He was a GIF machine before we knew what a GIF was or how, 15 years in the future, making viral content could turn anyone into a celebrity. We were still sending SMS messages on our cellular phones and two-way pagers as Combs was making hip-hop art that predated visually driven social media culture. His image looked larger than life in 1999, when consumers watched music videos on television and bought clothes at shopping malls.

He understood hip-hop as a lifestyle at a time before “influencer” had entered our cultural lexicon. But beneath the showmanship was Combs the innovator. The visuals, the braggadocio, and the drama kept us entertained in the 1990s and early 2000s. In fairness to the audience, it was hard not to be distracted by the shiny things. It is something to which his team is very sensitive-what they might think of as his rightful context. Perhaps too much has been made of it, at the expense of understanding what Combs meant in the culture. Much has been made about the shiny suits and over-the-top videos that made Bad Boy Records, Combs’s eponymous record label, a massive hit factory. I don’t know about changing the world or anything like that as possible.” The Puff Daddy era is not just Combs’s cultural foundation, it is also a defining moment for pop culture.Īs the late 1990s were giving way to the 21st century, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs had taken hip-hop iconography to scale. “You have the Puff Daddy era, that’s like this young, brash, bold hip-hop, unapologetic swagger on a million and just fearlessness and really doing it for the art and rooted, the only thing I know is hip-hop. Each one signals an ideology and a strategy. The name changes are about the almost-billion-dollar brand he built. “Yeah, I do,” he says without hesitation. I ask Combs if that is how he thinks of them.

Born Sean Combs in Harlem in 1969, the 51-year-old businessman has had several names through the years. You will enjoy yourself here or someone will die trying. The hospitality is both overt and inconspicuous. As I wait for Combs to join us, a steady flow of casually dressed people attend to my comfort.

I dub the playlist “Global Black Dopeness” in my mind for how it broadcasts the man who lives here. Music streams overhead, first from Nigeria’s Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, then Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album. Within moments of entering, a member of his staff offers you a drink and sets out a lovely spread of hors d’oeuvres. There is a curated Cîroc collection to the right and artfully framed family photos to the left. As you stand at the center of the great room with all the glass doors open to the temperate climate, an infinity pool in front of you bleeds into the edges of the ocean and the sky. The first level is almost entirely glass on two sides you can see the Pacific from every corner. Crossing the threshold of Sean Combs’s Los Angeles home is an immersive experience.

Lower ed by tressie mcmillan cottom