When the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs began last month, there was one man who stood apart from the journalists, legal eagles and YouTube gossips queuing up for seats inside the New York courtroom: Myron Gaines, co-host of the Fresh and Fit podcast and author of the 2023 book Why Women Deserve Less. In the past five years, he has become infamous for his incendiary takes on masculinity, dating and the perceived challenges that men face in contemporary society.
Combs was a natural person of interest for Gaines, as well as his peers who focus on Black masculinity and traffic in many of the same misogynistic tropes that have been present in hip-hop from its early days. For decades, the New Yorker was an alpha-male fantasy come to life: a self-made captain of industry and paragon of “Black excellence” who helps mainstream hip-hop music while juggling a roster of paramours that included Bad Boy artist Cassie Ventura.
