international news _ 20th September, 2006
Diddy vs P Diddy- London Underdog Wins
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Positiva house producer Richard Dearlove, who in the 90s enjoyed a massive
worldwide club hit Give Me Love under the name Diddy, received £10,000 in
damages from Puff Daddy this week, after the US rap star settled out of
court in a copyright row over the name.
The multi-millionaire Bad Boy entrepreneur first changed his name to P Diddy
in 2001, though left Richard devastated when he dropped the P in August last
year, he told Skrufff this week.
“When you find out that someone has taken your name the first thing you
think is ‘well, where does that leave me?’,” said Richard.
“It’s as though you will not exist from that moment onwards, because how
will anyone know you’ve done something? You can’t build your reputation up
anymore and you lose whatever value you’ve built up in your own name because
it’s no longer identified with you.”
Also adding to Richard’s troubles was the fact he was still recovering from
serious brain injuries which he’d sustained in a freak accident on New
Year’s Eve 2001, which left him technically blind and virtually trapped
inside his flat for over two years.
“I tripped on some steps and fell over and damaged the right hand side of my
head, I lost my sight and couldn’t really talk,” he recalled.
Gradually improving his vision and senses as he brain healed itself, he
returned to clubland last year with the help of long time friend Daz Saund,
together setting up wildly successful men-only gay club Megawoof and also
started producing music again, before being floored again when he learned of
Puff Daddy’s intentions.
“I woke up that morning feeling absolutely gutted and went into a deep
depression thinking ‘what on earth can I do?’ said Richard.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to take legal action at all, if we’d lost I’d
have been bankrupt for sure,” he pointed out. “You get people accusing you
of wanting to cash in or just doing it for the attention and I’m like ‘No,
no, the last thing I wanted was for this to have happened,” he stressed.
“I didn’t get a great deal of money, at all, I got £10,000, that’s a matter
of public record. I wasn’t after money, all we essentially asked was ‘this
is my name, can you basically change yours’ back?’ that’s all we wanted,” he
added.
Since the case made the news, his website has been deluged with mail from
the States, though Richard stressed he’s looking to put it all behind him
and get back to running the club as well as promoting his new single The
Reason.
“Megawoof is huge now, we could run it more often but we like to keep it a
special party. We get about 800 people a month coming down to Crash and we
could have more but the venue’s not big enough. We also tour around the
world with Megawoof too. At the same time, we’re setting up a new label and
I’ve got a new single The Reason that we’re just promo-ing, a pumping disco
record. That’s my main focus for the next few months,” he said.
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