Sean ‘Diddy' Combs' connection to a famous gangster is part of his family lore

CNN

04-06-2025

As the federal criminal trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs continues, many parts of his past are being revisited.
That includes his father's friendship with the late gangster, Frank Lucas.
Melvin Combs was a drug dealer who was fatally shot in 1972, when his son Sean Combs was three years old.
'That's not something I glorify, but he was in Harlem and he was doing his thing, selling narcotics,' Combs told journalist Toure in an interview 13 years ago. 'And we all know what that gets you. That's only going to have you end up in jail or dead. It is the reason why I didn't follow in those footsteps.'
In that interview, Combs was clear that his father did not work for either Lucas or another famed Harlem gangster, Nicky Barnes, but rather was 'as big as them' in the hustling game.
The younger Combs didn't shy away from his father's history.
'I'm definitely like him,' Combs said. 'But I'm just doing it in a legal way.'
Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges that include racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution in an ongoing federal criminal trial in Manhattan.
His mother, Janice Combs, had initially told her son his father had died in a car crash. He told Toure he found out what his father had been involved with on his own.
'This was before the internet and I had looked up my father's name and I saw an article about my mother wearing a full length chinchilla [a fur coat] to a funeral and taking me and I was in a mink,' Combs recalled. 'And that was like the story of just the glamour and like the decadence of our family and just like he was the kingpin, you know, of Harlem and how he had got assassinated.'
He said he understood why his mother hadn't initially been honest with him about his dad. Due to where they were living when he was growing up, Combs said he believes he would have become 'one of the biggest drug dealers out there because…the type of person I would have wanted to follow in my father's footsteps.'
Melvin Combs had a connection to Frank Lucas, a famous drug lord in Harlem during his heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lucas was famously portrayed by Denzel Washington in the 2007 film 'American Gangster.'
He was sentenced to 70 years in prison after being convicted of federal drug charges in New York and state charges in New Jersey, but only served seven before turning informant and going into the Witness Protection Program, according to the New York Times.
Lucas emerged in later years to share his story and during an interview with Vlad TV said he and Melvin Combs were 'good friends.'
'We did a lot of business together,' Lucas said. 'Of course it was not legal business, but we did a lot of business together.'
Lucas expressed sadness regarding the elder Combs' murder and said he met Sean Combs when he was a little boy.
'His daddy used to bring him over my house,' Lucas said. 'He used to come see me on various business and he would bring him over my house.'
Lucas added that about a year prior to the Vlad TV interview, he had connected with Combs, who was seeking information about his late father.
'I told him something about his father, but I didn't give him the whole story because he didn't press me,' Lucas said. 'He just asked me casually and I told him casually. But if he had pressed me, I would have told him the whole story.'
Combs told Toure that the world didn't know the whole story about him.
'People don't really know me,' the Bad Boy Record founder said at the time. 'And that's by design.'
'Who is this person, the Sean Combs that we don't know,' Toure pressed.
'We have yet to find out,' Combs responded. 'You have to come along for the ride.'