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      What to Know About the Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The music mogul, who faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, has been accused in civil court of raping and drugging people. He has denied the allegations.In November 2023, the R&B singer Cassie filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, her former record label head and boyfriend, accusing him of rape, of forcing her to participate in sexual encounters he called “freak-offs” and of ongoing physical abuse for about a decade. Mr. Combs, who is also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, has “vehemently” denied the allegations.Over the following months, more than 20 additional lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs — including more than half of them after he was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution in September. He has pleaded not guilty and remains detained in a Brooklyn jail; the trial is scheduled for May 5.The Lawsuits Against Sean Combs, Known as DiddyOCTOBER 202411 Lawsuits From Anonymous Plaintiffs in federal court in New YorkA legal team led by Tony Buzbee, a personal injury lawyer in Houston who has used a phone hotline, Instagram and a news conference to solicit clients with claims against Mr. Combs, filed six suits alleging sexual assaults from 1995 to 2021, followed by five additional suits alleging sexual assaults from 2000 to 2022.Tony Buzbee, a Houston lawyer, held a news conference to announce he had a large number of individuals with claims against Mr. Combs — and to solicit more.Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressThe accusations: In two suits from the first batch of filings, women accused Mr. Combs of raping them at parties in New York City; one plaintiff said Mr. Combs raped her in 1995 at a promotional event for a music video by the Notorious B.I.G. Four of the plaintiffs are men, including one who said he was working security at a White Party in the Hamptons in 2006 when Mr. Combs drugged him, pushed him into a van and raped him. Another man accused Mr. Combs of groping his genitals at a 1998 White Party, when the plaintiff was 16. A third man’s suit involves a 2008 encounter in a stockroom at Macy’s, where he said Mr. Combs forced his penis into the plaintiff’s mouth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can a Synthetic Voice Be Taught to Sing Opera?

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      “The Other Side of Silence,” a new work in development, is experimenting with giving operatic voice to a text-to-speech synthesizer.The opera opened with amplified breathing: gasps, hisses, labored inhalations. A string quartet introduced spidery harmonics that consolidated into brighter chords and were joined, over time, by radiant voices. Exuberantly lyrical, their lines unfolded in stark contrast with those of the protagonist, who, strapped into a wheelchair center stage, had thus far contributed only some short comments in the machine tones of a text-to-speech synthesizer.But then the synthetic voice began to sing, cutting through acoustic textures with a sound profile all of its own. In the upper register it seemed to combine the timbre of a boy soprano with a brushed metal finish, while the lower range had some of the compressed warmth of a countertenor. The voice, an uncanny combination of expressive directness and can’t-quite-place-it strangeness, moved from one note to the next with the slick flexibility of rubber.The voice belonged to Mark Steidl, the star and co-librettist, with Katherine Skovira, of “The Other Side of Silence.” The first act of this opera, composed by Robert Whalen, was presented last week in a public workshop at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.Steidl has cerebral palsy and speaks through an augmentative and alternative communication (or A.A.C.) device, which can make ordinary interactions painfully slow. Making space for underrepresented voices has become a stated priority for much of the opera world. To tell the story of a nonspeaking disabled character in “The Other Side of Silence,” a team of creators, researchers and software developers had to first learn how to engineer the voice itself.The opera’s creators believe that Steidl’s singing voice is the first case of a generative synthetic voice taught to sing opera. While “The Other Side of Silence” depicts a disabled person’s struggle for creative flourishing and agency, the underlying theme of opportunity and fear in the age of artificial intelligence has a Faustian resonance that fits comfortably into this art form’s canon.In the work, which is being developed with Opera Saratoga, Zari, a nonspeaking, nonbinary character based on Steidl, is heavily dependent on a team of caregivers, including a mother who chafes at her child’s gender identity. Zari decides to move into an experimental smart home in a remote desert, run by an A.I. entity called the Chimera that promises unprecedented independence. But with access to Zari’s thoughts, the Chimera begins to take over their decision-making and, in a medical crisis, intervenes in ways that leave Zari’s mind altered forever.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chappell Roan’s Rocket-Ship Year

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicChappell Roan has become one of the biggest breakout pop stars of the past year, and made it happen in novel fashion: creating grand-scale, 1980s-influenced pop refracted through a queer lens; building a drag-inspired performance character; and calling into question the way that fans worship their heroes while rapidly accumulating fans online and in real life.Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” continues its rise toward the top of the album chart, more than a year after its release. And her festival performances have become wildly viral events. Roan’s ascent has tested the boundaries of contemporary pop, and also may create a template for a next generation of stars.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the fits and starts of Roan’s early career, the events that propelled her to fame and the ways in which she is remaking the star-fan dynamic.Guest:P. Claire Dodson, associate director of culture at Teen VogueConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Streaming Numbers Grow as His Legal Woes Pile Up

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      The embattled music mogul is facing federal sex trafficking charges and a slew of lawsuits. Curious listeners and fans are keeping his catalog in rotation.In the 11 months since the singer Cassie accused Sean Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault and years of physical abuse, the mogul’s once-booming music career has largely fallen apart.His songs have vanished from radio playlists. He became a pariah at the Grammy Awards, where he once held court. And his business interests — including stakes in a media network and a popular liquor brand — have collapsed. At least 17 more lawsuits have been filed against Mr. Combs alleging misconduct, and last month, he was indicted in New York on federal charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty and is appealing his detention in a Brooklyn jail.But through it all, one part of Mr. Combs’s music business has remained steady, and even seen some growth: the popularity of his songs on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.Over the last year, as Mr. Combs, who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, faced a drumbeat of negative stories in the news media — like the raids on his homes by federal agents in March, and a leaked security camera video in May that showed him brutally assaulting Cassie in a hotel in 2016 — the number of people who follow him on Spotify has steadily grown. That figure has climbed from about 1.5 million late last year to 1.8 million now, an increase of about 15 percent, according to Chartmetric, which tracks data from streaming music and social media.Recently the number of clicks for Mr. Combs’s songs have shot up dramatically. In the week before his arrest on Sept. 16, his catalog had about 3.2 million streams on services in the United States; in the weeks following, that figure rose about 50 percent to 4.8 million, according to Luminate, which supplies the data for Billboard’s charts. (In the most recent chart week, the number dipped a bit to 4.3 million.) On social media, Mr. Combs’s follower count has fluctuated, depending on the platform, but support on TikTok has been strong, where the hashtag #FreeDiddy has 12,000 uses.In the music business, this has become a familiar phenomenon of the streaming era. A household-name star — like R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson or Michael Jackson — comes under harsh scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct, and may temporarily suffer in the broader cultural marketplace, but maintains steady streaming numbers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs’s Legal Woes Are Growing. So Are His Streaming Numbers.

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      The embattled music mogul is facing federal sex trafficking charges and a slew of lawsuits. Curious listeners and fans are keeping his catalog in rotation.In the 11 months since the singer Cassie accused Sean Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault and years of physical abuse, the mogul’s once-booming music career has largely fallen apart.His songs have vanished from radio playlists. He became a pariah at the Grammy Awards, where he once held court. And his business interests — including stakes in a media network and a popular liquor brand — have collapsed. At least 17 more lawsuits have been filed against Mr. Combs alleging misconduct, and last month, he was indicted in New York on federal charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty and is appealing his detention in a Brooklyn jail.But through it all, one part of Mr. Combs’s music business has remained steady, and even seen some growth: the popularity of his songs on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.Over the last year, as Mr. Combs, who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, faced a drumbeat of negative stories in the news media — like the raids on his homes by federal agents in March, and a leaked security camera video in May that showed him brutally assaulting Cassie in a hotel in 2016 — the number of people who follow him on Spotify has steadily grown. That figure has climbed from about 1.5 million late last year to 1.8 million now, an increase of about 15 percent, according to Chartmetric, which tracks data from streaming music and social media.Recently the number of clicks for Mr. Combs’s songs have shot up dramatically. In the week before his arrest on Sept. 16, his catalog had about 3.2 million streams on services in the United States; in the weeks following, that figure rose about 50 percent to 4.8 million, according to Luminate, which supplies the data for Billboard’s charts. (In the most recent chart week, the number dipped a bit to 4.3 million.) On social media, Mr. Combs’s follower count has fluctuated, depending on the platform, but support on TikTok has been strong, where the hashtag #FreeDiddy has 12,000 uses.In the music business, this has become a familiar phenomenon of the streaming era. A household-name star — like R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson or Michael Jackson — comes under harsh scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct, and may temporarily suffer in the broader cultural marketplace, but maintains steady streaming numbers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Nigro’s Path to Hitmaker for Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo

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      The songwriter and producer has helped craft huge albums with Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo. What’s the key to his success? “Dan always believed in me,” Roan said.When Daniel Nigro and Chappell Roan wrote and recorded “Pink Pony Club” back in 2019, Nigro knew they had something special. The problem was, no one believed him.It was the second song the pair had written together, a stirring origin story of Roan’s self-awakening from the Missouri-born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz to the burgeoning queer artist Chappell Roan, spurred by her home away from home, a Los Angeles gay bar where “boys and girls can all be queens every single day.”At the time, Roan was signed to Atlantic Records, which had released her downcast debut EP to little notice. Nigro was scuffling, too; he’d left his middling Long Island emo band to try his hand at songwriting in L.A., where he had some success with credits on songs by Sky Ferreira and Carly Rae Jepsen, among others. But in his mid-30s, he was still paying the bills in part with money he’d earned writing commercial jingles.When Atlantic executives heard “Pink Pony Club,” they were not impressed. “I was convinced the song was incredible,” Nigro recalled, “and then they told me it wasn’t.” The label suggested excising the song’s ebullient guitar solos, played by Dave Stewart’s son Sam, that Roan had pushed for and Nigro helped compose, “and I was like, nope,” he said. Atlantic dropped Roan, and in 2021 Nigro started his own label, Amusement Records, just to release her music. In August, her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200.“Dan always believed in me,” Roan said in an email. “He has been there from the beginning, and brought me into realizing what makes me feel good to perform, what makes me feel good to sing, to write about. Because he believed in bringing that part of myself to life, I started to believe in it, too.”Nigro performing in 2010 with As Tall as Lions, the emo band he formed with high school friends on Long Island.Joey Foley/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Liam Payne Vigil in London Brings Fans Together

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      His death has been particularly profound in Britain, where Payne, a member of the boy band One Direction, first achieved fame. “We don’t know loss like this,” one fan said.Hundreds of fans gathered in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon to mourn Liam Payne, 31, a member of the British group One Direction, who died after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last week.Somber adults and teenagers waited — some, for hours — to lay flowers and handmade signs at the base of the bronze Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens to honor Payne. It was one of several memorials held around the world in the days after his death.“We don’t know loss like this,” said Brooke Kurzeja, 18, who traveled three hours to attend the vigil. “This is what it was like when Prince died, my mom said.”The loss is profound in Britain, where fans watched Payne, from Wolverhampton, a town in central England, twice on the British talent show “The X Factor”: first in 2008, at 14, when he was eliminated after a few rounds, and then two years later, when he showed up with more confidence. The show’s judges shuffled Payne into a group with four other British boys who had auditioned as solo artists — Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan — and the group, One Direction, quickly captured the hearts of teenagers around the nation — before taking on the world.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesEllie Smith for The New York TimesAlicia Sinclair, 22, posted to X the day after Payne’s death expressing her desire to gather with other devastated fans. “If I need something, probably so many other people need something,” Sinclair said. As the weekend approached, she and a few other fans started a group on WhatsApp, which quickly grew to nearly 1,000 members.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: A Choir Stands Out in a Multimedia Performance

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      The Crossing is one of many elements in “Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness,” which links pieces by Gabriela Ortiz in a five-movement meditation.“Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness,” which had its New York premiere on Friday evening at Zankel Hall, jams a lot into its 75 minutes.The piece includes, in shifting combinations, the Crossing, a superb contemporary-music choir; a flutist who wanders the stage; a quartet of percussionists; two actors; dancers from a pair of troupes; projections of drawings and photographs; poetry in English and Spanish; and, throughout, the suggestion of themes of profound societal import, like war, migration and environmental destruction.What pulls together all these elements — or is supposed to — is one composer, Gabriela Ortiz. Ortiz, in residence at Carnegie Hall this season, makes music of bright, energetic colors, and “Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness” offers a selection of her pieces, loosely linked in a five-movement multimedia meditation and directed by Stephen Jiménez.Solemn dialogues for the two actors — not naturalistic scenes, exactly, but elegiac nods toward pained emotions — form interludes between the musical sections. Ortiz’s shining 2022 choral work “Tierra,” with an artfully enigmatic text by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, provides music for the first and final movements.The flutist Alejandro Escuer “plays in a breathily stark style that evokes Latin American wooden folk instruments,” our critic writes.Stephanie BergerWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More