link to the case.
Curry’s appearance comes after Hernandez was last joined by Greg Kading, one of the investigators assigned to the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.
It explored Diddy’s alleged connection to the murder, which was said to have its roots in a dispute between Diddy’s Bad Boy Records on the East Coast and Marion ‘Suge’ Knight’s Death Row Records on the West Coast.
Tupac’s murder occurred on September 13, 1996, when he was shot to death on the Las Vegas Strip in a car driven by Suge Knight. Six months later, while leaving a party in Los Angeles after the 1997 Soul Train Awards, Notorious BIG was shot and killed.
Kading claimed that Combs hired members of the notorious Crips street gang in 1995 during a Summer Jams tour stop in Anaheim, California, to pull off the hit.
To hear how Kading explained the alleged connection, follow The Trial of Diddy wherever you get your podcasts now. New episodes are released every week.
