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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Nine Lives

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    For decades, he occupied a special stripe of the celebrity stratosphere. Now the man who helped turn rap into a global concern has escaped a sex-trafficking conviction.For the last two months, Sean Combs — once the most powerful executive in hip-hop, and one of the most recognizable global avatars of American cool — had been reframed as a full-time defendant.Facing trial in federal court on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transporting people for prostitution, he seemed diminished — a powerful man brought low by those he had allegedly harmed, an avatar of how even the loftiest realms of celebrity might not offer a buffer against accountability. It appeared as if Combs’s life, his career, his public image would forever be changed. That his career had reached a cul-de-sac of his own making.On Wednesday, though, Combs was found not guilty on all charges apart from transportation to engage in prostitution, the least serious of them.If the time since late 2023 — when Combs’s ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura (the singer Cassie) filed a civil suit against him, which he settled in one day — has prophesied a fall from grace for Combs, Wednesday’s verdict demonstrated the opposite: that even several weeks of grim testimony from his intimates, employees and others about how he flaunted power and resources to bend them to his will was not compelling enough to completely knock him from his perch.Combs largely escaped the fate of some other high-profile entertainment figures who have been held accountable in the #MeToo era. Had he been convicted across the board, he likely would have faced a full reputational shattering like Harvey Weinstein, once the most powerful man in film, who has been imprisoned on federal sex crimes since 2020. Or R. Kelly, once R&B’s most formidable and popular star, who has been in prison since 2022 on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges. Combs would have been a villain who once was famous, not the other way around.Instead, it’s possible that these charges and this trial might end up being viewed as a blemish on his résumé, another tragedy that registered only as a speed bump.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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      in Movies

      Dave Scott, Hip-Hop Choreographer, Is Dead at 52

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      A former basketball standout with no formal dance training, he came to provide moves for rappers like Bow Wow and dance-battle films like “You Got Served.”Dave Scott, who steered off a college basketball track to become, without formal training, a prominent hip-hop choreographer, mapping the moves for adrenaline-charged street dancing films like “You Got Served” and reality shows like “So You Think You Can Dance,” died on June 16 in Las Vegas. He was 52.His son Neko said he died in a hospital of organ failure after a long illness.Mr. Scott, who was raised in Compton, Calif., was attending Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, on a basketball scholarship when he went dancing one night. Little did he know that a manager of the rapper Rob Base was there, and was impressed enough by Mr. Scott’s gyrations that he invited him to replace a dancer who had dropped out of the rapper’s tour.Mr. Scott was anything but a professional. He learned much of what he knew by decoding the moves from Michael Jackson videos and early hip-hop films like “Breakin’” (1984). It didn’t matter.“I learned the choreography in two days,” he was quoted as saying in a 2013 article in The New York Post. “I left school and finished the tour.”So much for hoops; Mr. Scott’s direction was set.He went on to work as a choreographer for more than 20 films and television shows. His breakout effort was “You Got Served” (2004), which follows the dance-battle odyssey of a crew of Black teenagers from Los Angeles.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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      Jury in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial Reaches Verdict on All Counts but Racketeering Conspiracy

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      The jury will keep deliberating on a racketeering conspiracy charge in the morning after saying there were “unpersuadable opinions on both sides.”A jury in Manhattan reached a partial verdict on Tuesday in the federal case against the music mogul Sean Combs, but it did not announce its decision because it was deadlocked on a final charge of racketeering conspiracy. The jury left for the night and will return to continue deliberating on Wednesday morning.The jury, comprising eight men and four women, said there were members “with unpersuadable opinions on both sides” on the racketeering count. After deliberating for more than 12 hours, they reached a verdict on the four other counts in the case, two each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers have denied that any of his sexual activities with the women in the trial were nonconsensual.After the jurors alerted the court to the partial verdict at about 4:05 p.m. on Tuesday, Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, brought them into the courtroom and encouraged them to continue their discussions.“I ask at this time that you keep deliberating,” Judge Subramanian said.He reread the panel an excerpt from the jury instructions that said “no juror should surrender his or her conscientious beliefs for the purpose of returning a unanimous verdict.”At that point, the jury decided to conclude its deliberations for the day and return on Wednesday at 9 a.m.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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      Judge Dismisses Jay-Z’s Suit Against Lawyer He Said Extorted Him

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      Lawyers for the rapper had accused Tony Buzbee of making false assault claims. Another federal suit Jay-Z has filed against Mr. Buzbee and his client continues.A judge in Los Angeles on Monday allowed for the dismissal of a months-old lawsuit filed by Jay-Z, in which the rapper had attempted to sue a lawyer he said had tried to blackmail him with false claims of sexual misconduct.In November, lawyers for Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter), brought a suit that accused the lawyer, Tony Buzbee, of extortion, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He sued after Mr. Buzbee, who has filed a number of lawsuits that accuse Sean Combs of sexual assault, reached out to explore a complaint from an anonymous accuser who said that Mr. Carter and Mr. Combs sexually abused her.Mr. Buzbee subsequently filed suit accusing Mr. Carter of raping the anonymous accuser with Mr. Combs when she was 13.That lawsuit accusing Mr. Carter of sexual misconduct was later withdrawn by the woman. Now Mr. Carter’s suit against Mr. Buzbee in Los Angeles has been dismissed.Still ongoing is a separate lawsuit filed by Mr. Carter against Mr. Buzbee in federal court in Alabama, the home state of the anonymous woman who initially sued Mr. Carter on sexual assault grounds.Mr. Carter’s lawyers have asserted in their filings that the woman and her lawyers knew the allegations they were making were false but proceeded with the claim anyway. In the Los Angeles case, Mr. Carter’s lawyers have said he received a letter from Mr. Buzbee threatening to “immediately file” a “public lawsuit” against him unless he agreed to resolve the matter through mediation for money.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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      10 Songs of Rebellion and Defiance for the Fourth

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      Tracy Chapman, Björk, Public Enemy and more songs for rabble-rousing and celebrating revolution.Tracy ChapmanAmy Sussman/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Jon Pareles here, chief pop critic, dropping by The Amplifier while Lindsay is on leave. The Fourth of July is just a few days away. And its celebratory fireworks and parades, lest we forget, commemorate a manifesto of principled rejection of authoritarian rule, which became the foundation of a successful revolution. It’s a good moment to crank up some songs about defiance, rebellion, justice and collective action. Here are a few for starters.Rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system,JonListen along while you read.1. Tracy Chapman: ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’“Poor people gonna rise up and take what’s theirs,” Tracy Chapman predicted on her 1988 debut album. With a churchy organ looming behind her strummed guitar chords, she envisioned economic discontent that could build from a whisper to a movement — and she welcomed it.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube2. The Isley Brothers: ‘Fight the Power, Pts. 1 and 2’Frustration energized the funk in this 1975 hit by the Isley Brothers. Tautly contained rhythm guitars and pithy drumming back up the brothers’ growls and falsettos as they rail against red tape, against people who say their “music’s too loud” and generally against a barnyard profanity that was still a rarity in that era of R&B. For the last two minutes of a five-minute track, they bear down directly on their message, vehemently repeating, “Fight it, fight the power!”▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube3. Public Enemy: ‘Fight the Power’In 1989, Public Enemy latched onto the Isley Brothers’ title and refrain for “Fight the Power,” which appeared on the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and on Public Enemy’s album “Fear of a Black Planet.” Chuck D declares, “From the heart, it’s a start, a work of art / To revolutionize, make a change,” over the Bomb Squad’s dense, deep funk production — a bristling pileup of samples from James Brown and many others. Decades later, it still sounds uncompromising.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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      Kneecap Brings Pro-Palestinian Politics Back Onstage at Glastonbury

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      The band landed in trouble over anti-Israel statements, and a member faces a terrorism charge. But at Britain’s biggest music festival, tens of thousands cheered it.About 20 minutes into Kneecap’s set at the Glastonbury music festival on Saturday, the Irish-language rap group stopped the show to discuss a topic that has made it one of Britain’s most talked about — and infamous — pop acts.“I don’t have to lecture you people,” Mo Chara, one of the band’s rappers, told tens of thousands of onlookers at the festival. “Israel are war criminals,” he said.He then led the crowd in a chant of “Free, free, Palestine.”Kneecap’s set at Britain’s largest music festival on Saturday was so popular that organizers had to shut access to the arena to stop overcrowding. But it came after two head-spinning months for the group.In April, Kneecap lost its U.S. visa sponsor after making anti-Israel statements at Coachella. The police in Britain then charged Mo Chara with a terrorism offense for displaying the flag of Hezbollah, the militant group based in Lebanon, onstage at a London show. Several festivals and venues dropped the band from their lineups.The Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote to Glastonbury urging it not to give Kneecap a platform that could make the band’s views appear acceptable, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that it was “not appropriate” for Kneecap to play at the festival, or for the BBC to broadcast the performance. (The BBC, which provides live coverage from Glastonbury, did not broadcast Kneecap’s set, and the festival press office did not respond to a request for comment.)Yet unlike lawmakers, Jewish groups and prosecutors, few in the crowd on Saturday appeared to have concerns about the band or its politics. Amy Pepper, 46, a health worker from Northern Ireland, said the band was “really inspirational, particularly for my kids.” She had seen Kneecap live several times before, she said.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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      What Happened in the Closing Arguments of the Sean Combs Trial

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      The jurors will begin deliberating on Monday. The music mogul has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.The federal government and Sean Combs’s defense team presented their closing arguments this week after extensive testimony in which the music mogul’s ex-girlfriends said they were pressured to have sex with male escorts in drug-dazed marathon sessions.Mr. Combs is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution, and has pleaded not guilty, saying the sexual encounters were consensual. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating on Monday, which will mark the eighth week of the trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.Here are some key observations from the closing arguments:The ChargesSex TraffickingThe federal prosecutor who delivered the government’s closing argument on Thursday, Christy Slavik, emphasized to jurors that convicting Mr. Combs of sex trafficking required only one example of him coercing his girlfriends into sex with prostitutes.For examples of such coercion, Ms. Slavik pointed to Mr. Combs’s 2016 assault on Casandra Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel that was captured on surveillance video, and a fight between “Jane” and Mr. Combs in 2024 before he directed her to have sex with another man.Jane, who was identified by a pseudonym, testified that she repeatedly said “I don’t want to” before Mr. Combs asked, “Is this coercion?”The next day, the defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo argued that Ms. Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, was a willing participant in the frequent sex sessions that Mr. Combs called “freak-offs.”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 ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial: Takeaways From Defense’s Closing Arguments

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      Mr. Combs’s lead lawyer made a final appeal to the jury, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.Sean Combs’s lawyer made a final appeal to the jury at his racketeering and sex trafficking trial in New York on Friday, arguing in often sarcastic tones that the government’s evidence contradicted its case against the hip-hop mogul.The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, portrayed his client as a deeply flawed man who led a swinger’s lifestyle, had a drug problem and sometimes physically assaulted his girlfriends. But he argued government’s accusation that Mr. Combs was a sex trafficker or the ringleader of a racketeering organization was “badly exaggerated.”“He did what he did,” Mr. Agnifilo said. “But he’s going to fight to the death to defend himself from what he didn’t do.”Here are some takeaways from the defense’s closing argument.The defense focused on consent, credibility and overreach.Friday’s summation was the most substantive argument made to date by the defense, which called no witnesses during the trial and declined to put Mr. Combs on the stand.Mr. Agnifilo devoted long stretches of his four-hour closing argument to highlighting testimony, texts and video evidence, that he said demonstrated that Casandra Ventura and “Jane,” who testified under a pseudonym, consensually participated in the marathon sex parties that are central to the government’s claim that the women were sex trafficked.“You want to call it swingers, you want to call it threesomes,” he said, “whatever you want to call it, that is what it is — that’s what the evidence shows.”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 Son and Kanye West Release New Song, ‘Diddy Free’

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      The track, which also features North West, includes a chorus where the rapper known as King Combs promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”Marketing prowess may run in the family.On the day Sean Combs’s defense was set to present its closing argument to jurors, the music mogul’s son Christian, who raps as King Combs, released a long-teased set of seven new songs, including one track called “Diddy Free.”The song, credited to King Combs and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, includes lyrics about those who “try to play the victim” and states plainly “[expletive] the world, critics and the witness.” Later, King Combs, 27, raps, “this Bible might come in handy / this rifle might come in handy” with a chorus that promises not to sleep “’til we see Diddy free.”A previous demo version of the song by Ye — without King Combs — had leaked online last month. The superstar rapper and producer, who has become a pariah in the music industry for his persistent, button-pushing antisemitism, has been the highest-profile celebrity to offer public support for Mr. Combs, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Earlier this month, he briefly appeared at the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is being held in a show of solidarity.Ye is credited as the executive producer of King Combs’s new music, the “Never Stop” EP, which uses a photo that appears to depict the dilapidated headquarters for Bad Boy Worldwide, Mr. Combs’s entertainment company, as its cover art. The EP also includes a featured appearance by North West, Ye’s eldest daughter with his former wife, Kim Kardashian. Her appearance on an earlier version of the song had, according to Ye, been a source of contention between the two parents.King Combs was among the six of Mr. Combs’s seven children who appeared in court to support the mogul on Friday. (The seventh, Mr. Combs’s lawyer pointed out, is an infant.) He wore a jacket that includes an illustration of his late mother, Kim Porter, who died in 2018 and has been evoked at trial as Mr. Combs’s “soul mate.”“You always told me to chase my dreams and be a go-getter,” King Combs raps on another track, titled “Kim.”“In this studio right now, I feel alone in it.” More