The story goes that Diddy had so much money lying around his crib that he didn’t know what to do with all those Benjamins. So, he tossed the money in T-Pain’s direction and said, “Take that, take that.”
“Puffy, whatchu giving me all this money for?,” queried a wide-eyed T-Pain. Diddy paused for a second, removed a gold-crested toothpick from his mouth and replied, “That’s for letting me use Auto-Tune on one of my joints. You invented that bad boy, right?”
Yeah, Diddy paid T-Pain royalties for using Auto-Tune. “Diddy actually gave me royalties on this album just for using Auto-Tune,” bragged Mr. Pain in a recent MTV interview. “He signed the contract and everything. If I can do that with Diddy, somebody else better be signing something.”
Well, in the spirit of paying people for trends they didn’t invent, let’s take a look at some hip-hop artists who deserve to get paid for being innovative. Here’s a rundown of the 5 most innovative hip-hop artists of all time and their respective inventions.
KanYe West:
- Sped-up soul samples
- Pink backpacks
- Adult tantrums
Jay-Z:
- Coke rap
- Lyrical swaggerjacking
- Fake retirements
50 Cent:
- Rap beef
- Mixtapes
- Vitamin Water
Lil Wayne:
- Market saturation
- Locks
- Styrofoam cups
Puff Daddy/P-Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs/:
- Multiple Personality Disorder
- Mainstream rap
- The remix








