Bad Boy

One of the major hip-hop entrepreneurs to have achieved prominence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Sean Combs's rise to fame and notoriety as the controller of Bad Boy Records, a multimillion dollar music empire, is charted here by Ronin Ro. Ro's former rapper status makes him well qualified to interpret the labyrinthine business dealings of the music industry, and gives him intimate access to inside sources. He theorizes that the seeds of the hip-hop mogul's later business reversals lay in an excessive hands-on approach to his artists, coupled with a macho territorial instinct that fueled internecine feuding within the community and led to the murder of one of his label's most popular and lucrative acts, the rapper Biggie Smalls. While Combs's empire was by no means destroyed as a result, his influence on hip-hop was greatly diminished, with many of Bad Boy's artists decamping to other labels; his subsequent forays into fashion, while not unsuccessful, failed to recreate his previous dominance. BAD BOY is a revealing look at the inner workings of the world of entertainment big business, and an instructive guided tour through its many pitfalls. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.