The Man:

Good hip-hop producers create hot  beats, beats you can dance to, rhyme over, remember.

Great hip-hop  producers, however, create a sound. They have a point of view.

If  you didn’t know that before, you will definitely know that now, once you catch  any of the fourteen tracks that make up Press Play, Diddy’s dazzling new  Bad Boy/Atlantic Records release. As Diddy and guest stars Ciara and Big Boi  intone on “Wanna Move”, it’s a CD that will “get you high on music” while you  “enjoy the vibe.”

And  it’s a new vibe, indeed. Combining all the artistic influences that have  defined him as a hip-hop fan, artist and producer over the years, Diddy has  done something artists always tell you they intend to do, but rarely actually  accomplish: He’s taken it to the next level, creating a sound that might best  be described as New Wave-meets-Hip-hop, sexy electro-pop with a urban street  beat. Like hip-hop has always been, it’s a riveting mix of the new and the old.  But Diddy does something with the music cutting edge of musical forms; it’s  sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before, massaging the ear as passionately  as it shakes the ass.

It’s  been five years since The Saga Continues...And the saga is indeed  continuing. In the five years since that last release, Diddy has upped his  moguldom to unprecedented levels, adding fragrance producer, Broadway actor,  marathon runner, and television producer to his growing list of  accomplishments. It would be easy for the man to rest on his laurels, to  release a CD that plays on the same Diddy template that made him a global  superstar. He’s taken his years of experience and created a sonic experience  that breaks new ground while it sustains the Diddy mystique. 
“I originally  started producing records ‘cause I wanted to make people dance,” he says. “And  I’ve been quietly working on this for the last two years, taking everything  I’ve learned over the years, from growing up in the 70s, to being out in the  streets in the 80s listening to hip-hop and watching how it affected my culture,  to the 90s, working with Uptown and Bad Boy. Add to that all the experience  I’ve had traveling and being exposed to all kinds of sounds, it was time to  rekindle the thing I loved. I’ve achieved a great deal of success, but music is  my passion.”

On it’s surface, Press Play is a love story, a sly romantic tale of two people who meet,  seduce each other, fall in love, and then experience the inevitable pain of  that love breaking. But underneath that, Press Play is the tale of a  dreamer, a helpless romantic who’s balancing the dream-state of his passions  with the passions of his dreams coming true. In other words, what happens when  you have access to everything you ever wanted and yet you still want to grow?  In it’s wide-reaching breadth of sounds and moods, deep in the sexy staccato of  the keyboards and the snare of the blaring horns that heighten the grooves, you  can hear the sound of a man on a mission to create something new.

Which is why Press  Play might be the best possible name of Diddy’s new CD. Because what  happens when you “press play”? Not only are you kicking in the beat, getting  the party started-whether it’s in your basement or your SUV or your iPod-but  you’re also refreshing the sound, starting from scratch, opening up new  possibilities, allowing a man to fully express himself. And that’s part of  Diddy’s aim this time around.

The tracks on Press  Play span the realm of Diddy expressing himself. There a clutch of  straight-up party records, like the sensuous single “Come to Me” and “I Am”,  which comes on like gangbusters, like the hottest soundtrack from the greatest  blaxploitation hit never made. But some other tracks might surprise people with  both the level of vulnerability and depth Diddy brings to his lyrical  ruminations and the fiercely nuanced creativity of the sonic landscape. Check  out “Makin’ It Hard,” featuring Mary J. Blige, which is nothing less than a  beautifully percussive hip-hop version of the Blues. “Diddy Rock,” featuring  Timbaland, mixes deep house cheekiness with a hip-hop sensibility, creating a  vibe that transcends both, sounding like it’s of the 80s yet not from the 80s. “The Future” is almost a political statement, detailing aspects of  what Diddy calls the “Afro-American dream” that’s as uplifting and powerful as  it is dazzlingly danceable. These are the themes currently close to the heart  of a brotha who’s “black, rich and dangerous” and yet still wants to make an  impact and create a moment with the rhythms and rhymes that he sends out into  the world like his children. “Special Feeling” is the best Prince track Prince  hasn’t made in years, a horny, corny slice of wry the percolates with jazzy  freshness. “Thought You Said,” featuring a guest vocal by Brandy, plays like  Coldplay or David Gray lost in a hip-hop funhouse of sorts.

Sounds like  nothing you’ve ever heard of, right? Sounds like an impressively broad-based  mélange, right? Something you need to experience? It is.

 Mainly  because Diddy is a man who grabs big chunks of life to create his own  experiences, who yearns to share that experience with a world that, frankly,  hasn’t seen a great many Diddys in it’s midst. “The best thing I could have  done,” he says, “was to step away for a while. While I was away from making  music, I was able to fall in love with a lot of other genres of music but still  love hip-hop. What I’m bringing this time is a level of experience. The resume  speaks for itself, but sometimes I think people actually forget that I’ve  worked with everyone, from Sting to Aretha Franklin to Mariah Carey to Barry  White to Ice Cube to Biggie to Snoop to Jay -Z. I got something outta  that, it’s not just poppin’ shit. Imagine getting to work with all those  incredible people, imagine touring all over the world. You gotta take something away from those experiences. I hang out in Harlem, I  chill below 14th Street.  I go to hip-hop clubs, techno clubs. All that is gonna go into you and if  you’re not producing music at that time it’s living inside you, so when I  decided to get back behind the board and produce a new record, it all felt  fresh, it felt new, it felt exciting.”    
Ultimately, says  Diddy, Press Play is inspired by the movements of bodies in dark  after-hours spots all over the world, those sexual, sensual places where the  music is the beat but the vulnerability of meeting someone new and dancing with  them for the first time offers up all kinds of possibilities. He knows how that  sounds, that some folks might think he’s going soft in his later days. But a  brotha like Diddy’s not concerned. “Hip-hop,” he admits, “is so macho that it’s  rare someone says they’re gonna embrace the sensual side of the music or the  romantic side or the provocative side; being completely vulnerable. But I’m  embracing that and how it can be aggressive but it’s almost romantic. That’s  life. And that’s love. And Press Play reflects all that.” He adds, “It’s  the perfect fusion of sophistication and gutter and that’s who I am. We can do  a waltz or I can smack the shit out of you. That’s just real talk.  I can make love to you or we can go into some  S&M.”

As  long as it all makes you want to move. “You   know how you feel when one of my records come on,” Diddy declares. “You  feel like you don’t even need to know the latest dance, the record will just  make you move to it. And you don’t wanna dance by yourself either, you wanna  move with a young lady or a guy, feel that vibe. You know what I’m sayin?”

For more: Log on to www.diddy.com