Sean “Diddy” Combs actually didn’t assume this one by, did he?
The music mogul drew the ire of social media this week when he posted an open letter to company America demanding it pay Black creators what they’re owed — oddly ignoring the truth that he personally ripped off Black creators for many years.
In a prolonged op-ed, titled, If You Love Us, Pay Us: A Letter From Sean Combs to Company America, the Revolt TV founder took goal at Basic Motors (GM) for utilizing his firm “for instance of the Black-owned media it helps” when GM was “confronted by the leaders of a number of Black-owned media firms.”
The Unhealthy Boy Data head defined that whereas Revolt receives advert income from the automobile maker, he nonetheless thinks the corporate has an extended method to go when it comes to supporting Black-owned media firms. He defined:
“As an alternative, REVOLT, identical to different Black-owned media firms, fights for crumbs whereas GM makes billions of {dollars} yearly from the Black neighborhood… Exposing GM’s historic refusal to pretty put money into Black-owned media is just not an assassination of character, it’s exposing the way in which GM and lots of different advertisers have all the time handled us. Not can Company America manipulate our neighborhood into believing that incremental progress is suitable motion.”
The celebrity went on to level out that firms like GM have “exploited” Black tradition, “undermined our energy and excluded Black entrepreneurs from taking part within the worth created by Black customers.” He famous that lower than 1% of the $239 billion manufacturers spent on promoting in 2019 was invested in Black-owned media firms, including how Revolt estimates that solely $10 million of the $three billion GM spent on advertisements was invested in Black-owned media.
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Whereas Diddy made some significantly good factors, his missive didn’t appeal to the form of consideration he supposed it to. Many had been fast to level out the perceived hypocrisy of the mogul’s phrases, citing the almost-billionaire’s reported historical past of underpaying the acts signed to his Unhealthy Boy roster and affiliated songwriters.
Loads of critics pointed to a January 2020 Instagram submit from former Unhealthy Boy rapper Mase, who referred to as out Diddy in response to a message of Black empowerment the Inform Me hitmaker made at an business occasion earlier than that 12 months’s Grammy Awards. Within the submit, Mase alleged that Diddy’s “previous enterprise practices” have knowingly and repeatedly “purposely starved your artists and been extraordinarily unfair to the exact same artist that helped u acquire that Icon Award.”
Given this icky historical past, critics had a lot to say about Diddy’s essay. Customers tweeted:
“Diddy, it begins with us. I used to be lately approached to host a present for Revolt and it got here with out pay. We can’t hold knocking white of us for his or her disrespect in the direction of minority creators whereas doing the identical factor to one another.”
“pay the artists that you simply stole from old flame”
“diddy was utilizing sweatshop in honduras to make sean john, refusing to pay his ravenous + broke artists, nonetheless hoarding (largely black) artists’ masters, and is of the era that was instrumental in hip-hop’s commercialization & corporatization, so the irony right here is unimaginable“
the whole 90s Unhealthy Boy information roster studying this proper now like pic.twitter.com/31vYGkHVxd
— #NujabesTaughtMe (@ProsodiJ) April 8, 2021
We’ll have to attend and see if and the way Diddy responds to this — however these critics actually make level, don’t U assume?
[Image via Instar/WENN]
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