Melvin Combs mythology resurfaced this week after a veteran journalist-turned-executive stepped forward to remind the public that the father of Sean “Diddy” Combs was far more hairdresser than Harlem crime boss.
Despite years of documentaries and online chatter that have painted him as a heroin trafficker tied to Frank Lucas. Aliya S. King, who once wrote for VIBE magazine, penned a story titled “The Death of Diddy’s Daddy” and it has been largely scrubbed from the internet in a most uncharacteristic way.
King, a former magazine editor, interviewed more than 30 people for her 2010 Vibe investigation on Melvin Combs. She, in a heavily shared Facebook post, said the current wave of social media speculation has revived the same inaccuracies she debunked years ago.
“I’ve seen comments about his dad being a big-name drug dealer working under Frank Lucas,” she wrote. “Seeing this misinformation is driving me nuts.”
Her work on the June and July 2010 Vibe article interviews with childhood friends, associates, relatives, street figures and Lucas himself. King said she discovered that Melvin Earl Combs was born in Baltimore and raised largely in Harlem after losing both parents. He grew into a stylish, charismatic neighborhood presence known for his clothes, cars and nightlife rather than any major criminal enterprise.
According to King, Combs earned most of his living as a hair stylist. People close to him told her that while he occasionally sold small amounts of drugs to support a flashy lifestyle, he did not operate at the level depicted in later reports.
Police records, King said, matched this description of “low-level dealing.”
Lucas also dismissed the idea that Combs worked for him. When King asked directly whether Combs was ever under his operation, she said Lucas laughed. “‘Melvin? Working for ME?’” she recalled him saying.
Lucas told her he knew Combs socially and liked him but never employed him or supplied him with product.
Still, the myth grew. Over time, documentaries, YouTube commentary and unofficial Hip-Hop history sites helped elevate Combs’ reputation into something grander.
Even Diddy’s shifting public recollections of his father’s street life offered journalists and bloggers room to expand the narrative. Combs’ 1972 killing was a Harlem shooting still mired in mystery. His passing added fuel to the speculation of drug ties, informant theories and retaliation.
King says none of that matched her findings. She tracked leads upstate, interviewed a man who claimed to know Combs’ killer and reconstructed his final days. None of it pointed to Lucas. None of it elevated Melvin beyond a neighborhood figure navigating Harlem’s complexities during a turbulent era.
What troubles King now is not just the spread of misinformation but the disappearance of her own published work.
“If you search ‘The Death of Diddy’s Daddy,’ you get zero hits,” she wrote, noting the piece is virtually wiped from the digital record.
With new narratives emerging yet again, King says she felt obligated to raise her voice even though she has not watched the new documentary series.
“I just want to wave my hand from the back of the classroom and say, um, guys, y’all got this Melvin Combs story all wrong,” she wrote.
“I did not see the Diddy doc.
However.
I have seen comments about his dad being a big-name drug dealer working under Frank Lucas.
I so don’t want to be THAT person. But seeing this misinformation is driving me nuts.
A million years ago, I sat at Frank Lucas’s kitchen table three times a week for 18 months, interviewing him for his memoir Original Gangster.
Frank Lucas was a nightmare. But I digress.
At the same time that I was interviewing Frank, I was also writing a story for VIBE called “The Death of Diddy’s Daddy.”
Not much was known about Melvin Combs. I was curious because every time Diddy was interviewed about his dad, he had different answers. When I interviewed him, he intimated that his dad was a big-time dealer but in all my research I couldn’t find any proof of that.
I researched Diddy’s dad for years and years. I finally got a real lead from Joaquin “Waah” Dean, founder of Ruff Ryders. His dad, Elbert Dean, grew up with Melvin. I contacted Mr. Dean. He invited me to his office up in Yonkers and graciously spent an afternoon telling me about his friend, young Melvin.
Diddy’s dad was born in Baltimore. When he was very young, he lost his parents and his aunt brought him to New York.
I interviewed over thirty people who knew Melvin Combs from infancy to his last days. Friends. Family members. Co-workers. Drug dealers.
I asked Frank one day, did you know Melvin Combs? He’s like, of course I knew Melvin Combs. Once you saw Melvin Combs, you knew it was gonna be a good time. People just liked being around him. I liked him.
That was high praise. Frank Lucas hated a few of his own kids with a passion.
I asked if Melvin worked for him. He was like, what? Who? Melvin? Working for ME?
Frank laughed, that low rumble kinda of growl-laugh he had.
He made it clear. Melvin was nowhere near him. He never gave him no work, never worked with him. None of that. He knew him in social circles. Did he get drugs from some of his lower-level people? Maybe. But he wouldn’t know that.
I wrote that in my story. But that was a long time ago. And you can’t find the story online anymore so there’s that.
So, these days, Melvin Combs is now a high ranking drug dealer who worked under Frank Lucas.
I promise you all. I spent weeks in the basement of the New York Public Library looking for the name “Melvin Combs” in every single newspaper being published at the time. From the Amsterdam News to The New York Times. Micro-fiche, (ask your parents), was the only way I could see the newspapers and my eyes were on fire from trying to read the tiny black-and-white text.
Yes, Melvin was arrested. Yes, Melvin was a low-level drug dealer.
But his main job? He was a stylist in a hair salon.
Several of his friends from that time period said Melvin was NOT about that life. But he did like to look good and cop the latest cars. So he dipped into drug dealing here and there to support his fashion and car habit. He was a Harlem dandy by all accounts. Not a hustler.
Was he a drug dealer? Yes. Was he some kind of kingpin?
Look, I was a backseat girl all through my senior year in college, knowing nothing about what that meant. I thought my boyfriend just really liked going to Philly every weekend. Even though we only stayed for a few hours and came right back to campus.
And I was closer to being a kingpin than Melvin ever was.
I exaggerate. But still.
And for the record, the part about Diddy’s dad being a snitch? I can’t confirm or deny that based on my research. But I asked Frank if he thought Melvin was a snitch and he said absolutely not. Wasn’t like Melvin to do that. Frank insists that just the chatter at the time got Melvin killed. Frank was in jail at the time and said if he was out, someone would have to pay with their lives for killing Melvin. But by the time he got out, the person who killed Melvin had already been killed.
I went to an upstate prison to interview someone who ran with Melvin around the time he was killed. He told me who killed Melvin. My research, including a timeline of Melvin’s last days, supported this man’s theory.
I know I’m old now. A story I spent nearly a decade researching is just…gone. I have a print copy. I even have a PDF of it. But if you search The Death of Diddy’s Daddy, you get zero hits.
Look up the June/July 2010 issue of Vibe. It’s a double cover with Nicki Minaj on one cover and Erykah Badu on the other.
On each cover, you can see the tag: The Death of Diddy’s Daddy.
Were it not for that image, the very existence of the story would be fully erased.
I need y’all to know how crazy that is. ZERO mentions of a story in Vibe published in the online era? This isn’t a story from the 80s and 90s. It’s been taken down. I don’t know how. But it’s gone. Even a mention of the story.
So, I just want to wave my hand from the back of the classroom and say, um, guys, y’all got this Melvin Combs’ story all wrong.
Next thing you know, people will be saying, Al Green got burnt with a pot of hot grits. And he became a pastor. And we’ll all forget about what happened to the woman who threw the grits.
(She was shot and killed in his bedroom. Ruled a suicide. He called a police officer friend first. They both waited two hours to call the police.)
I spent seven years reporting that one. And that story’s not online anymore either.
EDIT TO ADD: Thank you to Nadine Graham for reminding me. The story is titled The Death of Diddy’s Daddy on the cover. Inside, it’s titled The Mystery of Puff’s Daddy.” Neither story comes up though there are a few mentions of the latter. And AI says it’s a NEVER PRODUCED story that I was trying to write.”