When Sean “Puffy” Combs joined the A&R department at Uptown Records in 1990, his first assistant, Pam Lewis-Rudden, looked at her 20-year-old boss and considered her own career. Easily 10 years his senior, she was well aware of the hype surrounding the popular party promoter whom Uptown founder Andre Harrell had brought in off the nightclub floor as an intern, then soon excitedly put in charge.
Harrell’s Manhattan offices were then a laid-back haven for some of the greatest R&B and hip-hop talent of the time. A pre-Grammy-Awards-winning Mary J. Blige would stroll through. The ’90s heartthrob group Jodeci would sing in the hallway. Into this mellow atmosphere, Combs tore through like a hurricane, Lewis-Rudden recalls—frenetic and unintimidated, hurling demands and derogatories. He ran talent development the same way he ran his parties: with bluster, swagger, excess, and attitude.
