Diddy Faces Backlash Over ‘Hypocritical’ Call To Spend More On Black Businesses

In an open letter titled “If You Love Us, Pay Us,” Combs called on companies to up their advertising spending with Black-owned media businesses to invest in the Black community, writing that “no longer can Corporate America manipulate our community into believing that incremental progress is acceptable action.”

Combs wrote his own cable TV network, Revolt, has to “fight for crumbs” like every other Black-owned businesses for advertising revenue while big businesses make billions of dollars off the Black community.

However, Combs’ open letter appears to have backfired, as social media users pointed out Combs himself has been accused for years of profiting off underpaid Black artists signed to his record label.

The Lox,  a rap group once signed to Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment, accused the record exec of withholding the group’s publishing rights during a 2005 radio interview, which Combs called into to defend himself — but the issue was settled after Combs returned the publishing rights to members Jadakiss, Sheek Louch, and Styles P shortly after their on-air clash.

Mase, another rapper once on Bad Boy’s roster, slammed Combs last year in an Instagram post, accusing Combs of refusing to sell Mase’s publishing rights back to him unless he could match an offer from a European buyer in excess of $2 million after initially purchasing the rights from Mase for just $20,000 in 1996, Mase claimed.

Combs’ drama over music rights is just a chapter in a long history of artists who claim they were taken advantage of by powerful music industry leaders with unfair recording contracts.