Heather Parry believes every artist has a story to tell and is passionate about giving them a platform to do that. One of the artists given this opportunity to share their story and passion is Sean “Diddy” Combs, rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and record executive.
Working alongside Daniel Kaufman, Michael Rapino, Andre Harrell and Alex Avant, Parry and Combs teamed up to produce an artist-based documentary on the Bad Boy Records label and Diddy’s remarkable rise to fame.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story was produced during Heather’s time at Live Nation Productions. The 80-minute long documentary is another one of the film producer’s critically acclaimed projects.
Released exclusively on Apple Music in June 2017, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop went on to top the iTunes documentary charts in the U.S, Canada, U.K, France and Australia. The successful documentary also saw an upsurge in the streaming of golden oldies like Hypnotize and I’ll be Missing You.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop showcases Diddy’s remarkable rise to fame and sheds more light on his record company, Bad Boy Records, which he founded in 1993. In it, the mogul also plans a massive reunion of artists who worked with the label, some of whom had long left the records company. Having had only three weeks to rehearse, a one-night concert was held at Barclay’s Hotel in Brooklyn to celebrate the label’s 20th anniversary. This concert was also held on the anniversary of Biggie “Notorious B.I.G” Smalls’ birthday.
With a net worth of over $700 million, Diddy’s unapologetic work ethic has seen him rise in fame and fortune to become the current third-richest hip-hop artist. His go-getter attitude and willingness to share his story made it easy for highly-driven Parry, along with everyone else who was hands-on-deck, to make this documentary which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Though it lost to another one of Parry’s award-winning productions, Gaga: Five Foot Two, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop was a nominee for the 2018 Best Music Documentary award by the MTV + TV Awards. Still, this musical documentary already had an award in its bag as it had been recognized by the Hollywood Film Awards as the Best Documentary in 2017. Also, it received the Documentary of the Year award in 2018 from Hermes Creative Awards.
Heather Parry doesn’t believe in producing documentaries that “feel like a press kit” showcasing how great an artist’s work is. Instead, she strives to produce content that reflects an artist’s journey to stardom. This is seen in Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop where Diddy, who credits his parents for his strong work ethic, allows himself to become vulnerable as he shows fans that the road to success isn’t always linear.
Heather Parry has been successful in the film industry because she is also willing to take calculated risks. This is evident in the diverse content she has produced which tackles various issues society continues to grapple with. What this means is Parry’s work will continue to be important as it provides another outlet for society to have conversations about burning issues such as mental health while allowing fans to become “even bigger fans” of their favorite artists.
