Diddy Covers Vanity Fair, Talks Kim Porter, J.Lo, Love Era And New Label

We just had to show “LOVE” to the September issue of Vanity Fair.

Source: Carlos “Kaito” Araujo / Vanity Fair

None other than Sean “Love” Combs covers the new issue and inside he discusses how his many names correspond to the different eras in his life; he also discusses a plan to return to music by launching a new R&B label where instead of signing artists, he’ll be entering into 50/50 partnerships with them. Combs also touches on the loss of Kim Porter, what he was up to with THAT interestingly timed J. Lo post and more. Check out a few excerpts below, via Vanity Fair:

On His Name Changes:

“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,” says Combs. “I don’t know about changing the world or anything like that as possible.”

“Puff Daddy had just got through East-West war. Nobody wanted to get in the room with me. They thought they was going to get shot.” That is when Combs started to think of himself in eras: “When I changed names, I put periods on those eras.”

The Diddy era was an homage to his brother Biggie, who clowned him about his rhythmic “diddy bop” swagger. “Then after Biggie, I just, and after all of that, I wanted to get into other businesses. And so Biggie had called me Diddy because of my bop, the way I walk, my swagger, and they got something called the diddy bop, that just, it just happens to, it’s not me, it was something before me. That’s the diddy bop. It’s the way a brother would walk around, walk down the street.”

On The LOVE Era:

“I am the happiest I’ve ever been in life, I laugh the most, I smile the most, I breathe the most,” he says.

“Love is a mission,” he says. “I feel like that’s one of the biggest missions that will actually shift things. But besides that, we—the world—is different. We have the internet, we have the power, we have a culture, I have us on a five-year plan.”

“My people taking time to feel like it’s all right to love,” he continues. “Take time to huddle up your tribe, take time to communicate and know your power. Take time to heal. You know what I’m saying, [taking care of] yourself without feeling like, oh, you’re going to be labeled a racist now because you talk about taking care of yourself.”

On “Saving” Black People And The #MeToo Movement:

“I feel like God sent me, God, put on my heart, ‘What’s your purpose?’ I was looking at all these things, it’s preachers and just different people talking about purpose because I was like, man, purpose is something deep. Have I really found my purpose? I know I’m making money and I’m successful and I’m changing the game so called, but is that my purpose? And then I really prayed on it and God told me, ‘Your purpose is to play a part in saving the Black race.’”

“If you living on this earth and you trying to keep on dealing with this sh*t, that ain’t the way we going to live,” he says. “And people out there that are tired of it. And it’s not just a Black and white thing. You know what I’m saying? It’s just tired of the way that it doesn’t have to be. Like when they said it was over—when they said in the #MeToo, when it was over, it was over,” he says emphatically. “The #MeToo movement, the truth, is that it inspired me. It showed me that you can get maximum change,” he adds.

Hit the flip for more.

Source: Carlos “Kaito” Araujo / Vanity Fair

Amidst all this talk of puropose and change, it’s important to acknowledge the tragic death of Kim Porter, the mother of three of Combs’ kids. He says that loss propelled him to change his life.

On the loss of Kim Porter:

“And so, you know, I had to start to deal with it when I lost Kim. ’Cause I was like, man, you had it. I’m not saying I would do any of it differently. God willing—I would have had more time,” he says, then adds, “I look at my life as I got a second chance. I’m on my second mountain.”

You may also recall that time earlier this year when J.Lo was suddenly single again and Diddy appeared to either be trolling or shooting his shot. Diddy finally addresses that here!

On His J.Lo throwback post:

“It wasn’t no trolling involved, that’s just my friend. And I don’t have nothing to say about her relationship or her life.”

On His Return To Music And New Label:

“I’m coming back into music, you know?”

“Yeah, all R&B label, because I feel like R&B was abandoned and it’s a part of our African American culture. And I’m not signing any artists. Because if you know better, you do better. I’m doing 50-50 partnerships with pure transparency. That’s the thing. [The new label is so that] we can own the genre; we don’t own hip-hop right now. We have a chance to—and I’m going to make sure that—we own R&B.”

Interesting stuff right? For the full read visit Vanity Fair

Check out a behind the scenes video of the phenomenal Vanity Fair cover shoot below, where Diddy retells his infamous 15 cockroaches story and discusses how he transformed from era to era making name changes along the way:

We love that he uses Beyoncé as the barometer for his daughters! If it ain’t good enough for Bey, it ain’t good enough for Chance, D’Lila or Jessie!