The first album released by Bad Boy Entertainment was the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, an instant classic and possibly the most influential rap record ever made. For Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, the label's founder, it was the first in a remarkable streak of commercial hits: twenty-one straight gold- or platinum-selling albums, including Puff's own Grammy-winning debut, No Way Out, plus home-grown artists like Faith Evans, the Lox, Mase, Total, and 112. By the mid-1990s, Bad Boy was the biggest label in pop music. This is the story of how it all began.

Songwriting for "Every Breath You Take" is credited 100% to Sting (credit by his birth name, Gordon Sumner). Sting took all the credit despite the fact that both fellow Police members Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers contributed to the song (drums and guitar riff, respectively). Andy Summers came up with the song's guitar riff after a particularly bitter argument with Sting. Sting eventually conceded and told Andy "go and make it your own". When Andy came back with an early formation of the now-famous guitar lick, the band knew they had a hit on their hands. Unfortunately, Andy Summers never pushed for his share of the song's credit. As the song's sole composer, Sting earns the vast majority of royalties when the song is played on the radio, sampled or included in something like a commercial or a movie. This fact alone should have been enough to make Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland furious in the early to mid 80s. But at some point they probably stopped losing sleep over their loss. Then came Puff Daddy. Unfortunately for Diddy, no one from Bad Boy Records (Diddy's label) thought to secure Sting's permission to sample the 1983 pop song for the updated 1997 remix. Had Diddy asked permission first, he likely would have been required to hand over 25% of I'll Be Missing You's publishing royalties to Sting. By forgetting to ask permission before the song was released, Sting was able to demand and receive 100% of the remix's publishing royalties.