Armed with one of the biggest (all puns intended) rap icons of all time, Bad Boy Records was a force to be reckoned with during the 1990s. Led by head honcho, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, the label dominated hip-hop charts with hit single after hit single. Not only did the Bad Boy roster include legendary New York emcee, The Notorious B.I.G, but so too did it include Craig Mack, Faith Evans, and New Edition. Before its modern transformation into a division of Epic Records, the brand left an unmistakable mark on pop culture and set the trend for years to come. Without Diddy and rest of the folks over at Bad Boy, the world wouldn’t have genre-defining hits like “Flava In Ya Ear”, “Juicy”, and “You Used to Love Me”.
Despite the company’s massive success, Bad Boy Records went through its share of hardship. The most newsworthy of these issues, is of course, the incredibly publicized war with Death Row Records. It stemmed from a friendly rivalry between the two scorching hot music powers, but the whole thing got nasty real fast. This spat turned into a violent feud between Bad Boy star, Biggie, and West Coast phenom, Tupac Shakur. At this point, you should be familiar with the feud which we profiled earlier last year. Needless to say, the aftermath shook up both record labels and forced them to rebuild amongst the rubble of their fallen stars.
After the deaths of Pac and Big, Puff Daddy began to step away from the shadows and transform himself into a bonafide celebrity. While it might have been a relative surprise to witness the rapid ascension of the label exec, those in the know were aware of the hard work put in by Sean Combs. It’s an incredible story and in a few months, we’ll get a first-hand account of the company’s entire operation. Apple Music is set to debut a Bad Boy documentary on June 25, and it’ll centre around last year’s insanely produced anniversary show at Madison Square Garden. Entitled, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, the doc will stream exclusively on Apple Music and feature a plethora of special guests. You can read Puffy’s official statement about the release below.
“I knew this was a story that should be shared with the world… Heather Parry and Live Nation Productions, and Director Daniel Kaufman, helped create this very special documentary. Now I’m blessed to also be working with Apple to showcase the film and share Bad Boy’s history and impact with fans. The support Live Nation, Apple and everyone on the team has given to this project is a true testament to the Bad Boy legacy.”
