podcast
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
Every Thursday on The Assignment, host Audie Cornish explores the animating forces of this extraordinary American political moment. It’s not about the horse race, it’s about the larger cultural ideas driving the conversation: the role of online influencers on the electorate, the intersection of pop culture and politics, and discussions with primary voices and thinkers who are shaping the political conversation.
Explaining Diddy’s Domination and Downfall
The Assignment with Audie Cornish
May 22, 2025
As Sean “Diddy” Combs stands trial in New York, the music industry is reckoning with a hard truth: how did he stay untouchable for so long? Music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy—who once interned at Bad Boy Records—joins Audie to unpack how hip-hop missed its Weinstein “Me Too” moment.
Krishnamurthy is the author of Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion.
Get a recap of the Combs trial in your podcast feed, subscribe to "Trial By Jury: Diddy” from CNN Audio.
Episode Transcript
Audie Cornish
00:00:00
The Sean Diddy Combs trial is now in its second week and the world is watching closely.
Laura Coates
00:00:06
'I was sitting in that courtroom, watching everything unfold, watching when-
Audie Cornish
00:00:11
That's my friend, Laura Coates. And honestly, I don't know if she sleeps. She hosts Laura Coates live at 11 p.m. every night. And now she's been getting up early to go inside the courtroom. And she's launched a podcast for CNN about it all. I'm gonna drop a link to that in our show notes.
Laura Coates
00:00:25
From CNN, I'm Laura Coates and this is Trial by Jury.
Audie Cornish
00:00:30
I've also been covering the trial on CNN This Morning, which involves a lot of talking to lawyers.
CNN This Morning
00:00:35
I mean, this all really comes down to essentially what the purpose of these Freak Offs was for and whether they were consensual.
Audie Cornish
00:00:42
When it comes to this case with Puff, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, whatever vintage you call him, it's complicated.
CNN This Morning
00:00:50
So it's really going to be a tough one, I think, for the jury. They have a lot of difficult...
Audie Cornish
00:00:55
Combs is facing RICO charges. He's accused of running a criminal business and forcing people into sex work. But I really wanted the chance to have like a deeper, big picture conversation about the implications of all of this. Because even with all the coverage, my mind keeps coming back to this one moment. It was 2022, the BET Awards, when Combs received this prestigious BET Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
00:01:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Audie Cornish
00:01:30
And the reason this night sticks out is because on the one hand, it marked the culmination of a career that I just remembered so vividly. His iconic collaboration with the rapper Biggie Smalls in the 90s, the Sean John clothing line, "Making the Band" in the 2000s on MTV.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
00:01:46
I gotta thank every artist, every producer, every writer, the hit men.
Audie Cornish
00:01:50
I mean, frankly, it was, like, hard to explain to my Gen Z producers just how big a deal Combs was, how much of a hand he had in shaping culture.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
00:01:58
Thank you to all of my fans who have been with me for over 25 years!
Audie Cornish
00:02:03
But now, looking back, there's also something unsettling. Like at one point, Combs looks directly into the camera and he says this.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
00:02:12
I gotta give a special thank you to the people that was really like there for me. Cassie, for holding me down in the dark times. Love.
Audie Cornish
00:02:23
'So on one of the largest stages in music, Combs shouted out Cassie Ventura, his ex-girlfriend and R&B singer who had been signed to his Bad Boy Records label. This is the woman, of course, who would later accuse Combs in a federal lawsuit of rape and physical abuse, the woman who people around the world would eventually see in a video uncovered by CNN, Combs dragging her across a hotel hallway. The woman who last week testified that Combs blackmailed, threatened, and coerced her into performing unwanted sexual acts. So today, we're asking how one man got so powerful that he was able to avoid scrutiny for so long. Like, did the music industry miss something? Did it choose to look away? Now that we know more, what kind of reckoning, if any, is going to happen in the world of hip-hop? I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. My guest today is not exactly from a traditional hip-hop hotbed.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:03:25
I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the fact that, you know, Puffy was able to inspire me to want to work in the music business, specifically in hip hop, and to feel that it was not just plausible, like it's going to happen. And ever since I was a kid, I'm like, I am going to work at Bad Boy. I don't know how. I have no industry contacts. I hadn't even really been to New York before, but I just knew that it's going to happen.
Audie Cornish
00:03:54
That's Sowmya Krishnamurthy, and her premonition proved correct. She started her career as an unpaid intern at Bad Boy Records in 2005. At one point, she even interviewed to be Combs' executive assistant.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:04:06
I mean, to this day, when I tell people that, like, okay, you got the stripes on your arm, like it meant something.
Audie Cornish
00:04:12
Today, Krishnamurthy is a prominent music journalist and author in part because of her Bad Boy stripes. She's also been an active participant in the ongoing conversation about what the Diddy revelations all mean. Here she is on the radio show, "Way up with Angela Yee."
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:04:28
'I do think one reason that we haven't seen a Me Too reckoning in hip-hop, there's a lot of reasons, I don't think the show is long enough to go into the whole dissertation, so many people, their first response is, well, I didn't see it. I didn't experience it, so, yeah, maybe she's looking for money, she's looking for clout.
Angela Yee
00:04:47
That's the first thing that people think, too.
Audie Cornish
00:04:49
So she and I talked about a lot of things, including Diddy's career and power and the hip hop community's response to the allegations and trial, and her own personal experience with the mogul.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:05:01
I met Puff once. I mean, he was polite, it was a very short convo, but I do remember just feeling so blessed to be in this position, like that you're around greatness.
Audie Cornish
00:05:14
And how old were you then?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:05:16
I think I was 21 at the time.
Audie Cornish
00:05:18
The reason why I want to stop in this moment is because if you think about it, Cassie was in her early twenties, right? Like to meet someone like this at this age, your young woman, especially in this business, I mean, you just used the word blessed.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:05:30
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:05:30
So what has it been like in your group chats, in your world, as people, because I still know the people I interned with. Have you talked? Are people like, Hey, what did you see? What did you see? Or is there a sense of nobody say anything, especially if you didn't see anything, like just stay away from this?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:05:48
I think it's mixed. So some people have decided, you know, it's best just not to say anything. I don't know behind the scenes if there's, you know, contractually a reason why, or they just don't feel comfortable. Sometimes people just don't want to get involved. Other times they didn't see anything. So to kind of insert yourself, you know, it feels very unnecessary.
Audie Cornish
00:06:11
You sound like somebody who has been asked, hey, did you ever see anything? Did you ever his temper? Did you ever...
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:06:17
Oh, 100%.
Audie Cornish
00:06:18
...rethink interactions that you saw or stories that you heard at that time? Are there things you look back at with a different set of eyes?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:06:28
'You know what's crazy? I literally saw none of this. So coming to the music industry, Puffy's temper was well-known. This is well-know and well-documented from his childhood nickname to his interaction with Steve Stout back in 99 over the Hate Me Now video. Like everyone knew Puff is tough, he's aggressive. If you ever watched Making the Band, even though that was dramaticized for television, and there are parts of truth in that.
Audie Cornish
00:06:58
Yeah, he wasn't nice on that show, just for people who don't remember. That was not great, the way he talked to those women.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:07:05
Yeah, and this was also the era, again, of that type of reality show. It was Simon Cowell being mean on American Idol. Tyra Banks, you know, making girls, you know, get full makeovers on Top Model. When we look at it through a lens now, it feels just so mean and so cruel and unnecessary. But sadly, at that time, this was considered entertainment. So every show needed sort of like that villain character. But my interactions with him, I mean, it was completely appropriate. But what I said is, and I've said this publicly on social media, just because I didn't witness anything or experience it personally, doesn't mean that it can't be true. And that's something that I've told my colleagues in the music industry, because many of them echo my sentiment. We never saw that or that I never experienced it, but just because you didn't experience it doesn't means people can't have multiple facets. And again, I always want to underscore, we're talking about intimate partner violence allegedly, and that's very different. So how someone acts in a boardroom or at a company meeting can be very different from how they act when they're angry or in their personal life.
Audie Cornish
00:08:17
I think the perception of him, though, is that those lines were blurred. Constantly, he was always performing in public, right, performing the mogul. But then you'd see images of the white party, and he was sort of doing it there, too. But then those people really knew him. What we're learning in the trial is ways he abused his power as a leader, right? Even in these businesses. The artists that came later, after the Mary J. Blige, you know, period, they aren't as successful. There were many women who tried to be, right? There are many people who worked for him, even Danity Kane, which was the group for Making the Band. Like, I want to get a sense of, what ways did he have power in hip hop that people may not realize can have like pretty long tentacles?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:09:10
'Yeah, I think what's important is Puffy was a star maker and a hit maker. So the Bad Boy roster, right? Let's just run down. Notorious, B.I.G., one of the greatest rappers of all time. Faith Evans, Platinum Singer, 112. Carl Thomas, Black Rob, I mean, that's just like on his label, Danity Kane, two number one albums. And that was something that nobody had predicted like a band put together on a reality show would have two number one records. I think what's interesting, and now some of those artists, especially that were signed to Bad Boy have come forward. They've talked about predatory contracts. Even during Cassie's trial, she mentioned she was signed to a 10 album deal. And for I think the lay person, this is shocking. Sadly in the music business, especially of that era, seven-plus album deals were standard. Like some of your favorite artists are still, although they're hugely successful icons, they're still fighting to get their masters back, right? So maybe that means in order to make it, I have to sign this terrible contract or be professionally indebted to somebody I wouldn't want to, but if that's gonna potentially make me a superstar or a hit maker or have a platinum plaque on my wall, it's worth it. And that's really a personal decision, but sadly in the music business, I would say that's more the norm than the exception.
Audie Cornish
00:10:36
And what we're hearing in testimony from Cassie Ventura is also that like, so he's her boyfriend and her boss.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:10:44
Yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:10:44
Right, like you wanna go to the studio? You gotta go through him. You wanna work with some other artists? You gotta through him. You wanna leave the house? You want to go through him.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:10:53
'And also not uncommon I mean, I think we're seeing it on a more extreme case, but there are many many stories some publicly known others not so publicly known especially of young women who get into the music business, they're dating their manager or you know, they start a relationship with someone at the label. Here we're seeing the truly dark sad violent converse of that, but I could see that you know, for a young woman getting into this industry, getting the affections of any man, but specifically someone as powerful and connected. I'm sure he was- it was very intoxicating. How could it not?
Audie Cornish
00:11:33
'I'm talking with music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy. We'll be right back. What do you make of hip-hop's response, right? The community of fans online, very vocal, the podcasters, to how they are talking about this case. Very much giving Sean Combs more than the benefit of the doubt, very much questioning her motivations. And it's significant because the entire case in court is actually resting on the idea of coercion, right. It's resting on idea of like, did she wanna be there? Did she not wanna be here, right? Was he holding her there, was she not? And I sometimes hear a strain of like, well, you know these women, kind of commentary.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:12:25
Yeah, from what I've seen, it's been a very split response when it comes to how hip hop as an industry or fans, even other artists, how they're reacting to the Puffy case. So I think, you know, as with social media, some people are very quick to judgment on either side. And I always like to say, all right, no matter what, we have to be very careful with how we speak about legal proceedings, allegations. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, right? Regardless, everyone does have certain rights. And I think especially for those of us in the industry, I'd be very mindful of that, not getting into sort of the gossip or the conspiracy rabbit hole and all of these things.
Audie Cornish
00:13:09
That's not what the internet is like right now, Sowmya.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:13:11
Yeah, yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:13:12
To be honest, you just go into YouTube and you put like, Diddy warnings, you know, like Diddy, and it's just everybody downloading their, you know, theories about this in a way that I haven't even seen with like, an R. Kelly. There's a real speculation about him, about her, it's very intense.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:13:32
Well, I think the difference is because Puffy was such a larger than life figure in culture, not just in hip hop, but in pop music, fashion, politics, Broadway, I mean, it really runs the gamut. I think there's just so many different touch points. Like some people may know him only because of the white parties, or they may have seen him on something like the Ellen DeGeneres show, like they know him from specific slivers. I like to say consider the source, because a lot of people are speaking like hip hop insiders and they're not hip hop insiders. Like I can tell you've never been to the party. You've never met him. You have no idea what's going on. But it's sort of fun to speculate and draw parallels between someone like a Jeffrey Epstein, for example, like the sensational stuff gets all the clicks. So it's kind of easy to cancel him now. But I would urge people, whether it be fans or artists, the industry to go deeper than that, because this case truly could be a watershed in how we deal with power dynamics, Me Too, the treatment of women.
Audie Cornish
00:14:35
'Oh, stop. Wait, wait a second, go into that more, because when I look at hip-hop, it has been very, very resistant to this conversation.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:14:44
'Yeah, I mean, I like to say that when I was a kid, there were more women in power in hip hop than there are now. And this is across the board from the media, executives at record labels, decision makers, managers. We are in a, in many cases, I would say like a crisis moment, not just in hip-hop, but in society of how we talk about misogyny, toxic masculinity. Those things are at an all-time high and culture is very interconnected. So as a society, if certain things are allowed, it's boys will be boys, it's locker room talk, we can't expect it to change in hip hop. There has to be either a cultural reason to change from a larger scale or a financial reason.
Audie Cornish
00:15:31
Yeah. But, you know, to challenge that for a second, I think in Hollywood, for better or worse, maybe some people say worse, maybe some say it didn't work, women in Hollywood were like, enough. Enough with the casting couch. That doesn't mean it's gone away. But that conversation was had. It really felt like hip hop and Black music was kind of dragged kicking and screaming a little bit into the conversation, right? Like, you have that big R. Kelly moment. And it was black women who were involved in those documentaries and Black women, who were the victims.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:16:05
And young girls, yeah.
Audie Cornish
00:16:06
And young girls. And yet, the defense of R. Kelly was so profound.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:16:13
Sometimes from women.
Audie Cornish
00:16:14
From women. Once you platform certain people as cultural heroes, representative heroes to, let's say, Black and brown communities, they take on a kind of outsized reverence. And is that why it is so hard to deal with these issues, and I mean in hip hop, right? Like the conversation about Russell Simmons kind of petered away when he left the country. Like, I'm talking about hip hop specifically that does not seem to really engage with this in a way that is about moving forward. It's constantly like, well, the women.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:16:53
Yeah, and I think it's hard because we're still expecting male artists and executives to care about women. And I would like to say that they do.
Audie Cornish
00:17:05
'But why not? I mean most of-
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:17:06
But they don't.
Audie Cornish
00:17:06
'-the best artists right now are women, right? Like even though you're talking about the back rooms being mostly men, we're looking at a moment where like, there's a ton of women who are the main performers. They are the main event.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:17:20
But behind the scenes, I mean, the powers that be, and that includes, you know, male artists, they're not really working with these artists. They don't sign female artists or develop them. And there's actually kind of a saying behind the scenes. Certain managers will say, I don't want to work with female artists. It's too much trouble. I don't want to deal with this, the whole hair and makeup thing. And, you know, that's a whole other conversation. But the misogyny is just there. And I think it truly is there's such a power dynamic at play. And because men are running things still, possibly now more so than before, it becomes harder and harder. Music really is kind of like a time machine, right? It can take you back to the best times in your life. There's nostalgia, memories are attached to it. So what is the notion of canceling an artist? In the case of Puffy, okay, maybe you cancel the records that he's on. Are you canceling any artist that was signed to Bad Boy? What about records that he produced on, did an ad lib on? All of a sudden, huge swatches of your childhood or formative discography go away. And this is also the bigger question of, can you cancel art? Do you separate art from the artist? And this was something across the board in art that people debate all the time.
Audie Cornish
00:18:41
Just before the allegations from Cassie Ventura went kind of to the next level, right, into the legal system, Combs was really enjoying this moment of, he was about to, I think, engage in another reinvention to elder statesman.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:18:55
The love era.
Audie Cornish
00:18:56
The love era. Didn't catch. Wanted to call himself Love, was getting, as we said, a lifetime achievement award from BET, was talking about the past artists he had worked with and sharing music rights with them and really kind of showing that he had like evolved. And I felt like he was on the verge of a new version of himself. Now what we see are courtroom drawings of him, you know, looking gray. He's not gonna be the same Puffy when he comes out of this. Do you think the industry will have changed?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:19:33
If he comes out of this.
Audie Cornish
00:19:33
Oh, say more.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:19:35
We don't know what's gonna happen with this trial. Regardless of whether he gets time and it's a long sentence or it's short sentence and he ends up coming home, I think his public image is destroyed and there's no way you can return from this. Certain rooms he will never be invited to, that's just, he's somebody who's persona non grata.
Audie Cornish
00:20:00
Even in the fashion world? Even in the Hamptons world?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:20:03
Yeah, I think he's completely done because it kind of goes back to having him in a room is going to affect everyone else's reputation and how much money they can make, right? If they were all talking about business, he's not a figure that's going to add dollar signs. In fact, he is going detract. So I think right now, he will be a pariah regardless of what happens. And as I stated before, he's at a point in his career now that he's actually at the end of his career, regardless of this trial. This is not someone who is actively making hit records. He wasn't doing anything interesting in fashion. He would be sort of a celebrity and show up from now and again, but he's on the older side, times have changed. Someone who's in Gen Z now, they don't even remember Puff Daddy. Like, who is that, right? That old guy. So I think regardless his image and reputation, they're really destroyed kind of beyond repair. And that has nothing to do with his freedom. And for a man who's been famous for most of his life, beloved generally speaking from the public for most his life, I think that's probably one of the worst punishments for him being irrelevant and not being on the guest list.
Audie Cornish
00:21:20
You mentioned his assistant testifying in court, and the people who have come forward who are other artists are people who worked for him, right, like members of Danity Kane, for example, are expected to testify. We don't hear much else. Like has there been a kind of silence in the industry around this case?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:21:35
'Hip-hop still isn't sure how to handle this case. So just ask yourself, as an artist, does it behoove you to come forward? What does it mean to you, your career, your legacy, to share your experiences? We don't know how the public is going to take it. Will they be sympathetic? Will you now be blamed? So there's so many things to consider. So I'm not particularly surprised that more artists executives. Have not come forward.
Audie Cornish
00:22:05
But it's not like a groundswell, right? We have seen more victims come forward or people with allegations come forward, but everyone else is pretty much leaving it alone.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:22:14
And at least from the allegations that have come forward where we know the victim's names, these aren't particularly famous or successful people. And that unfortunately is, again, there's no such thing as a perfect victim. And sometimes people will want that. Well, this person, of course, they're coming forward because they don't have a viable career. They never went on to do anything after him. Of course, now they want a big payday. Some people will look at that and those are the optics. Of course, one has nothing to do with the other and a victim can be a victim regardless of whether they sell one record or a million records. But when we're dealing with high profile people and allegations, it's very easy to try to find that victim with a recognizable name or they have a lot of sort of public goodwill. It's unfortunate, but it just kind of the way that it is.
Audie Cornish
00:23:09
And also interesting because this is also part of the complaint against him with some of these allegations, right? Like people felt they weren't paid or compensated for the actual work they wanted or intended to do and they felt like that was another leverage that he had over them.
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:23:24
and that becomes tricky because even when Danity Kane's Dawn Richard testified, I saw the reactions online. And some people were pointing to the fact that she alleged that she witnessed very heinous abuse and abusive acts against Cassie by her own civil lawsuit. She was the victim of certain acts as well, but she continued to work with him. And that's when they easily want to discredit her, but I would always urge people to look at the nuance. There's a lot of gray, just think about how hard is it to speak up to your own boss or to just storm out of your company when that's your paycheck. And I think we have to really look at this case with a lot nuance and sensitivity and really see how things play out because I think there's more beyond just the headlines.
Audie Cornish
00:24:18
There's one more aspect of this which is more delicate to talk about, which is about homophobia. In some of the conversations online about the sexual relationship that Cassie Ventura had with Sean Combs, people are very much talking about the male escorts, for instance, who, one of them testified in the case. There are also male, victims, so to speak, who have put forth allegations. How has that made this case a little bit different or kind of messier in terms of the public response, the hip hop public's response?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:25:00
What I find interesting and I've seen just responses online because from the testimony we've seen so far, Cassie alleges that she had relations with the male escorts and not Puffy. Some people are now saying that that's a sign of his innocence. I'm not sure how they get to that assertion or that conclusion, but it's almost like, okay, few, at least that part isn't true. And again, that's where we're conflating so many different issues. Homophobia, misogyny. Actual sexual abuse and crimes of power. And it's so important that we parse all of this out because everything can be true or only certain parts can be truth, but it's really important to focus on the charges. What he's on trial for are serious charges and they need to be treated with that sensitivity as well as the seriousness.
Audie Cornish
00:25:53
'Yeah, but it's like a combination of issues that haven't traditionally been treated with that. How do you look back now on all of this in the context of your love, right, for Bad Boy, the company, your appreciation for his music. Like when you told me you were a kid in the Midwest who always wanted to work at Bad Boy. I wanted, I admired hip hop women journalists. Like, so. Many, you know, that I just was like, oh my god, that's amazing. I want to write for Vibe. I wanna, you know. And they fought a good long fight in the industry. And I'm just wondering what this is like for you personally. Are there ways it's made you second-guess yourself, your work? Are there way you are surprised or disappointed in the response within the community? Like, Where are you in your head?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:26:48
It's complex, this trial specifically about Puffy, about Bad Boy, it speaks to my childhood as well as my formative years in the music business. And I think it shows that a lot of things can be true at once.
Audie Cornish
00:27:06
Are you disappointed? Are you brokenhearted? Like, where are you?
Sowmya Krishnamurthy
00:27:09
No, I mean, I think I've been in the industry for a very long time. And the longer that you're in the music business or the entertainment industry, you learn to separate art from the person. And I also don't let my love for somebody or being a fan blind me from the fact that they can do terrible things and they deserve to be punished for those things. I think as a woman in hip hop specifically and as an authority, I'm just thankful I have a platform to speak out. And to really be able to provide this expertise and nuance that I think is missing from the conversation. Like no matter what, I'm in this game because I love it. And because I also feel things can get better, they can be improved, because there's not a lot of people who look like me in this games. And I think that expertise, the knowledge, and just really sharing what really goes on is so important.
Audie Cornish
00:28:08
Sowmya Krishnamurthy is a music journalist. She's also the author of a book called Fashion Killa, How Hip Hop Revolutionized High Fashion. The Assignment is a production of CNN Audio and this episode was produced by Jesse Remedios and Madeleine Thompson. The senior producer of our show is Matt Martinez. Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN audio and Dan Dzula is our technical director. We had support from Dan Bloom, Haley Thomas, Alex Manassari. Robert Mathers, John Deonora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namarow. I'm Audie Cornish, and thank you for listening.
