MUSIC
Diddy now denies that he pays Sting $5K a day
The rapper says that he was being “facetious” when he said he gave Sting money for using the musician’s song without permission.
Diddy says he was only joking when he posted on Twitter that he pays Sting $5K a day for using the musician’s 1983 song, ‘Every Breath you Take’, without permission when recording his 1997 song, ‘I’ll Be Missing You’.
Sting has also previously said that he receives payments from Diddy. In 2018, he said that he makes $2000 a day from Diddy, but that they are good friends now.
Does he or doesn’t he?
A day after posting the news, Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, now denies that he pays any money whatsoever to the former Police frontman.
He claims to have been just joking.
“I want y’all to understand I was joking!” Diddy posted. “It’s called being facetious!”
“Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time!” said Diddy. “He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for ‘Missing You.’ He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.”
The song’s success
‘I’ll Be Missing You’ made it on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and scored the rapper two awards at the 1997 Billboard Music Awards ceremony: Top Rap Artist and Top Rare Song.
Diddy wrote the song to honor his late friend and fellow rapper, Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G. — however, he heavily sampled Sting’s song on the track without asking first.
Apparently the rapper had only asked Sting for permission after the fact.
When Diddy said he paid $5K
In his Thursday post, Diddy wrote a response to the official Black Millionaires account that reposted a 2018 video of Sting saying he receives $2000 a day from the rapper.
“Nope,” Diddy wrote. “5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting.”
But what about what Sting said?
Sting told Rolling Stone that the two men have since worked it out and are pals.
“We’re very good friends now,” Sting said. “It was a beautiful version of that song.”
In 2003, Sting talked to Rolling Stone about the situation, confirming that even then he was making money off of Diddy illegally using his track.
“Those guys just take your s***, put it on a record and deal with the legality later,” Sting said. “I put a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and P. Diddy are good pals still.”