Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul, has used a host of moniker over time from Puff to Puffy to Puff Daddy to P. Diddy to Diddy and is sending out signals that he may be morphing back to Puff Daddy.
Combs recently signed in to his MySpace page using the old name. He also made a recent guest appearance to promote a new single, a remix of former stylist O’Neal McKnight’s single Check Your Coat. On it he rapped:
They call me Puff Daddy…he’s back. Yeah, you heard me right –I said Puff Daddy, I’m about to back on that Puff Daddy s–t.”
It sounds like he’s just throwing it out there and is still not totally sold on bringing the old handle back into service after retiring it in 2001. In a new MySpace page blog entry, he wrote:
This is your boy P. Diddy, the King of the Remix…”
Combs legal team recently sent a cease and desist letter to a cuff link business operating the website Cuff-Daddy.com, telling them that the name was too close to his alternate stage name. Another slight twist that might be causing the resurrection of Daddy is a British court decision in 2006 that says Combs can’t go by Diddy in the U.K. because a record producer Richard Diddy Dearlove have been using the name professionally long before Daddy became Diddy.
The very latest MySpace entry adds to the confusion:
It’s your boy Diddy comin’ to you live to straighten out a rumor that’s out there on the Internet. It’s being blogged all over the world. Check this out. Your boy has not changed his name. I did not change my name. I have not changed my name. I have not changed my name. I want to stress and kind of ask the people in the power positions — the bloggers and the outlets, the reporters — let’s utilize our time with something more important than if I changed my name. There are millions of Americans out there that are not registered to vote. Let’s utilize our power through your blogs to get these guys registered to vote and let’s make sure that they vote on my birthday, November 4. That’s my birthday present that I want from all you guys.”
It appears that Combs is messing with his fans or he’s in the midst of a major identity crisis. You can decide for yourself.
Prince went through a similar metamorphosis from Prince Rogers Nelson to Prince to an unpronounceable love symbol that his fans turned into TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince) and back to Prince in 2000.
Check out photos of Combs below.