Diddy urging young people to vote

? Four years ago, Sean “Diddy” Combs took his hip-hop swagger across the nation in an effort to get young people to vote, with the bold slogan “Vote or Die.” On the eve of Super Tuesday’s primary contests, the entertainer had just a simple message: Go vote.

“If we want to stop the war, if we want to get the economy better, I think that young people need to understand they have to take matters into their own hands,” Combs, 38, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. “It is really like waking up a sleeping giant.”

Combs launched the nonpartisan group Citizen Change in 2004 for the purpose of increasing the youth vote and used his celebrity status to raise voting awareness among the youth. Statistics suggest voter turnout among young people increased in 2004 and 2006.

“The seeds that we planted in ’04 are now coming to fruition,” he told the AP.