Losing vital time in an industry where the hourglass is on steroids, and without a major debut album to show for it, Los and Diddy soon severed their ties on a formal level. If the above statement is seen as an admission that Los couldn’t produce the radio-ready goods that Diddy desired, it could help explain why he languished on the shelf at Bad Boy. ”ĭiddy and King Los walk the red carpet, 2013 – Tommaso Boddi/WireImage/Getty Images ![]() It’s a gamble any time you play a record for him you might be totally in love with the record and he be like. “It’s not easy to play a record for him and he be, like, thoroughly impressed. “Puff kind of had an effect on the way I make music, because he is very critical and it made me just want to step my game up,” he informed AllHipHop. ![]() Yet even when it seemed as though he was getting out of the starting blocks, Los was candid about the issues he’d had with impressing his mentor. ![]() King Los with Red Cafe and Diddy at a Miami club, 2012 – Vallery Jean/WireImage/Getty ImagesĬoupled with the acclaim that Becoming King received, Los’ profile was further developed in that same year by his feature on French Montana’s “Ocho Cinco” and a star-making turn on Kid Ink’s “No Option.” Composed of all new beats from esteemed producers such as Harry Fraud and Sonny Digital, alongside a plethora of guest stars, the record felt like a real step forward towards the stature that Los had always threatened to assume. Los’ drive proved too unquenchable for him to simply accept his fate and within a few years, he was eventually granted a rare second chance when Diddy came calling again, this time in October of 2012.ĭescribed by Puff as one cog in “a whole new movement” for the Bad Boy label, alongside labelmates MGK, Red Cafe and French Montana, the release of 2013’s Becoming King mixtape suggested that the coronation was imminent. Going from, as he told Ebro in 2014, “ on the verge of being that dude,” back to the lower rungs of the game. Suddenly cast out into the cold, Los soon found himself back in Baltimore and received his first taste of the setbacks that can be hurled your way in the rap game. Los freestyles for 10 minutes straight for Diddy So by the time I got my record deal, things came full circle and kinda caught up with them and I ended up losing my deal due to some street stuff.” “But what happened was, coming from Baltimore, I was surrounded by people that I was doing an indie label with, before the Bad Boy deal, and they were connected to the streets. This was in 2006,” Los revealed back in 2014 when detailing where his first deal with Diddy went sour. I did a 10-minute freestyle and he signed me off of that 10-minute freestyle. It’s been viewed probably a couple million times by this point. A young Los was signed by Diddy way back in 2006, after the Baltimore MC blew the Bad Boy impresario away with a flawless marathon of a freestyle. “I did a 10-minute freestyle that’s actually legendary. King Los first hit Diddy’s radar when he auditioned for the second series of Making The Band, but then refused to sign the paperwork that’d secure his place. Instead, King Los has had several rebirths that have ultimately led to him occupying the same space in the game for almost his entire career. Saluted by Kendrick as the man who’d provided the most compelling response to “Control” and lauded as a better lyricist than Dot by Lupe Fiasco, all the building blocks appeared to be in place.īut somehow, someway, the stars never aligned for a rapper who could comfortably make devour any beat and deliver profound rhymes with ease. ![]() Having acquired sought-after features from Rick Ross, DMX, Chris Brown, Jazze Pha and Twista as an independent artist on tapes such as The Crown Ain’t Safe, the introduction of endless financial resources into the equation made it seem as though success was a foregone conclusion. Touted as one of the future greats by former label boss Diddy, Los’ prestige as a lyricist and artist on the precipice of widespread fame meant that the collabs on his mixtapes surpassed what some rising rappers often get on their debut major label releases. It’s perhaps this fact, that makes Los’ fate all the more bewildering. However, Los did not only have the skills, he had the address book and major label budget to match. As many a battle rapper would attest, lyrical acumen doesn’t always translate well into marketability or mainstream exposure it often takes a lot more than that to make it big.
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