“SAVE ME A DANCE,” Diddy captioned the video he uploaded to Instagram on May 19. In the clip, taken from a New Year’s Eve party ringing in 2018, music industry icon Andre Harrell is seen dancing with Diddy’s late girlfriend and mother of his three of his kids, Kim Porter. With Andre passing away on May 7 from heart failure, this memory must have been on Diddy’s mind, and he felt he had to share it with all of his followers. He also included a message for both Andre and Kim. “I PROMISE Y’ALL I’M GOING TO FINISH WHAT WE STARTED!!! REST IN POWER. Sh-t done got REAL!!!!”
Kim died in 2018 at the age of 47 due to a bout of lobar pneumonia. Andre was 59 when he succumbed to heart failure in his West Hollywood home. His wife, Wendy Credle, said that he had been having cardiac issues for quite some time, per The New York Times. In addition to founding Uptown Records, a label that’s been described as “a crucial bridge between the worlds of hip-hop and R&B,” Andre is also credited with giving Diddy (aka Sean Combs) his first big career break. Without Andre, there would be no Diddy, which is odd, considering Andre fired Diddy from Uptown in 1993.
After Diddy found success by doing A&R work, and by helping Mary J. Blige and Jodeci get some hip-hop credibility, Andre saw how the power was shifting at Uptown. So, he sacked Diddy. “I guess Andre didn’t want two kings in the castle,” Mr. Combs told The Times. “I had obtained some success, some notoriety, and I didn’t realize it wasn’t my house.” From there, Diddy founded Bad Boy Records, introduce the world to The Notorious B.I.G., and change the face of hip-hop forever.
Judging by that throwback video Diddy just posted, it seems that, 25 years after getting a pink slip from Andre, all was good between him and Andre. Diddy posted a message to his friend days earlier, writing, “I MISS YOU. HE WAS SO KIND. SO BEAUTIFUL. SO PATIENT. SO BLACK. SO CARING. SO SHARING. SO WISE. THE LIFE OF THE PARTY. A MUSICAL GENIUS! MY HERO! LOVE FOREVER.”
Ever since Kim’s passing, Diddy has been working hard to keep her memory alive. The two dated from 1994 to 2007 and shared three children together – “King Christian Combs, 22, and twins Jessie James and D’Lila, 13. In addition to those three, Kim shared a son, Quincy, 28, with singer Al B. Sure, and Diddy has two other children – Justin Combs, 26, and Chance Combs, 14 – with Misa Hylton Brim and Sarah Chapman, respectively.
“We’re really focused on our plan after this. Taking time to really ask the girls and ask the kids really what they want to do,” Diddy said to Naomi Campbell on her YouTube series No Filter With Naomi on Apr. 23. Diddy spoke about how his priorities shifted after Kim’s death, how his focus has been on his kids for the past two years. “Because losing Kim [Porter] and now being a single father-of-six, my thinking had to change. I had to really get focused on their futures, ’cause I know how rough it is out there.”