Sean “Diddy” Combs will be indebted to Sting for the rest of his life.
The hip-hop icon, who is 53 years old, used a snippet of the rocker’s 1983 single “Every Breath You Take” in his 1997 hit “I’ll Be Missing You.” He disclosed in a tweet on Wednesday that he pays the former frontman of The Police $5,000 per day in royalties because he sampled the rocker’s song. “Every Breath You Take” was released in 1983.
“Love to my brother @OfficialSting,” he wrote in the Twitter post accompanying an unearthed tape from the rocker’s 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club, which is where he first talked about the deal, first indicating that he got $2,000 a day from Diddy. The interview was published in 2018.
The artist, who is 71 years old, reveals in the interview that the producer did not seek for permission to sample the record until after it had been made available to the public. He continues by saying, “We’re extremely close buddies now.” The song was performed in a way that was just stunning.
The song “I’ll Be Missing You” was written as a memorial to the late Notorious B.I.G., who passed away in 1997 at the age of 24. Diddy was joined on the single by his ex-wife Faith Evans, who is also the mother of his son C.J. Wallace, who is 26 years old. The R&B trio 112 was also included. Upon the song’s first release, it quickly rose to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list, earning Diddy two honors at the Billboard Music Awards event in 1997 for best rap artist and top rap song, respectively.
The most recent time that the rapper focused on their connection was in March when he sent a tweet commemorating the 26th anniversary of his passing.
“There will never be another opportunity like this. The ALL-TIME BEST RAPPER WHO EVER LIVED, “wrote Diddy. “This day is dedicated to honoring and celebrating you, King. I adore and mourn your absence!”
In an interview in March 2022, Evans, 49, discussed his thoughts on the late rapper’s legacy, saying, “The creator of these rhymes, which could be so gritty, sometimes harsh, and sometimes explicit, was occasionally all of those things. He was also sometimes all of those things at the same time. Nonetheless, on the whole, he was simply a very chill, lovely, and amusing guy who the vast majority of people enjoyed having around them.”
When asked about where he would be right now, Evans said that he “certainly would’ve done more albums” and “had a few more artists” if he had followed his original plan.