Smoking Diary #26: The Very American Tragedy of Sean Combs

by Sarah Hepola

I’ll be missing you.

It’s some ungodly hour, and I’m killing time on my smoking couch in the wee hours before people wake. A listener asked for more thoughts on the Sean Combs trial. Your wish = my command.

This (rather long!) audio ramble takes us through the hip-hop explosion of the late ‘90s, Combs’ troubled youth and early stumbles as a concert promoter, the Tupac-Biggie scandal, the advent of “freak offs” entering our lexicon, and the things women do to keep their men.

We discuss consent, particularly when given on a booze-and-drugs barge, how hip-hop survived the online scrutiny of peak #metoo, that time Sean Combs starred in Raisin in the Sun on Broadway, the aim of “white parties,” the strange habit of wearing sunglasses indoors, the erotic appeal of Jennifer Lopez, and what it says about a man that his thousands of baby oil bottles were all stored neatly, caps pointing in the same direction.

This one treads into tricky territory, so it stays between us.

Courtroom sketches for the Sean Combs trial are next-level