_Don’t Look Now, the King is Watching_
**C**ategory 5: Bravado
Rapper, model, and heir to the Bad Boy Records throne, 20-year- old Christian Combs believes he is not unlike one of the most devastating category 5 hurricanes in modern American history.
In the video for his 2017 single “F\*ck the Summer Up,” Combs rips donuts on a jet ski in a white robe, blinged out beside a raft of yacht parties on the aqua waters off the coast of Southern Florida, rapping: _Flood these streets like Katrina / I’m about to fuck the summer up._
Oy. I’ll admit—I’m teetering before I interview Combs. This, afterall, is a young man who has:
1\. Fucked up an entire season (let alone, many people’s _favorite_ season).
2\. Compared himself to 140 mile-per-hour winds.
3\. Is the son of the second richest man in hip-hop.
Imagine what he could do to a measly writer like me?
When I first encounter Combs, it is not in the swirl of the intertropical convergence zone, but rather in the throes of an excessive heat warning tormenting Los Angeles. He is standing beside a vintage Rolls-Royce, sitting pretty in the Hollywood Palladium’s gooey tar parking lot on a triple-digit day. He is shirtless (and v ripped), sporting a durag and cowboy boots, posing suavely despite the mid-day swelters.
And despite the agony of a five-hour-long photo shoot, Combs does not spout a single complaint. His countenance is business.
Throughout the shoot, Combs is agreeable, poised, and easy- going. Already, after just a short in-person impression from the sidelines, my preconceived convictions drawn from his insensitive similes to the aforementioned $125 billion, 1.8k fatality hurricane are falling away.
I do not see a swirling hyper vortex in the gulfs of his handsome brown eyes, and I am no longer induced by the overdone bravado so familiar to the Bad Boy Records brand. I am seeing through other lines from his recent mixtape, “90s Baby,” that also have me a little shook, like, _Drop bombs something like Vietnam._
Oy.
Despite the bark of this verse, Combs is not a killer.
Combs is a lover.
He is a sensitive, individualistic, gen-z sweetheart who has been marooned by older generations on the oil-slicked beaches of an industry greased with an aggressive, and at times, toxic masculinity.
And whether he realizes it or not, Combs is beginning to change those poisonous coastlines for the better through his artistry in modeling, dancing, and music. In some ways, he is a volunteer taking one for the team, scrubbing Dawn soap on oiled ducklings. He is a part of the new generation of hip-hop, infusing the genre with a new sensitivity.
**Category 3: Quintessence**
“Girls and love is the number one thing to talk about for me,” Combs says as we sit in the respite of air conditioning at the Flaunt Headquarters, cooling our sweaty brows after the photo shoot. “Whenever I am in the booth rapping, I’m trying to charm the listener. It’s easier to charm a girl.”
If Combs is a storm, he is a dancing, sugar-sweet typhoon of charm. Just outside of the room we chat in, his girlfriend, model Breah Hicks, sits patiently.
The pair have been dating for years and have publically displayed their wide-eyed teenage love—from cute prom proposals (gone viral) to ooey-gooey Instagram posts of the couple: “Held it down, had a thing for the kid since a sophomore
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