Written By: Jeremy WeedenThe other day I watched the first couple of minutes of Puff Daddy’s new reality show "Making His Band." For those who don't know, the show consists of Diddy trying to find a band to accompany him on tour. My first thoughts were, "Who wants to see Puff Daddy on tour?"
I mean I would have been first in line many years ago if he were accompanied by the Bad Boy roster. But now what does he do? He does not have any big hits except “Last Night” from 2006, so what is he going to perform? Then I began to think that if I had moved to America from a secluded part of the globe in 2000, I would think of Puff Daddy mainly as a reality TV star as that is what he has been for the majority of this decade. Starting in 2002 with the first "Making the Band" show, he has been on a reality TV kick. He has failed to make the significant contributions to the music industry this decade that he made in the 90s. Right now, it appears he's just getting by on being Diddy.
In the 90s, he had a hand in bringing out Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Biggie Smalls, Mase, Total, The Lox, Carl Thomas, and Lil' Kim just to name a few. In the 00s, he has brought us the first "Making the Band" reality Show with Da Band. He has brought us two other "Making the Band" shows since then with two other groups, Danity Kane and Day 26. Now I'm not trying to take anything away from these groups but they obviously do not compare to the music Puff Daddy helped put out in the 90s.
Adding to his reality shows, he had a show where he was looking for an assistant and now this new one looking for band members. Granted this new show is at least looking for actual musicians, so that's good simply for the fact that musicianship seems to be unimportant in music nowadays, including the different seasons of his reality shows he has had 10 reality shows this decade. If you think about it, no other one person has appeared in that many reality shows. Even American Idol has only had 9 seasons, so he has more reality show appearances than Simon, Paula, and Randy. This is why I think Puffy is mainly a reality TV star now.
Bad Boy has put out a few albums this decade but nothing groundbreaking save for Carl Thomas’s debut "Emotional," which came out in 2000. This is not to say there were not some good albums released by Bad Boy, maybe you really like Yung Joc or Cassie is your thing, but for the most part, I think we can agree that the impact by Bad Boy Records this decade was nothing like it was in the 90s. I love the work Puff Daddy did in the 90s and I appreciate his impact on music overall, but he needs to get back to making good quality music and leave the reality shows alone.
