Charisa Bossinakis
P Diddy has been forced to pay Sting USD $5,000 a day for sampling one of The Police frontman's songs without permission.
The hip-hop icon - real name Sean Combs - sampled the 1983 single by The Police, 'Every Breath You Take', in his hit song 'I'll Be Missing You', and he recently revealed in a tweet that he has to pay a hefty amount of royalties to the singer every day.
Diddy recently commented on Sting's interview with The Breakfast Club that began circling the internet.
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In the clip, radio host Charlamagne the God asked Sting: "Is it true that Diddy has to pay you USD $2,000 (AUD $2,986) because he didn't ask permission to sample 'Every Breath You Take'."
The former The Police bandmate responded: "Yep, for the rest of his life."
Charlamagne added if the rapper asked Sting for permission to sample his song 'after the fact', to which Sting replied: "Yes, he did," before the studio erupted in laughter.
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However, rest assured there's no bad blood between these two icons, as Sting added: "We're very good friends now."
I mean, kudos for working it out, boys, but what an odd way to strike up a friendship.
In Diddy's Twitter response to the post, he actually corrected the amount of money he owes, saying: "Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting!"
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'I'll Be Missing You' was initially released in 1997, and the song was a tribute to the MC's late longtime friend Christopher 'The Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace.
The song also featured Faith Evans, Biggie's former wife and mother to his son C.J. Wallace.
In a revealing interview for Hip-Hop Evolution, Diddy described how the song came to him while contemplating giving up his music career following the death of his friend - the Notorious B.I.G.
At the time; he recalled losing 20 pounds (9.07 kg) and how he came across The Police's song during his depressive slump.
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He said: “I was ready to quit; I wasn’t gonna put out any more [Bad Boy] records. Then I was watching TV one day—you know, one of those times of despair where nobody is around, and you’re like crying on the floor.
"The self-pity is at an all-time high, and you’re asking God ‘why?’ and then I just heard ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police.
"I just took it as a sign. Sometimes you just need that little bit of light to be able to express yourself."
He then added: "But I [then] thought that the best thing I could do was not give up. I was down, and I was out, but I wasn’t finished. All I could do was get up and start to fight.
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"That’s the way Big would’ve wanted it.”