• Forums
• Watch Videos
• Contact Us
• TK Store

Calling all hip hop practitioners; it’s that time again. Everyday the music industry swallows someone’s potential career whole! Everyday this musical monster can rob the unsuspecting, and abuse the trust of the gifted. There are many labels that are probably faulty in this area, but none as prominent in hip hop than Bad Boy. At one time Bad Boy Entertainment, put the entire culture on its back and made the world see that hip hop should be paid attention too as a force to be reckoned with. This was the façade as we’ve come to learn through the fading years. Remember when Diddy use to chant, “I thought I told you that we won’t stop?” Now it must be wondered whether that was a statement or a warning. Recently Yung Joc who is a Bad Boy affiliated artist filed a lawsuit is against Harve Pierre of Bad Boy Entertainment and Russell “Block” Spencer, for preventing the release of his third album. This is not the first time such sanction has taken place within this label. But if you really want to know the mistreatment of some of the greatest lyrical minds and the exploitation that takes place behind the scenes look no further.

Former Bad Boy rapper Mark Curry has penned a new book Dancing With the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip Hop. Mark Curry wrote on 10 songs featured on Diddy albums. Of them, he performed on all but 4. Three of these masterful songs charted with Billboard. Don’t get it wrong; Mark at one time respected Puff as a colleague and a friend. He was proud to be working with a man of such a successful caliber who had achieved so much through out his career. But as the years rolled by he realized that the man he thought stood before was not one of standards or morals. Curry was often hopeful that a change would occur in Diddy to fulfill the obligations that he promised to his team yet the only thing that became guaranteed was more disappointment. A section of the text claims his former boss enforced appearance fees for Bad Boy artists.

“Even worse, Puff charged the artists for his appearances on their records and in the videos, usually without their realizing it until they received their royalty statements,” the first chapter reads. “That’s when they discovered that a large sum of their money had gone to fees which were doubled, tripled and even quadrupled because of Puff “special guest appearance. He charged artists, for example, for having his Bentley in their videos — which he insisted upon — then took a tax credit for business use of the car.” (Dancing With the Devil) The book speaks on his experience on the famed roster. The book does an excellent job of exposing Mr. Combs nasty little secrets and sinister corporate tactics. If you are a recording artist and you think you truly have what it takes to make it in the music business, then this book is a must read before signing any dotted lines. I reached out to Mark to gather his current thoughts.

S. Jeanine: At some point you were the bread and butter ghostwriter for Diddy. You wrote consistent hits time and time again. In your opinion what are the key elements that are needed to construct a great song?

M. Curry: The key to constructing a great song is in having a great storyline. In order to really have a smash hit you’re going to need the help of women, men, boys, girls, and little kids. You’re going to need everybody to jump on board and make it a hit. You have to make the song understood as much as possible by the masses.

S. Jeanine: For the existing song writer’s who are out there still trying to break into the industry, what type of advice can you lend them as to what can help get their material heard?

M. Curry: As far as getting your material heard what I say the motto is, before you can got out and influence the rest of the world you have to first influence your community. So I would start off with making sure that my dream is something worth chasing by listening to those around me. Although a lot of people’s opinions may not matter if you have 4 out of 5 people around you telling you that breath stinks then your breath probably does stink. So at the same token if you have 4 out of 5 brothers telling you that you can’t sing then maybe you shouldn’t try it because maybe singing aint what you’re good at and maybe you’re better at something else. You should only play the games that you can win. Just start off by influencing those around you first be in tune with those that love you and who’s opinions you can trust.

S. Jeanine: You’ve been in the game a substantial length of time, which qualifies your perspective. So in your expert opinion what are some of the main issues crippling the hip hop genre right now?

M. Curry: What’s crippling it now is that we have a case where we have the youth and the generation that we just came out of which was generation X not on the same page. Generation X is trying to move generation Y in the same “X” type of format and it doesn’t fit. You have generation X bosses trying to predict what generation Y wants. I think that in order to see what the youth wants you have to let the youth tell us. I think it’s time for a lot of people who have been in control to let go, and we gotta start giving that control to those who are more in touch with the ways of now. Most of the CEOs and Record labels are getting old so how in the world can they predict? We have to educate those under us so that they can be prepared when we pass the torch.

S. Jeanine: Record Labels are always coming up with a new agenda. What do you think of the latest news of record labels trying to impose a performance tax on local radio stations for airing music free of charge for listeners?

M. Curry: Next to love the most powerful form of energy is music. Therefore music misrepresented is dangerous. So I look at those who are in control of the things we hear, see, and read and if your intentions are not good for us as a people then that’s a problem. I say that to say, when you look at radio, radio is powerful it’s a monopolized game and if you really wanna ask what messes music up it’s the radio. They’re the ones who play the same songs over and over again and it becomes repetitious. This forces you to end up liking certain songs because there are no other options. They call it top 40 and they play the same 40 songs all day. I understand what it takes in order to get into that top 40 slot, but this is only to help sell the record and not play good music for the people in general.

S. Jeanine: With record sales declining we’ve seen a gradual shift towards artist choosing to take the independent route. Do you think that it’s most beneficial for today’s artist to stay independent or does a major still hold all of the power at the end of the day?

M. Curry: Well what we have now is record labels don’t actually exist any more. A record label was a house that consisted of marketing, promotion, administrative work, and the talent. At one point it took several individuals to make that label go, but now with today’s technology all of that is summed up in a computer. Now you don’t have to have somebody else to help you reach the masses when you have access to the Internet. So seeing how that has changed you don’t need a major anymore. This decreased the need for a record label and now we see the labels trying to come in and take a piece of your show money or whatever they can get to try and make up for that loss in sales from downloading because they don’t see any other way to make money out of this.

S. Jeanine: So lets get into the book, now that it’s been officially released are you happy with the results and outcome?

M. Curry: I’m happy, very happy with the results and the outcome. It took this for me to know and understand who I was. For a minute I was kinda like a lost individual so I’m happy cause I found what my purpose is. If you were to ask me what I do I would know what to tell you now. “I’m a book author!”

S. Jeanine: You always were a writer but can you elaborate on the shift from writing a song to writing a book? How did the writing process differ?

M. Curry: Whenever I would write my songs I always wrote with my heart. Anytime that you’re going to write something that’s going be read you have to make sure that you’re putting your heart into it to make certain that you’re passing along the right message. There was no difference to me between writing a song or a book because writing a book is like writing a long song.

S. Jeanine: Some people say entertainment is entertainment and that the same principles can be applied to any level whether you’re an actor, singer, model etc. So was the process of promoting your book similar to promoting an album?

M. Curry: Yeah promoting the book was similar to promoting the album. I had to actually use almost the same tactics but just in a different way. Like people don’t know that when you buy my book online that you have access to over twenty recordings to the songs that I’ve previously written.

S. Jeanine: Once the book hit shelves did you ever receive any feed back from Puff or any of the Bad Boy staff?

M. Curry: Well Puff actually responded to the New York Post and he said that I was a disgruntle artist who had been properly credited for the two songs that were released on Bad Boy, but that none of the other work that I came up with had been released on the label. But when I thought about the two songs that he was referring too Bad Boy’s for Life and Come With Me from the “Godzilla” soundtrack I said “wow those are two song I did, one I did with you and one I wrote for you so what was he implying like I’m only good for doing songs with him?” Then I started thinking about the other songs I wrote for him like “I hear Voices or Roll with Me and it hit me how much Puff’s actually a liar. Right then by reading his response you can tell what type of liar he is because I had written more songs then just the two he claimed. 

S. Jeanine: I’ve read a lot of these types of books and most of them seem bitter and pout ridden, or as if the author’s goal was revenge. I can honestly say that yours seemed humble and as if you were airing out the truth in hopes of preventing a future artist from experiencing the same setbacks and misfortunes. Then again I’m not in your head so what was your absolute motive for releasing this piece?

M. Curry: My motives for releasing the book were deeper than that. It was to let people know that anything you put your mind in and anything that you put your heart into and any situation that you invite God into can happen. Nobody can stop you from doing anything that you want to do. Remember it said, “No weapons formed against me shall prosper.”  I wanted to show especially to the youth that if you have a dream and you believe in it a person like Puff cannot stand in your way. No matter how much money they have, no matter who’s the boss or who owns what if your calling is to do music then any person who signs you should want to work with you not to pass judgment but to help make the music. If they sign you to make you into someone that you’re not then that’s no good because that’s how you sell your soul. I was just blessed for my eyes to be able to witness the events that I wrote about.

S. Jeanine: The book is about your experiences, but it’s also about helping artist not be taken advantage of. Other than having a great lawyer on retainer is there anything else that an artist can do to protect themselves from the trickery of record labels or the music business in general?

M. Curry: Well having a great attorney does always help. In the end if it’s believable then it’s going to go. If you’re an artist focus on your music because even if you have a great attorney, if the music is bad then you want be a success. An attorney is good for handling your business but he can’t give you a hit record.

S. Jeanine: So what’s the next step for Mark Curry? If there are any projects that you may be working on that you would like to make mention of please feel free to do such?

M. Curry: My next step is I want to take things a step further and began mentoring artist in a consulting aspect. Making sure that everything looks right for them and allowing them to have someone around who they can talk out their music business concern with who can help them.

Written By Sha'Linda Jeanine

Sha’Linda holds a M.S. and B.S. in Mass Communications. In addition to The Koalition she is also a journalist/author for HipHopDX, AllHipHop, Yo Raps, HHW, etc. Her focal point is Hip-Hop the genre and lifestyle. This examination is her concern, responsibility, and cultural investigation.

1. Carl Daniel says:

   June 1, 2009 at 7:48 am

   wow… you’re a truly excellent writer and no doubt inspiration for the entire Koalition staff. I’ve never heard of this guy before but his book sounds real interesting, everybody knows Diddy’s a real shady dude and not one to be trusted.

   Once again, great work Sha’Linda.

   Reply
   • Sha'Linda Jeanine says:

     June 1, 2009 at 7:38 pm

     Thx for the recognition!

     Reply
2. ddotdukes says:

   June 1, 2009 at 8:42 am

   Great article. I think I will have to read this book. I like reading books on Hip-Hop, and everybody knows Puffy cares nothing about the artist. Just his money.

   Reply

This site supports Gravatars, The globally recognized avatar system. If you do not have one, click here to create one.
Twitter and Facebook users do not need too do this.