Tore
Appearances
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
It seemed that this young guy had been too reckless and building whatever promotion career that he was trying to build. And surely this would be the end of his career.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
This is the beginning of this sense of invincibility that he seems to take on.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
At the time, there was this thing going on in Harlem that we called blend tapes. And if you were into hip-hop... Listening to R&B could be a bit of a stretch, right? It didn't really hit the same, but you love those singers. And so DJs started making tapes where they took the vocals from the singers we liked and putting them over hip hop beats.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
He takes this idea that's already going on in the street and cleans it up and puts it with Mary J. Blige. And it is a revolutionary moment.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
Andre says to him, you know, there can only be one lion in the jungle, and he fires him. But he let him take two rappers that Andre didn't know what to do with,
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
There was a time when it was ubiquitous, his records. I remember multiple nights of being in a club, they're playing a string of Bad Boy records, you get in a cab to go to another club, the radio is playing Bad Boy records in the cab, you get in the next club and they're playing Bad Boy as soon as you walk in. It was just everywhere.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
They were really smart in that they followed the Motown playbook. There's a charismatic CEO who creates the brand and creates the image. There's a brand image that links them all together, and they're part of the culture.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
There really wasn't much of an ability to create or recruit new superstars after that.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
which was so the puff vibe. You can hate me, but I'm gonna make you love me and I'm never gonna stop.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
And he called Nas and was like, can you kill the video? Let's have a whole new concept. And Nas is like, we could just snip you out of the part of the desert. Like, let's just do that. And he calls his manager, Steve Stout, who was like, no, we spent a million dollars on the video. We're not changing it. And also, it's already at MTV. They're about to play it. They played the video.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
The original cut of the video with Puff in the desert as Jesus, he sees it in his office at Bad Boy. He freaks out. He and some number of bodyguards, goons, went to Steve's office. Steve's in the middle of a meeting. They barge in and they start beating him up.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
And it was a really interesting way to put him in Macy's and later Walmart with a T-shirt, but also in a boutique on Fifth Avenue, right? So that he's able to sort of mass market and look upscale at the same time.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
His father was from the streets of Harlem, and he was very proud of the heights that his father rose to in that culture. But he's really a suburban guy.
20/20
Bad Rap: Invincible
His father died when he was three. And so his mother, Janice, became the center of his world. She clearly, or at least she from the stories was like, you know, whatever you want, you know, I worship the ground you walk on and would take on a second job to be able to get him something expensive that he wanted. And so the idea that Sean should have, you know, is starting to be inculcated there.