The old saying that all publicity is good publicity doesn't always hold true in the music industry. And this year, Sean “Diddy” Combs proves that listeners and companies have limits.
Near the end of 2023, Combs was enjoying the momentum of the September release The Love Album: Off the Gridwhich spent seven weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart and peaked at No. 19 on the week of September 30. Meanwhile, Diddy, French Montana & The Weeknd's album single 'Another One of Me' featuring 21 Savage reached No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100.
However, these numbers will begin to drop quickly. In November, the Bad Boy Records founder was the subject of three separate lawsuits by an ex-girlfriend, Cassie, and two others alleging various sexual and physical assaults. While his weekly streams and radio projects — made up of various solo recordings with names like Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — are expected to show some decay as the weeks pass after the album's release, the controversy arguably hastened the decline of Combs with listeners. .
When Combs stepped down as president of digital media company Revolt a week later, his streams were down 22 percent, while his radio spins were down 36 percent. Two weeks later — when the brands cut ties with Combs' e-commerce company Empower Global and Hulu scrapped plans for a reality show starring Combs — his radio airplay dropped 55 percent.
That's not to say that being in the news always hurts an artist's streaming numbers. Following Combs' Sept. 16 arrest on charges of allegedly organizing a federal sex conspiracy and racketeering conspiracy, Combs' on-demand music streams increased 37% in the week ending Oct. 3. That Combs' music has benefited from negative publicity is no surprise – heavy media coverage, whether due to a death or a high-profile lawsuit, tends to influence what listeners look for on streaming platforms. But the hit after the arrest was short-lived. Three weeks after Combs entered the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, his streaming numbers had dropped to pre-indictment levels.
Didi
Bulletin board
Radio is a different story. While many listeners continued to play Combs' music, radio programmers, risking losing advertisers by playing controversial artists, quickly abandoned Combs. In the first quarter of 2023, well before any public signs of impropriety, Combs' music was being played on US radio between 800 and 1,000 times a week. But the FBI's March 25 raids on Combs' Los Angeles and Miami homes coincided with a 27 percent drop in weekly radio spins. When a video of Combs assaulting Cassie in a hotel hallway surfaced on CNN in May, weekly spins of Combs' songs dropped to 352 – 94% below what they were when Cassie filed her lawsuit seven months earlier. By June, his weekly radio plays had dropped below 200.
Radio interest in Combs' music reached a nadir soon after. In the week following his arrest on September 16, Combs' weekly radio spins dropped by 25%, and radio programmers have since largely avoided playing his music.
Combs' experience at the hands of music streamers and radio stations echoes that of R&B singer R. Kelly a few years earlier. Long dogged by allegations of sexual abuse, Kelly managed to evade responsibility until the end Washington Post published a story titled “Star Treatment” detailing how the music industry overlooked his actions. In the wake of the article, Spotify and other streaming platforms decided in May 2018 to de-emphasize Kelly's tracks in algorithms and playlists, and average weekly US on-demand streams dropped by 10%. Radio programmers had an even bigger impact: Kelly's weekly US radio performances dropped 29% after the article was published.
Kelly's arrest in February 2019 did not lead to an immediate drop in his streaming numbers. throughout 2019, its weekly on-demand streams have been consistently between 15 and 16 million. But radio programmers began to abandon him. By the time Kelly was arrested and charged by the state of Illinois in February, his weekly radio appearances had already bottomed out at just over 100, down from about 2,000 a year earlier.
Over the next few years, streams of such songs as “I Believe I Can Fly” and “Ignition” would gradually and consistently decline. In 2020, Kelly's tracks were averaging 9 to 10 million streams per week. The following year, weekly streams dropped to around 8 million, then 7 million.
Following a guilty verdict in September 2021, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in June 2022. As with Combs' arrest in September 2024, media coverage of his sentencing resulted in a small, single digit gain in weekly streams, but the numbers showed clear damage to his reputation. A week after the verdict, Kelly's US on-demand streams totaled 8.8 million for the week — down 40% from Washington Post the article was published in 2018.
However, R. Kelly's music seems to have reached a plateau and interest in his catalog on streaming platforms has remained steady since his sentencing. More than two years later, Kelly's weekly on-demand streams remain flat at around 9 million per week, although radio remains indifferent to playing his songs. This suggests that Diddy's music could perform better online than on the radio as his epic plays out.
