Credit: Sting

Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs is currently in federal custody after being indicted in September, having been hit with a number of charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering. While many associates are distancing themselves from him completely, Sting is sticking to his guns.

The rapper sampled The Police’s classic ‘Every Breath You Take’ for his Biggie Smalls tribute and 1997 hit ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ with Faith Evans and 112. The track is one of the biggest songs of Combs’ career, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and winning ‘Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group’ at the Grammys.

Sting was recently asked whether the allegations against Combs had tainted the way he thinks about ‘Every Breath You Take’ and whether he would continue to perform the record.

“No. I mean, I don’t know what went on [with Diddy]. But it doesn’t taint the song at all for me,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s still my song”. He added that people still “absolutely” love to hear it.

During an interview with The Breakfast Club in 2018, the 73-year-old said he was “very good friends” with Combs and called ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ a “beautiful version” of his original song. Combs once claimed he had to pay Sting thousands of dollars every day for sampling ‘Every Breath You Take’, but later admitted he was joking.

“I want y’all to understand I was joking,” he tweeted. “It’s called being facetious! Me and [Sting] have been friends for a long time! He never charged me $3,000 or $5,000 a day for ‘[I’ll Be] Missing You’. He probably makes more than $5,000 a day from one of the biggest songs in history”.

Combs has gone as far as saying that ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ changed his life and gave him the opportunity to express his emotions.

“That song really kinda saved my life,” he told Hip-Hop Evolution. “Before that, I was really kinda nervous about being an artist; Big was pushin’ me as far as being an artist. I felt like I’m a really good hype-man. But I remember recording ‘[I’ll Be] Missing You’ and just knowing that it was gonna change hip-hop. Because hip-hop wasn’t really vulnerable.”

He continued: “This [music video] was like hip-hop artists dancing in the rain, walking up the green hills with kids, and wearing a suit. People may have considered it not gangsta or not keeping it real. I didn’t really care about any of that; I just wanted to express the pain. That song humanised us. We could be at our lowest point, and still have hope”.

Nevertheless, it is now evidently marred by controversy. The rapper is currently in federal custody in Brooklyn, and legal experts have noted that he will have to face up to both criminal charges and a string of civil lawsuits in the near future.

“It’s not one woman who usually gets raked over the coals. It seems to be a pile of evidence,” New Jersey attorney Nancy Erika Smith stated. “There are many women who witnessed their own experiences and will testify about that, but they also witnessed the abuse of other women in the same parties or orgies”.

Many of these cases are being represented by the prosecutor Tony Buzbee who said he is acting as attorney for more than 120 men and women who have filed allegations against the rapper for “violent sexual assault or rape, facilitated sex with a controlled substance, dissemination of video recordings, sexual abuse of minors”.