Diddy's Bad Boys For Life protégé Mark Curry is revealing the secret meaning behind a song he wrote for the mogul at the start of his career - and how the rapper screwed him out of profits.
On The Trial of Diddy, the brand-new Daily Mail podcast that launches today, Curry claims the disgraced music mogul screwed him out of credit and profits on songs he wrote.
Mark Curry signed with Bad Boy Record in 1997 and said for years Diddy, promised him he would release his own album.
Instead, Curry said he ended up writing songs that Diddy took credit for.
One of them was the smash hit Come With Me, which appeared on the 1998 Godzilla movie soundtrack, sold a million copies in the US, and reached number four on the Billboard charts.
Mark Curry signed with Bad Boy Record in 1997 and said for years Diddy promised him he would release his own album but never did, instead taking credit for his work
Curry claimed not only was the song his creation that Diddy took credit for, its lyrics were about the pain and betrayal Diddy caused him.
'When I did the publishing deal, I just finished writing the Godzilla Come With Me song. And that song was going to go big,' he said.
'And he knew that at the time he didn't have a publishing situation with me... and he had executed my production deal that I was going into.'
When it was time to release the song, Curry said Diddy 'was very adamant about making sure that I signed the contract'.
The contract meant Curry would sign over half the publishing rights, and in return he would receive 'X amount of dollars'.
'But if I didn't sign the contract, he wasn't gonna let me write the song because he wouldn't get the percentage that he would need out of it.
'So it's like, in order for us to use this song, you're gonna have to sign this contract. So I'm like, OK, they had the contract.'
Curry signed the contact, but later discovered he would received only $25,000 - even though it was worth $8 million to $10 million.
'Why don't you wait until we have a value in it and then give me an offer? Why are you offering me a deal on something we don't even understand its capability?' he told the podcast.
Diddy at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles, the year the song was released
'And that's the foolery. The deal comes before the work. So you offer me a deal after we accomplish what we're reaching for.'
When it was released in 1998, Come With Me was an instant hit.
'When I wrote that song, I was trying to write a song for Puff. And I was trying to word it in the words that I thought would best describe him,' Curry said.
'It was a really huge song. It was perhaps one of the biggest songs that I ever wrote. And it was a huge song. It was charted... I wrote that song.'
Speaking on the first episode of The Trial of Diddy, Curry revealed the hidden meaning behind the song was what he was saying to Diddy at the time.
'If you listen to that song, every word was what I was saying to him. You said to trust me. You know, you got to listen to that song, those words,' he said.
'Then I realized that I wanted to start writing more songs about how I was feeling and how I was feeling was so hurt that all my songs came.'
Curry went on to appear in numerous Bad Boy Records tracks until he left the label in 2005, including smash hit Bad Boy for Life in 2001.
Curry went on to appear in numerous Bad Boy Records tracks until he left the label in 2005, including smash hit Bad Boy for Life in 2001
He wrote tell-all memoir Dancing with the Devil (referring to Diddy) in 2009, which he said was progressively scribed as a form of insurance.
Curry said he hoped Diddy 'would try to deal with me fairly if he knew I was going to air his dirty laundry', but it didn't work.
The book claimed Curry not only wrote Come With Me, but sang a vocal guide for Diddy that he followed so closely he even perfectly mimicked Curry's hand gestures and facial movements.
Then Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in a drive-by shooting and Diddy needed Curry to ghostwrite even more for him - dangling the promise of riches.
Instead, he was strung along for years, appearing in numerous music videos, writing some of Diddy's biggest hits, and appearing to the world like a cashed-up right-hand man - but was paid a pittance.
Curry detailed how Diddy even ripped off his performers by insisting on singing in their hits - then charging a massive fee or slice of the profits that they only found out about when the smaller than expected royalty checks arrived.
Diddy tried the same trick by inserting his fleet of sportscars into their music videos and charging huge fees for the privilege.
Other times he strong-armed his way into songwriting and production credits on tracks he had no involvement in.
Curry wrote tell-all memoir Dancing with the Devil (referring to Diddy) in 2009
Curry was paid so little that he sold his backstage passes to Diddy concerts and seriously considered selling marijuana on the side to provide for his family.
'Last year, I lost my home to foreclosure just like thousands of other American families who put too much faith in their fellow man, like the sweet-talking lady at the mortgage refinancing company,' he wrote.
'Today I am homeless and still driving a 1992 Honda Accord I bought at auction. I still cannot afford health insurance for my son, my wife or myself.'
All the while, Diddy flaunted his extreme wealth in front of those he exploited, Curry wrote.
Curry told the DailyMail.com podcast that he wasn't surprised it took Diddy being charged with sex trafficking and other disturbing crimes for the sordid stories about his exploits to come out.
'What we're yet to discover that hasn't been discovered or actually been talked about much yet is going to come to surface,' he said.
'We're just scratching away at it. But once we get to see and understand the true story of what's going on, then you kind of can understand why it took so long because it's not just about one person. It's about several people.'
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