No matter what he’s called himself over the years, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ status as a hip-hop mogul has remained constant since his breakthrough in the early ’90s. Born in Harlem in 1969, Sean John Combs began working as an intern at Uptown Records in 1990; after working his way up at the storied hip-hop label, he formed his own imprint, Bad Boy Entertainment, in 1993. Bad Boy became one of the cornerstones of East Coast hip-hop and R&B with releases by artists including The Notorious B.I.G. and Faith Evans, as well as Diddy’s first album of his own, 1997’s No Way Out. His biggest hits as an artist and producer—the Diana Ross-sampling Biggie cut “Mo Money Mo Problems”, the Mase-assisted rallying cry “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down”, the blockbuster Notorious B.I.G. tribute “I’ll Be Missing You”—spun famous pop songs from his youth into modern gold, while their flashy videos dominated television and became a defining visual style of the ’90s. Diddy’s blue-hued vision of the future extended to solo cuts like the glitchy 2007 hit “Last Night”, his critically acclaimed electro-hip-hop album Last Train to Paris and 2010s productions for Kanye West and Pusha T. While he branched out into acting, reality TV and fashion, his musical and business contributions to hip-hop helped make the genre the culture-dominating force it is today.