After a November 4 free release of his new mixtape, MMM, New York entrepreneur/rapper Sean “Puffy” Combs (aka Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy), has announced that the album will be available for digital download on iTunes this Friday. Combs has also released a black-and-white documentary (watch above) outlining how the 13-track record brought him back to his early days in the Harlem hip-hop scene during its creation.
Combs surprised fans by offering a surprise release of MMM, which stands for Money Making Mitch, on Spotify and Apple Music for his 46th birthday. “I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than to gift my fans with MMM for free today,” he said in a statement. “MMM is a thank you to my fans and is just the beginning, a prelude to what will be my final album, No Way Out 2.” The mixtape features collaborations with a who’s who in the rap world including Future, Travis Scott, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, Pusha T, French Montana, Ty Dolla $ign, Lil’ Kim, Jadakiss, and others.
In an interview with Billboard, Combs further explained that MMM is his way of “reintroducing himself” before he puts out his next full-length LP. “MMM is returning back to my roots and my style of production — hip-hop soul with that R&B side and flavor to it — a real New York hip-hop sound.”
MMM is the rapper’s first body of work since 2010’s Last Train to Paris (featuring the single Coming Home), which was an R&B collaboration between Combs, singer/dancer Dawn Richards, and singer-songwriter Kalenna Harper.
Combs hasn’t yet announced a release date for what the rapper says will be his final record but it’s expected to come sometime in 2016. Its predecessor, No Way Out, was Puff Daddy’s debut record, and a Grammy winner for Best Rap Album in 1998. Rapper Gizzle, the newest member of Comb’s label Bad Boy records, recently told Rap-Up that the upcoming record is one of a kind. “The mindset is to just be classic and to be epic. And to really live up to that … we know it’s a tall order, but we welcome the challenge.”
