The “crazy” supergroup Diddy and Jay-Z almost formed
There was once a time when Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs and Jay-Z almost formed a supergroup alongside two other music heavyweights. The pair nearly teamed up with Pharrell and Usher to create one of the biggest hip-hop/R&B hybrid groups of all time, but timings didn’t quite allow for it.
Usher revealed the story during an episode of Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe earlier this year. The singer claimed that secret meetings even took place about them coming together as a quadruple, but in the end, everyone got distracted.
“You gon’ hate me for this one,” he said. “Jay-Z, Pharrell, Diddy and me were supposed to be a group. Yeah, that’s crazy. I didn’t say ‘No.’ I didn’t say ‘Yeah.’ I think that we just got caught up. I think we all got caught up in the moment.”
He continued, “We was talking about it and having secret meetings about it. We were talking about music and how we gon’ flip it and the business of it. And somehow, man, we just got distracted and it never happened. That’s the one I actually wish would have happened.”
All four artists have worked on music in the past, but never all together. Diddy and Jay-Z have collaborated a number of times over the years on songs such as ‘I Know What Girls Like’ from 1997’s In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, ‘Young G’s’ from 1997’s No Way Out and ‘Do You Like It… Do You Want It…’ from 1999’s Forever.
Hov and Pharrell have famously teamed up on songs like ‘Frontin’, ‘Change Clothes’ and ‘So Ambitious’, with P working alongside Diddy in 2015 on ‘Finna Get Loose’. Additionally, Usher collaborated with Diddy on ‘I Need a Girl (Part One)’ and ‘I Don’t Know’ (produced by Pharrell as part of The Neptunes).
Jay-Z and Usher also have a history of collaborating on tracks such as ‘Hot Tottie’ and ‘Best Thing’, with the closest to all of them collaborating coming on ‘Anything‘ from Jay’s Kingdom Come album in 2006, which saw features from Usher and Pharrell.
When Usher headlined the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show in February, it was Jay-Z, who helps produce the epic yearly performances, who informed him about the news that it was his time to take to the grandest stage in entertainment.
“[Jay] said, ‘It’s time, it’s magic time. It’s time for you to have that moment’,” he recalled Hov telling him over a phone call. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He’s like, ‘The Super Bowl’. I’m like, ‘Oh, you ready? Absolutely.’
He continued, “And it was like this was destined to happen. I think that everything that led up to that moment, going to Las Vegas for my residency for the last two years. The legacy, obviously, that is the music, the celebration of entertainment in that place.”