Sean Combs, Are You Ready for Your Close Up? by Bitch Ass N.

It is with no shadenfreude or hidden glee that we say: Puff Daddy is in the final stages of turning into the black Donald Trump. And if that reads like a compliment to you, please stop reading now. For years we have labored to give Didster the benefit of the doubt. Surely it was no coincidence that he nurtured excellent releases by Mary J. Blige and Chris Wallace (OK, Biggie). Surely he must be a true up-by-his bootstraps guy, no matter what the Mt. Vernon-is-no-mean-streets naysayers say. We could minimize the CUNY fiasco as a mistake of over-exuberance or bad luck. The expansion into bad clothing? Hey, he never pretended to be an artiste, he is a commercial animal, like the Dead and tie dies and their infinite dancing bear merchandise. We admit his ill-advised forays into the artist role showed he is an enthusiastic but bad rapper (although he is an athletic, if derivative, dancer). Finally, his Making the Band show on MTV showed him to have integrity as regards hard work, which should have been obvious but was still nice to see.
But last night (8/29/04) at the MTV Music Video Awards Puffy jumped the shark. With Mase's smash success already assured, he made an ass of himself. If he was drunk, ok, but this is a man who we no longer believe gets drunk. He is a huckster with no remaining reason to be on the entertainment picture other than to prove he is the best. Maybe he is best when it comes to making money, but that status is lower than that of a similar success like Jay-Z, who still seems to care about musical integrity (see his unpublicized walk-on at a recent Phish show). Right now this opinion is still in the vapor. Over the coming years it will be fact.