I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the book, “Dancing with the Devil” that was recently released by former Bad Boy artist Mark Curry in which he details how he was both bamboozled and hoodwinked by one of Hip-Hop’s beloved…Sean “Puffy” Combs. Well STACKS Magazine got the chance to talk with Mr. Curry and discuss some of the what, whys, and why nows surrounding the book and to find out what he’s been doing in the meantime, in-between time, since leaving Bad Boy in 2005.

Considering that we spent a great deal of time chatting with Mr. Curry, we will give you the scoop in three doses over the next 3 days.

Dose 1:

Janda: First tell us why you chose the title “Dancing with the Devil”.

Mark: “Dancing with the Devil” is because my relationship with Puff, it reminded me of going…like I really went through hell in order to really survive. It feels like I been through a lot. I lost a lot. I lost more than the average man. I couldn’t understand losing, but I did it. That’s why I chose that title.

Janda: Ok. After all the disappointments and frustrations that you endured, what finally made you decide to tell-all?

Mark: Because it’s either going to be…I’m going to never say nothing about it and live with it. Either I’ll never tell about it and have to live with it forever or part of me getting it off my chest is to really… you know I can’t stand to let somebody do me like that and then live the rest of my life without ever saying anything to them about it. It’s nothing that a man can do that’s going to have to make me work hard for the rest of my life that he’s going to be able to say I’m sorry for.

When I came to Puff and we decided to do a business deal, a deal is a deal. Like when we first signed our deal, I had to give up some of my publishing. So I stood up to my part of the bargain and when we first signed I gave up my publishing because I thought that we was going to put an album out, but if I would’ve know we wasn’t going to put an album out, I wouldn’t have took the publishing deal.

Janda: It sounds like you have a lot of frustrations with Puff himself, is there anybody else within the Bad Boy family or the industry that you’re frustrated with that may be in your book?

Mark: Nah. I’m not really frustrated with nobody. I’m not even frustrated with Puff because part of being a child of God is being forgiving. So part of me being able to…Well, first I had to identify what this problem was that was bothering me so bad and what was bothering me so much and so bad was that I was disrespected by an individual that told me I wasn’t good enough.

Janda: I’ve read the first chapter of your book and been to your website. In the first chapter you talk about how Puffy was secretly charging his artists for feature appearances on songs, videos and the use of his cars and things like that, is there anything else you can tell us about his “bad business practices”?

Mark: Well, I wouldn’t say secretly. You would have to say you know if you own the record label, own the studio and you own the producers, everything is in-house to him. So when you go to the studio to do whatever you have to do, he’s charging the parent label so really he’s making money off of the deal. Now he’s spending my hard earned money or another artist’s hard earned money to help better them. Then at the end of the day, he doesn’t live through with his part of the bargain and you did. So it’s what, you stuck, you left me stuck.

When I first met Puff, I was 26 years old…I didn’t have time to be playing. Four years of my life going down the drain. Now is probably the most important four years of my life. These four years are my make it or break it years.

Janda: Alright, definitely understandable. So you were with Bad Boy and Puff from 1997 to 2005 correct?

Mark: Yeah. Till this day it was always a lot talk about if the record deal don’t work, if this music thing doesn’t work between us, don’t worry about it we always can talk about other options, we can do money. So the record thing wasn’t working and I think for him not having to give me money, he strung me along. He strung me along so long that I was like you know what… I really don’t think you want to give me the money.

To be continued…so be sure to check in tomorrow for more of Mark Curry’s story to find out why he waited to speak up about his situation, Puffy’s response, and what he has to say to those that are questioning his credibility.

By Janda