In May 1997, Diddy released the song “I’ll Be Missing You,” featuring singer Faith Evans and R&B group 112, as a tribute to rapper Notorious B.I.G., who was tragically killed in a drive-by shooting just two months prior. The song debuted at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and spent 11 weeks on the top spot.
“I’ll Be Missing You” features a sample from The Police’s 1983 song “Every Breath You Take.” Now, the band’s frontman Sting — real name Gordon Sumner — is sharing his thoughts on how he views his song in light of its association with the disgraced rapper, who is currently held in a federal jail while awaiting his trial for sex trafficking and racketeering charges. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sting said, “I mean, I don’t know what went on [with Diddy]. But it doesn’t taint the song at all for me. It’s still my song.”
Sting wrote the song in 1982 while on a getaway in the Caribbean just after the demise of his relationship with his ex-wife, Frances Tomelty, and the start of his romance with his current wife Trudie Styler. The singer said he woke up in the middle of the night and wrote it in 30 minutes. “It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is,” he later said about the song’s lyrics. In a 1983 interview, he described it as a “nasty little song” that’s about “jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
Despite the dark theme of “Every Breath You Take,” Diddy was able to transform it into a hymn for his fallen brother, and “I’ll Be Missing You” won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 1998 Grammys. However, it later came to light that Diddy didn’t ask permission from Sting to use his song sample before creating it.
The Diddy rip-off was resolved
Sting shared what he thought about Diddy sampling “Every Breath You Take” in a Rolling Stone interview in 2003 when he said, “Those guys just take your s**t, put it on a record and deal with the legality later…” It isn’t known how much Diddy had to pay for using the song without permission, but Sting said he used the money to pay for his kids’ college tuition, adding, “Me and P. Diddy are good pals still.”
In 2018, Sting was a guest on The Breakfast Club radio show where host Charlamagne tha God asked him to clear the rumors about Diddy having to pay him $2,000 a day because he didn’t ask permission to use his song. Sting jokingly replied, “Yeah. For the rest of his life.” When asked whether the rapper asked permission “after the fact,” Sting said, “Yes, he did. We’re very good friends now.” That interview resurfaced in 2023, and Diddy posted on Twitter, “Nope. 5K a day.” Many took the statement as fact, but Diddy later cleared the air and said he was only joking and that Sting never charged him $5,000 a day for the sample. “He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.”
The song sampling issue between Sting and Diddy was fixed quickly, and the former even joined the rapper onstage and performed a mashup of “I’ll Be Missing You” and “Every Breath You Take” at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.