SONG & HIT DETAILS
Artist Name: PUFF DADDY & FAITH WILLIAMS
Song Author: Gordon Sumner, Todd Gaither, Faith Evans
Year Recorded: 1997
SONG PROFILE
I’ll Be Missing You
Single by Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112
from the album No Way Out
B-side “We’ll Always Love Big Poppa”,
“Cry On”
Released May 27, 1997
Format CD single, cassette single, 7″ single, 12″ single
Recorded 1997
Genre Hip hop, R&B
Length 5:43 (album version)
5:11 (single version)
4:08 (video version)
Label Bad Boy
Writer(s) Gordon Sumner, Todd Gaither, Faith Evans
Producer Sean Combs, Steven Jordan
“I’ll Be Missing You” is a hit Grammy Award-winning single recorded by Puff Daddy, Faith Evans and 112, in memory of fellow Bad Boy Records artist Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G” Wallace who was murdered on March 9, 1997. Released as the second single from Puff Daddy and the Family’s No Way Out album, “I’ll Be Missing You” contains an interpolation of the song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police from 1983.
With worldwide sales likely over 7 million, including shipments of three million copies in the United States and over one million in Germany and in the United Kingdom each, the single has become one of the best-selling singles of all time.
The song, a rap ballad, had already been completed before permission was granted to use the sample from the Police’s “Every Breath You Take”. Sting (vocalist from The Police) ultimately participated in a performance of “I’ll Be Missing You” at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. Sting owns 100% of the publishing royalties.[1] As well as using the melody and arrangement of “Every Breath You Take” the single also borrows the melody from the well-known American spiritual “I’ll Fly Away”.
There are several different versions of this song, one being an extended version (choir at beginning), another without the choir and an instrumental version. In the extended version of the song the choir is heard singing in the beginning of “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber.
A slightly altered version of the song was performed by Diddy at the Concert for Diana in Wembley, United Kingdom.
The music video was shot on April 6, 1997 in Sydney, Australia and was directed by Hype Williams.