In the last three years, Advertising sign estimates that the revenue generated by Sean “Diddy” Combs' master catalog of recordings, as well as publications for songs he wrote and appear on his albums, reached about $3 million annually.
The biggest asset he has in his favor – and not included in the estimate above – is his ownership of Bad Boy Records, through which he owns his own masters and releases.
But the activity generated by his own catalog of artists — averaging about 147,000 album consumption units each year over the past three years — isn't particularly great for someone generally considered a superstar. And even setting aside his current circumstances – multiple lawsuits alleging he's been sexually assaulted. a video released by CNN showing him physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie in 2016, a situation that was included in her own lawsuit against him last fall. and a reported federal sex-trafficking investigation, among others — the catalog is a challenge for music asset dealers who would consider buying it.
One reason, aside from the public categories, is that his catalog isn't released under a single, recognizable brand like most artists' catalogs are — it's been released under five main artist names: Puff Daddy, Puff Daddy & the Family, P .Diddy, Diddy and Diddy-Dirty Money. That makes it harder to buy, music industry executives say. To further confuse matters, in 2017 he decided he would now be known as Love, or Brother Love, under which he released his latest album, Off gridalthough neither name appears to be associated with any Combs musical activity in Luminate's database.
Confusingly, the latest album, Off gridtechnically released under the name Diddy, was credited with 453,000 units in 2023, according to Advertising signmath based on Luminate's data from the weekly Billboard 200 chart. However, the songs with the most activity on those albums are collaborations, like “Creepin'” — a remix credited to The Weeknd, Metro Boomin and 21 Savage that it seems to capture all streams of the song, not just Diddy's remix. Consequently, these streams are not counted on his artist page, which only gives Diddy credit for 97,000 album consumption units in 2023 for all of his albums, including Off gridput under the handle Diddy.
Given the lower-than-expected activity and volume of its catalog, Advertising sign estimates that the combined Combs catalog brings in about $2.4 million in master recording revenue. while his publishing roster, which has an extensive list of co-writers, brings in about $600,000 a year for Diddy. Given all his co-writers, his share of the releases generated by his own albums is probably around $225,000. Together, that works out to about $2.625 million annually, and at a gross 16x multiple — a rate at which many high-profile catalogs have sold in recent years — that would put the value of Diddy's artist catalog at about $42 million.
Reps for Diddy did not respond to a request for comment.
There are several caveats to this assessment – chief among them being that Diddy was, for years, also a prolific producer for many of the artists on the Bad Boy label, and that the master recordings he owns from other artists are likely desirable for music investors. However, in September 2023, he announced that he was reassigning his publishing rights to the songwriters and artists who helped create Bad Boy, including Ma$e, Faith Evans, LOX, 112 and the Notorious BIG estate.
According to this story, Combs had turned down offers to sell this catalog of publications. While most of these authors were entitled to terminate and reclaim their publication at 35 years, this only applies to US copyrights, not worldwide, which Combs would otherwise continue to own under US law . What happened to these global rights is still unknown.
But overall, considering all the other artists he's worked with, his ownership of Bad Boy's master catalog provides significant income and possibly a potential valuation well beyond the above-mentioned estimates for his own master catalog .
