AISHA HARRIS, HOST:
A warning - this episode contains discussion of physical abuse and sexual assault.
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HARRIS: Last month, a civil lawsuit was filed against rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs by his ex-girlfriend and former protege Cassie Ventura. In it, she alleged to have suffered years of emotional and physical abuse during the course of their relationship. Diddy denied the allegations and settled the suit quickly, but other damning claims have resurfaced in its wake. His reputation seems to have been tarnished, at least for the moment, and it has us wondering, is this a crucial turning point for a long-awaited reckoning within the music industry, or merely a blip in the routine of business as usual? I'm Aisha Harris, and you're listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.
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HARRIS: Joining me today is NPR music reporter and editor Sidney Madden. Hello, Sidney. Welcome back.
SIDNEY MADDEN, BYLINE: Hey, Aisha. Thank you.
HARRIS: Also with us is culture writer and critic Shamira Ibrahim. Welcome back to you, too, Shamira.
SHAMIRA IBRAHIM: Hey, Aisha. Thanks for having me back.
HARRIS: I wish it was under better circumstances, but here we are. So, yeah, let's just get right into it. Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, is a singer and model. She signed to Sean "Diddy" Combs' label, Bad Boy Records, in 2005, when she was 19 and he was in his mid-30s. For a little over a decade, she and Diddy were in an on-and-off-again relationship. According to a civil lawsuit filed by Cassie last month, that relationship was brutal. She accused Diddy of a wide range of abuses, including rape, trafficking and assault. Diddy settled the case for an undisclosed amount the day after it was filed, but other suits have since been filed against him, including one that claims he gang-raped a minor. He's denied all of these accusations, but the news has led to some fallout. For one, Diddy stepped down temporarily as chairman of his TV network Revolt.
Now, over the last several years, the #MeToo movement has swept through Hollywood with some force. Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby even faced legal repercussions for abuse. But the music industry and hip-hop in particular has mostly evaded a widespread reckoning, R. Kelly excepted. He's serving time now for child pornography charges. It's too soon to say how this might affect Diddy's legacy in the long run, but considering how hugely influential he's been over the past 30-odd years, it does seem worth questioning whether or not this feels like enough momentum for a bigger movement within the industry. And so, Sid, I'm going to turn to you first because I'm wondering, you know what, if anything, makes these Diddy accusations stand out within the context of the music industry's response to the #MeToo movement, or is it different?
MADDEN: Thanks for that in-depth intro, Aisha, and I'm so glad we're still talking about this because that's partially an answer to your question. The fact that he is such a huge industry magnate, that he is a hip-hop mogul with his hands in multiple different industries, from fashion to restauranteuring to wine and spirits to media - the shadow of his legacy looms very long. But the fact that these allegations have been coming out in such rolling succession is definitely going to change not only his perception in music, but the pivotal turning point we're at right now. So when this news initially broke, the civil suit against Diddy filed by Cassie was over 30 pages long, and it detailed abuse, manipulation, coercion, human trafficking, and, yes, rape, as you said. It really just painted a timeline of how much control he had over her life, pretty much for her entire career.
So anyone who's an early 2000s hip-hop and R&B fan - they'll remember her biggest hit, "Me And U." It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was at a time when there were a lot of young starlets coming up in the hip-hop space, and she was one of those people that was looked at as one of those potentially big stars, like, someone who could be next. But then, as the suit details, from the moment Diddy met her, he was in charge of all things that had to do with her life and livelihood.
And it's really a window into how far her career could have gone if she had never met him. Like, there's details in the suit about him showing up to her 21st birthday unannounced in Las Vegas and forcibly kissing her and their relationship, if we can even call it that, kind of starting there. She was signed to an 10-album deal, which is absolutely unheard of today but is also unheard of in just the new millennium music industry structure. The suit details moments where he took control of her medical records. He was paying for her car, her apartment, every facet of her life. This is the type of control and power that is always the recurring theme of when these accusations come out about marquee names in hip-hop.
Now, what feels different to me about these accusations coming out against Diddy versus some of the other people that we know have had cases filed against them, like Russell Simmons, like L.A. Reid, R. Kelly at the moment when he actually had a reckoning against him...
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: ...Is, in comparison to those people, he is absolutely a industry heavyweight and a, quote-unquote, "kingmaker," "queenmaker." But he's also very visible and very active as an artist himself. Like, outside of music or hip-hop, you might not know who L.A. Reid is.
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: And even for R. Kelly - he was kind of an artist of yesteryear. He had had child pornography, sex trafficking, sexual assault allegations lodged against him for years - decades. But it wasn't until pivotal pieces of media like "Surviving R. Kelly" in 2019 that would eventually lead to him answering to those charges and being found guilty for those charges years later. Diddy is still throwing white parties. Diddy is lounging on the stairs at the Met Gala. Diddy had a No. 1 single in the R&B space last year with "Gotta Move On." Diddy is Grammy-nominated this year in the R&B category. And he's been celebrated for decades for his business prowess and his foresight with Bad Boy Entertainment and crowning all these stars, but also has pushed himself into becoming an artist and star himself.
HARRIS: Right.
MADDEN: So for him to be such a key figure in what is considered the upper echelon and the epitome of the heights that hip-hop can go, that's what makes this a singular moment and, in my opinion, a bombshell.
HARRIS: Yeah. Shamira, I'm curious as to, you know, if any of that resonates with you and also if there's anything else that you think makes this sort of a unique case or at least, like, looks towards like a future that maybe this could be the thing that sort of breaks the dam open.
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
HARRIS: How are you feeling about the way this has played out so far?
IBRAHIM: I'm not sure about breaking the dam open. I think that Diddy or Puff - I always think that you date yourself by your relationship with hip-hop by, like, how you...
HARRIS: I know.
IBRAHIM: ...Casually label him, right?
HARRIS: He's Diddy to me.
IBRAHIM: (Laughter) Right?
HARRIS: But yeah.
IBRAHIM: Diddy's case is very unique, right? When we found out, which was, like, a shocker just to get the breaking news alert that the original suit from Cassie even happened - right? - like, in the context of that statement in news media, you know, it was actually, like, a really tough time to be in survivor-focused work. It was a hard time to really convince survivors to come forward with their stories, to trust journalists, right?
The infrastructure had really started to crumble after the huge backlash of all the detailing of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and how that was horrifically covered - right? - after all of the abuse that Meg Thee Stallion had endured and the poor coverage in news media and hip-hop media even though there were, you know, really great journalists, such as you, Sid, who had really worked really hard to counter a lot of the really frustrating apparatuses that were dedicated to do misinformation in the public after just watching kind of the infrastructure of Time's Up and #MeToo go through really, really rough infighting and see that happen publicly. A lot of lawyers had talked publicly about how they felt it was even rough to file civil suits. So the Adult Survivors Act wasn't really even being really as publicly discussed. And many of the cases were actually a lot of civil suits that were of working-class people.
HARRIS: And we should probably just briefly lay out what the Survivors Act was. It was a New York legislature that sort of temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on claims of abuse and that sort of thing. And so that is what Cassie and some of the other women who have filed against Diddy and people like L.A. Reid and Jimmy Iovine, who was the Interscope Records - they were filing right before that deadline hit for that expiration to have the statute of limitations lifted.
IBRAHIM: Correct, correct. Yeah. And so when you have such a magnified case, like someone like Diddy, who is so ubiquitous in the cultural apparatus - right? - with such detailed claims and someone who was so publicly attached to him - right? - to really be able to detail such an extensive claim of abuse, trafficking, what it really does is for someone like Diddy, who has been alleged for years to have had a history of violence - right? - it makes those rumors go from a whisper network to public record - right? -because even though...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: ...Those claims were settled, they were settled rather quickly. It does make it public record. It does make it easy to report on. It does make it easy for people who are journalists and critics and reporters, and our responsibility to maintain the public records, to be able to hold court and say, hey; this is actually what is documented to have been alleged to happen, right? And it does...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: ...Make it our remit to continue that conversation. What makes it uniquely intriguing is that there's a - usually a pendulum that happens, right? You know, there's a swell of support for victims - right? - and then there's an immediate backlash. That backlash hasn't actually been as immediate as it usually is for survivors, right?
HARRIS: Right.
IBRAHIM: There have been some people who have said, oh, yeah, they're asking for money; oh, yeah, they're asking for this, because...
HARRIS: Absolutely.
IBRAHIM: ...That's normal. But it actually hasn't been as large as usual. My suspicion, if you were to ask me, isn't necessarily because people view women as a huge protected class. I'm not so progressive as to think that we moved that forward as a society yet, although I would love to be as optimistic as that. A large part of it is because, as much as he has advanced in his stature, as much as he has accomplished across so many industries and brought the mantle of hip-hop along with him, you know, he has been reported to have disadvantaged people, you know, and incurred violence in that way, both socially, economically, and allegedly physically, right? You know, and that has been documented in rumors and reports...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: ...And journalistic documentation over the years, you know?
HARRIS: Yeah, I know.
IBRAHIM: Previously there have been reports of people who are also stars in their own right to have had physical disputes with him, right? That is kind of also aligned with his reputation of having physical and financial, you know, social disputes with people who are men, right?
MADDEN: That part...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: And so for people who have physical and social conflicts with men, I don't think it is difficult for them to now also believe that he is also abusive to women, and it makes it easier for them to align with the women who have been violated...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: ...Tragically.
HARRIS: Yeah. That's actually going to be my next point, which is that it does seem as though - when the Cassie news dropped for me, I was not aware of any sort of rumors or whispers about him being violent towards women. That wasn't at all something that I had heard. Maybe my head was dug in the sand because I know people who were like, yeah, there have been - but, like, I have been aware of the many, many artists, most of them men, who have worked for them - well, the artists and also, um, Danity Kane, infamously...
IBRAHIM: Right.
HARRIS: ...From "Making The Band," who have complained about Diddy and his really nefarious business tactics. Even when I think about the way that part of the news that dropped with the Cassie stuff was about Kid Cudi, and how...
MADDEN: Yup.
HARRIS: ...At one point she was dating Kid Cudi, and it alleges that Puff threatened him or threatened her. And then Kid Cudi's car blew up.
IBRAHIM: Right.
HARRIS: And then Kid Cudi's representative, after this news dropped, said, yes, this happened.
IBRAHIM: Right.
HARRIS: And that seemed to make some people say...
IBRAHIM: Right.
HARRIS: ...Oh, so maybe Puff really did do it...
IBRAHIM: Right.
HARRIS: ...Because the guy said something like, this happened to me.
MADDEN: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: That was one of the first things that got corroborated that was sensationalized.
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah.
MADDEN: It's very telling which parts of this suit moved fastest on media channels and blog channels and into the podcast commentator and just loudmouth commentator space because, yes, that is the one fact that I kept seeing aggregated the most. It's, like, ingrained, you know? It's a malicious pattern where corroboration from men holds more weight even than the initial woman who is the victim.
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: And it reminded me so much of in the aftermath of Tory Lanez being found guilty for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in 2022, a lot of people - there were still a lot of naysayers...
HARRIS: Oh, yeah.
MADDEN: ...Against Megan who did not believe her. And it wasn't until all the evidence that was admitted into court was allowed to be made public that you could hear Tory Lanez's guilt-stricken jail calls to Kelsey, Meg's former friend, that a lot of people really started to change their tune on it. And sometimes subconscious, sometimes very overt patriarchal blinders that people have on to obscure the story of the victim, and certainly ones that - the lens is that much thicker in hip-hop.
But the violence against men is what people are using as reasons to bolster their claims much more than women. Like, we know that Steve Stoute, who was a former record exec at Interscope - he said Diddy busted up his office before. We know Shyne caught a gun charge during some melee that he and Diddy and his former girlfriend J.Lo were involved in in the late '90s. We know that he and Drake fought at a Miami nightclub in 2014. All these instances where Diddy resorts to violence and just gets very physical with men - that is the claim that's allowing people to legitimize and feel like they can safely believe Cassie.
I also think there's pieces to dissect about Cassie's case when it comes to the, quote-unquote, "perfect victim." Cassie was a very young, very beautiful ingenue when they first got together. She has been linked to him this whole time, and she's never made the type of, let's say, social missteps that, like, a victim like Megan has or that other people have that have lodged claims against other men in power in the hip-hop space. And I feel like that's another reason why more people are quick to believe her - because she fits a more cookie-cutter vision in people's minds of what a victim is.
HARRIS: Yeah. I'm not trying to pat Hollywood on the back here at all, but it does seem as though there has been more push and movement within Hollywood - arguably, it started in Hollywood, the #MeToo movement, and not just with Weinstein - if we think about Cosby right before that. Why do you think that the music world has been less affected by #MeToo than Hollywood? Like, what crucial factors are you seeing at play here that have kept this sort of, like, isolated to R. Kelly, "Surviving R. Kelly"? And I can't really think of any other musical artist who has experienced the same fallout. Like, what is going on here? How are these industries different in that way?
IBRAHIM: I think, obviously, Marilyn Manson, right now is a really high-profile example of what's going on.
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: Right now hip-hop is a laser focus because hip-hop is a large portion of pop culture. I think when it comes to these large titans, there are so many embedded pieces in the conversation - you know, abusers who have large pieces of power. Yes, they are the abuser - right? - but they are enabled. They rarely ever are able to just abuse singlehandedly. You know, there are levers that are protecting them, you know, when allegations come their way. A lot of people always wonder, oh, why do people wait 30 years? One thing that has actually fairly been consistent by a lot of the allegations that have come forward in the recent, you know, claims and the suits and the Adult Survivors Act is that they actually did not wait 30 years. Many of these people did try to go see and speak to somebody, and those allegations got suppressed one way or the other. There's generally consistently apparatuses that protect them. They are enabled because they are the ones who people believe are the, you know, rising star. They're the people who have the capital. They're the people who employ many people.
If you look at Cassie's initial suit, for example, she did not just sue Sean Combs. She sued Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, Epic Records, Combs Enterprises because she was an employee. It is not just a suit against a former paramour. It is against employer because this is actually a problem industry, right? There's no way that R. Kelly's trafficking multiple women and nobody knows, right? You know?
HARRIS: Right.
IBRAHIM: Many people know. Many people were complicit, right? Many people who may have not enabled it saw things and kept quiet. Even right now, the amount of clips that people are talking about with bodyguards who are confessing to things they saw - you stood there and you saw things for 20 years. You never told anybody.
HARRIS: Yeah. Yeah.
IBRAHIM: You never called a police officer, right? So is it brave that you now are going on all these, you know, YouTube blog channels and you're confessing to all the ways that Puff allegedly put hands on somebody? Is there a level of bravery to that as somebody allegedly endured abuse for years and years? The level of use that Cassie's documenting is severe. You know, she talked about suicide ideation. She talked about a lifetime struggle with addiction that she now has to come away with, right? When she talks about, hey; a lawyer called me and said, hey; you should return Sean's call because your single's not going to come out, right? Then, oh, no, a label head called me and said, you really should return Sean's call or your single's not going to come out, right? That's multiple levels of enmeshment in the industry, allegedly, according to her narrative, right?
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: These are similar things that people were talking about with Harvey Weinstein, right? But the way that music labels work, they farm everything out like sharecropping, right? So everybody's kind of tied to everything else. It creates a level of enmeshment that everyone is kind of complicit in, and it becomes very dangerous. And so I think that may be one reason why some people who may have witnessed things or may have done things but feel like they might be liable continue to worry about what their complicity is in these conversations. And Diddy, specifically, is a person who has always found a way to enmesh himself in the next generation of conversation, right?
So, you know, right now with Revolt Media - right? - he has done a very good job of finding a way to transition himself into the next generation of digital media, right? You know, he'll co-sponsor some of the bigger, more popular streaming channels, right? So even if the younger people don't necessarily listen to his music but see Revolt mics, know the Revolt brand - right? - you know? They don't know Ciroc. Ciroc was a little bit older, right? But they know what DeLeon tequila is, right? Finding a way to constantly shift, a way to keep himself relevant, is something that he is very, very good at.
MADDEN: Hip-hop is an industry that rewards the ostentatious, and it definitely rewards, you know, the old adage of money, power and respect. And with all the industries that he's been able to become a titan in, he is one of the richest people moving in these spaces. And he may be persona non grata right now. People may be distancing right now. But eventually, the check is going to come back around. Like, talking about all of those assistants or bodyguards who are coming forward years later is because they're no longer on the payroll, too, and because you're paying for silence. You're paying for that complicity. The bounce-back and the canceling of - associated with a lot of these allegations for men in power in hip-hop - it always seems to have an expiration date. That might be tied to some Black people's obsession with capitalist gain, certainly the capitalist temples that hold up hip-hop as a business and a cultural structure now.
We interviewed Tarana Burke, who is an activist, educator and the person who coined #MeToo as a term. We interviewed her on Louder Than A Riot when we were talking about the missed opportunity for a #MeToo movement in hip-hop, and she talks a lot about how it is definitely a hallmark of the music industry as a whole. But there's an added layer in hip-hop when it comes to just the Black community and Black art forms. There's this air of, don't get law enforcement involved. Like, keep it inside. Keep it in the community because of the historical distrust that black people have for America's judicial system and law enforcement. Beyond the music itself, she also talked about how, historically, Black women are sexualized and dehumanized societally to not be seen as victims. And she even...
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: ...Proved that point when she marked the timeline of the #MeToo movement and the popularization of the movement in 2017, when it was really set in motion by a lot of white actresses using the term when, in fact, she had been using it in her practice and her community work with young Black and brown girls as far back as 2005, 2006. So there is definitely a cultural aspect and a racial aspect to why it hasn't really punctured the hip-hop space the way it...
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: ...Definitely could.
HARRIS: Yeah. When I think about how - the #MeToo movement as it happened in 2017 with all those white actresses - mostly white actresses coming forward, there was a quickness with other people to say, like, yes. Like, we need to - I'm glad you're speaking out about this. And when it comes to at least these instances, whether it is, you know, Cassie or Megan Thee Stallion or any other Black women in music - in the music industry, I've noticed this sort of deafening silence not of people necessarily online but of their peers, the people that they work with, specifically and especially the men in hip-hop who have not said, like, I believe you, or, yes. Like, in order to see any sort of progress beyond Diddy and beyond, you know, these isolated moments, like, is it the responsibility of Black men in hip-hop especially to be, you know, supporting these Black women or these women who are accusing their peers openly? You know, like, I don't want to put too much stock on that because, you know, there's only so much that does. But I do think it makes a difference to see - if we were to see someone like Jay-Z or seeing other Black men in hip-hop sort of support Black women openly when they do come forward about these things, like, would that mean anything? Or am I just, like, shooting into the wind here or spitting into the wind or whatever?
IBRAHIM: I think we have so much work to do about uncoupling the stigma of how we even have the conversation about times that happened during that era. You know, I think about a lot of the conversations that, for example, Joan Morgan has led, who is pretty much the architect of hip-hop feminism, right? And so much of, I think, the root of the hesitance to really dig into that era becomes the necessity to create these weird compartmentalizations, right? There's so much need to be like, well, some of us were moving around properly during those days, right? And some of the girls were...
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: ...Really mixy. And of course they got themselves in trouble. They were kind of asking for it, right? You know?
HARRIS: Shaming. Yeah.
IBRAHIM: We had some horrible things happen to us. And we never felt space - you know, proper space to talk about it because hip-hop was fighting being demonized, right? And so you don't have a proper place in-group to talk about it or out-group to talk about it because you're too busy defending something that is being already talked about like it's the, you know, second coming of Satanism and hedonism, right? Then all of a sudden, you know, it really puts you in this weird double bind.
HARRIS: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: Until we really work on being able to embrace these conversations without stigma, a conversation that's never ending, then it doesn't necessarily matter if Drake says something, right? That might might help facilitate it for his fans, right? But I think a cultural conversation requires us really embracing that we have to really shut ourselves off the stigmas altogether.
MADDEN: Right. I think it is so much more than the people that we see as figureheads or cultural leaders or precursors. It's really up to the people in those moments who - yes, you're putting yourself out there by saying this is wrong, by saying, don't do that. You're calling your boss out. And coming up, we're going to see which way the wind blows in terms of the enablers making a choice to still stand with somebody who, yes, is a titan in the space and has done a lot for the culture but has also harmed so many people in his wake. And I think us as a culture - it's up to us - let's say us as media to keep covering it, to keep it in the conversation...
IBRAHIM: Correct.
MADDEN: ...To keep having these conversations...
HARRIS: Yeah.
MADDEN: ...That allow others to feel they have more of a vocabulary and more of the education to take it to the place like the stoop or the braiding salon or the barber shop or the kickback or the wind-down and have more honesty about the ways we harmed each other and the ways we need to process it and move past it because there's been so much - I've said this so many times. There's been so much celebration about 50 years of hip-hop this year. And in order for it to last another 50 years and beyond and to have the strength and be a venerable cultural source, you got to be accountable with the weak spots and the spots where we know we can do better.
HARRIS: Well, obviously we could talk even more about this, and hopefully we will continue having this conversation, as Sid said. I completely agree. Shamira Ibrahim, Sidney Madden, thanks so much for being here and helping me parse through this very, very difficult conversation.
IBRAHIM: Thank you again.
MADDEN: Thank you, Aisha.
HARRIS: This episode was produced by Mike Katzif and edited by Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all tomorrow.
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