Sting and Diddy in 2018.Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty
Sean “Diddy” Combshas denied he paysSting$5,000 a day in royalties for sampling the songwriter’s hit track “Every Breath You Take” and saidhis initial tweetwas just a joke.
“I want y’all to understand I was joking! It’s called being facetious! Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time! 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,” thehip-hop icon said in a new tweeton Friday.
Diddy’s 1997 “I’ll Be Missing You” was a tribute to rapper Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, who was murdered two months prior to the song’s release.Faith Evans, the widow of Notorious B.I.G., featured in the track, which heavily sampled The Police’s 1983 single “Every Breath You Take.”
“I’ll Be Missing You” is perhaps the hip-hop mogul’s most well-known song. The tribute to Biggie would go on totop the Billboard Hot 100 chartandearn Diddy awards at the 1997 Billboard Music Awards ceremonyfor top rap artist and top rap song.
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The rapper most recentlyreflected on their friendshipin a tweet shared on the 26th anniversary of his death in March.
“There will NEVER be another. The GREATEST RAPPER OF ALL TIME,” wrote Diddy. “Today we celebrate and honor you king. Love and miss you!!”
Evans, 49, reflected on the late rapper’s legacy while speaking to PEOPLE in March 2022, sharing, “The person behind these rhymes, which could be so gritty and sometimes harsh and sometimes explicit — he was occasionally all of those things. But for the most part, he was just a really cool, lovable, funny person that most people loved being around.”
source: people.com
