Dawn Richard Calls Diddy-Dirty Money Work Environment “Volatile”

Dawn Richard described her time in Diddy-Dirty Money as “volatile” and said the group’s work environment “wasn’t normal” during a new sitdown with television producer Carlos King.

The singer revisited that chapter of her career in a November 4 conversation on King’s Reality with the King platform.

Her account adds another first-person description of life inside Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy system, years after Richard moved from Danity Kane into Diddy-Dirty Money.

Richard, Kalenna Harper and Combs made up the trio, which released the album Last Train to Paris before the group ended.

Richard has since built a long independent career outside Bad Boy, making the contrast between those eras central to how she now discusses control and ownership.

The timing also puts the interview beside Richard’s current work. Merge Records released her album Creole Culture on October 9.

The project completes a trilogy she began with New Breed and continued with Second Line, bringing her New Orleans, Haitian and Creole roots to the front.

Richard told The Ebro, Laura, Rosenberg Show in October that New Orleans had been part of her identity from the beginning. “It’s been New Orleans ten toes, like, since I was young,” she said.

She also explained the musical range she wanted on Creole Culture.

“I had no idea if people would receive it, but I wanted to add elements of jazz, Spanish, French, Caribbean, soul, gospel music and pop and try to show people that all of these things represent what we are,” Richard said.

During that October appearance, Richard also traced how she moved from Danity Kane into Diddy-Dirty Money, why she eventually wanted out of Bad Boy and the physical and emotional toll she said the environment took on her.

Her account placed the move toward independence inside a longer process of starting over as an artist and producer.

Her latest remarks come months after a federal judge dismissed 17 of 18 claims in Richard’s civil lawsuit against Combs. Richard had accused the music executive of abuse and exploitation.

Combs denied her allegations, and the June ruling eliminated nearly all of the case on legal grounds.

The new interview is separate from that ruling. It leaves Richard speaking for herself about the culture she says surrounded Diddy-Dirty Money while her present work remains focused on independence and the New Orleans history behind Creole Culture.