After interviewing each other for Rolling Stone series “Musicians on Musicians”, hip hop titans Diddy and DJ Khaled both reminisce about pivotal moments in their respective careers and personal lives.
Watch: Diddy and DJ Khaled chat to Rolling Stone
Chatting all things “The First Time”, the pair kick the interview off by throwing it back to when they first met, where a young Khaled was on the street team for yesteryear hip hop institution Jack the Rapper. Although Diddy doesn’t remember that; what he does recall is when they pair met as peers. “We don’t have to live that way anymore,” he reflects.
Each of them speak on their biggest breaks in the industry, and the mentors who put them onto the scene. For Diddy, his first break came with the late Heavy D, whom a young Sean Combs managed for three months while interning at Uptown Records. Khaled, on the other hand, says he owes early successes to legendary emcee Fat Joe, who started shouting him out on records early on in his career.
Diddy also speaks on meeting The Notorious B.I.G. for the first time, and taking him to iconic Harlem soul food restaurant Sylvia’s to impress him, thinking he was going to be hungry because of his size. “The crazy thing was when he sat down I [asked], ‘What you want to eat?’ He said, ‘I’m not hungry. I just want to do what you tell me to do and I wanna get to the money.”
Although perhaps the most surprising story is how Diddy missed his son Justin’s birth, simply because he was celebrating it too hard at his own party. “It was the greatest party ever, and I remember my baby’s mother was mad at me because I wasn’t at the hospital,” he recounts. “But I was so excited to have a song that I told her, “I had to party, I had to have this party.”
