Mase released his first two albums, “Halem World” and “Double Up” through Bad Boy, and was also known as Diddy’s hype man through the ’90s.
Their partnership collapsed after he released his third album, “Welcome Back,” in 2004, also with Bad Boy.
Mase said he felt like his contract was too constricting, leading him to crash a Diddy interview on V103 in Atlanta and demand that Diddy sign paperwork allowing him to feature on other artists’ songs.
Things simmered down until 2022, when Mase once again criticized Diddy’s business practices in a now-deleted Instagram post.
“Your past business practices knowingly has continued purposely starved your artist and been extremely unfair to the very same artist that helped u obtain that Icon Award on the iconic Badboy label,” he wrote.
Mase added that he had offered Diddy $2 million to buy his songs back and was refused. “This is not black excellence at all,” he wrote.
Diddy responded during an interview on the syndicated iHeartRadio show “The Breakfast Club” and said that Mase actually owed him $3 million after failing to deliver an album.
In 2023, on another “Breakfast Club” appearance, Diddy said they were “brothers” and that he had “unconditional love” for Mase.
Mase’s rights were returned to him when Diddy allowed songs from Bad Boy to revert back to artists that year.
In 2024, Mase called Diddy’s arrest “the big payback” and added that “reparations is getting closer and closer” on an episode of the podcast he cohosts with Cam’ron, “It Is What It Is.”
Mase did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.