Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs on How Loss and ‘Matters of the Heart’ Inspired His Star-Studded ‘Super Bowl of R&B,’ ‘The Love Album’

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It’s been 17 years since Sean “Puff Daddy/ Diddy/ Love” Combs made a solo album, and he’s more than made up for lost time with “The Love Album: Off the Grid.” In the conversation below, he describes the album as a “Super Bowl of R&B,” and the list of guests bears out that title: everyone from the Weeknd and Justin Bieber to Summer Walker and H.E.R.

to Babyface and Mary J. Blige make featured appearances, but it sounds like a Puff album every step of the way. Last week, he sat down with Variety to talk about the tragedies that helped to inspire the songs on the album — including “Kim Porter,” the album’s tribute to his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his children, who died in 2018 — and also the happiness he hopes it will inspire.

He also spoke at length about his recent decision to return the publishing rights he owns to the artists and songwriters on his Bad Boy label — read that interview here. The “Love” in the album’s title is clear enough, but what ‘s the meaning behind the “Off the Grid” subtitle? It’s just a place that I feel is necessary for us to all go to really be able to connect to the present, to lock in.

I think it’s important to take that — that no phone time, and to be able to just really connect with your significant other.