Sean 'Puffy' Combs founds Bad Boy Records

Why it matters

Sean Combs founded Bad Boy Entertainment in 1993, in New York, after he had been fired from Uptown Records the year before. He was 23 years old. The label's first move was signing a then-unknown 21-year-old Brooklyn MC named Christopher Wallace, who recorded as the Notorious B.I.G. He had been working at a McDonald's in Brooklyn before Combs signed him. The Bad Boy run that follows is one of the most commercially dominant five-year stretches in rap. Ready to Die came out in September 1994 and went four-times platinum. Faith Evans's self-titled debut. Total. 112. Mase's Harlem World album. The Lox. Then Combs's own No Way Out in 1997, which sold seven million copies. By 1998 Bad Boy was the most profitable rap label in the country. The shiny-suit, sample-heavy, dance-floor-friendly sound the label perfected (Hitmen production: Stevie J, Mario Winans, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie) became the dominant commercial rap sound of the late 90s. You can debate the artistic legacy. You cannot debate the commercial one. Combs built it.