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[♪ brooding music playing]
-[seagulls cawing] -[helicopter whirring]
Dear America, I was only what you made me,
young, Black, impoverished, crazy,
but then I saved me.
I was dying inside.
Then I opened my eyes,
liberated myself,
opened my mind,
awoke the divine.
You see, if y'all would build more schools
instead of prisons...
[doors slamming]
...never been livin' the way I was livin'.
♪♪
But I learned a lot, despite you.
♪♪
Cover the truth, transform the plot.
No longer your tool, serving rocks,
poisoning my people, burning blocks.
Prisoner, the Prime Minister, Shyne, Barack.
Time to rescue the rest.
Give my people a chance.
Financial literacy, empowerment.
No shoot-outs or food stamps.
It's entrepreneurship,
home ownership, policy makings to play.
We taught ourselves to make billions.
Now it's trillions to make.
America, we solved our own problems.
Outta nothin', we created a way.
Hip Hop 50 run the planet.
Reparatory justice was due,
and we took all the pay.
[♪ dramatic music plays]
♪♪
-[TV clicks] -[static crackling]
[♪ "Whatcha Gonna Do" by Shyne playing]
♪♪
[tape whirring]
♪ Ja-ja-ja, uh ♪
[gun clicks]
[tape whirring]
♪ Once upon a time, not long ago ♪
♪ Where gangstas rocked waves, sold dope, and sniffed blow ♪
♪ There was a young G by the name of Shyne Po ♪
♪ Puttin' it down, cuttin' it up and cookin' it now ♪
♪ It's been a lotta dick ridin', for lack of a better word ♪
♪ Speculations on the guns I hold underneath my furs ♪
♪ Similarities in my voice, nigga, check the words ♪
♪ I'm livin', went to the doors that pitch birds from the curb ♪
♪ Dodgin' and dippin' the narcs ♪
♪ It's the young Frank Matthews, the rap version ♪
♪ Touch my trap on my smack ♪
♪ The gats burstin', that's certain ♪
♪ Leave ya face and ya chest and ya back jerkin'... ♪
[♪ song fades out]
[fire crackling]
When I recorded Bad Boyz, you knew that that was it.
That second verse was your verse.
"Minks draggin' on the floor, bangin' on your--
"Suckin' the croissant just examine it for flaws,
Pour the Cristal on the way to trial," that was his verse.
[speaker] Wow.
You know what I mean? He had the video and-and we gon' do the video.
We want this, we want that.
And, you know, things didn't really work out like that,
but, yeah, but he knew.
He knew from the time he gave me the beat, he was like,
"If you could deliver this, you gone, you outta here."
And-And thank God I did it. You know what I'm saying?
I'd have been just like one of them other dudes,
gone and forgotten. You know what I mean?
But here I am, 23 years later, they still know the records.
They still love me.
[♪ "Bad Boyz" by Shyne ft. Barrington Levy playing]
♪ So move from on here 'cause we are dangerous ♪
♪ Man a Bad Boy on the corner ♪
♪ So move from on here 'cause we are dangerous ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
[♪ Barrington scatting]
-[group shouting] -[fire roaring]
♪ Whoa, scene ♪
♪ Ohh ♪
[♪ song fades out]
[boat engine humming]
[reporter] Shyne Jamal Barrow is back in Belize.
He arrived at 2:40 this afternoon
at the Philip Goldson International Airport
where he was met by family, fans, and the media.
The famous rapper began his journey after 6:00 this morning
when he left the detention center in Buffalo, New York,
in the company of a U.S. Marshal.
He is in good spirit, he is in good health, but he's a bit frail.
He has rented a complete floor
at the Radisson Fort George Hotel.
[insects chirring]
He said that after going through
the eight-and-a-half years he has gone through,
he needs some privacy.
He need just to sit down in isolation and contemplate his whole life.
And I think that we need to respect that.
-[insects chirring] -[animals chittering]
[birds chirping]
[Moses Shyne Barrow] I was born in 1978,
on November 8th,
in Belize City on Currasow Street.
That street is still a very prominent part of my life.
And I remember everything about growing up on that street.
I remember when I fell off the veranda,
everyone thought I had passed away and I was resuscitated.
I remember using the bathroom in a bucket
'cause we didn't have a toilet system in the house,
and having to carry the bucket to the canal
to disperse of it.
I lived with my mom, my grandmother,
and aunts and uncles.
My mom is, is a woman who has great character,
very kind person, very good heart
that has been through a traumatic life,
really been scarred by life.
Not getting married when she had me,
my father's wife, or fiancée,
forbid my father to sign my birth certificate.
So, that's what my mom had to deal with,
which is why she left Belize.
♪♪
I moved to the United States in October 1983.
One day I just need to get out of Belize
and go and find a way for me, and then Jamal can come.
And I left and I came to America.
When his mother departed to the United States
to seek better fortune,
he lived with us, me and my wife.
And it was a pleasure for me to do that for my sister.
Shyne lived with us because his mom was living in the U.S.
Like every family who migrates to the U.S.,
it's not as easy that you can work,
and look after your kids.
[Frances Myvette] I did everything in the books:
babysitting, nanny,
and then doing cleaning.
[Michael Finnegan] Here, we take extremely good care of him.
We gave him the best education one could ever ask for
with the support of his father.
His father was here in Belize, lived here in Belize.
And so, his dad would come mostly on the weekends
to visit with him or take him, um, with them.
He was right in Belize, but he was not--
He was there, but... not there.
Politics was really, uh, central in my life,
and there's no way to, to soft-soap it.
I had, in fact, um,
uh...
started my family,
and was not a complete relationship because he wasn't living with me.
You know, sometime, he would come pick him up,
take him for a drive,
you know, sometime he'd bring money and thing,
but that was it.
-[♪ brooding music playing] -[traffic humming]
[Shyne] I never had a...
a proper relationship with my dad growing up.
And even when living in Belize,
initially, my father's fiancée, and then wife,
she didn't want my dad to have anything to do with me.
There were hurtful things said
that I know my father regrets,
but I was able to move on.
What I didn't have is
what I personally didn't need in my design.
I was meant to be,
I was meant to withstand the elements.
[water babbling]
[birds chirping]
I grew up in the country, which is Dangriga.
I spent a lot of time going back,
so I would take him with me.
He knew nothing about that side of the country,
so it was a new experience for him.
One of the things that he really, really liked was the water.
[water splashing]
You know, he would say to my sister that he wanted to go into the "big pool."
That was a fun thing,
just watching him being wild,
take off his shoe,
run around in his short pants,
and jump in the water whenever he wanted to
because it was right there.
[interviewer] Alright, so you got an amazing story.
I want to, I want to hit 'em with this if they haven't heard it.
You grew up in Belize,
-your pops is the deputy prime minister. -[Shyne] Yeah.
And he, like, basically disowned you, just--
Yeah, you know, it was, you know,
I was a bastard child, you understand?
He basically put it like he hit my moms up and
[claps hands] that was it. You understand?
So, just left her there with me
and just told her to find her way.
-You understand? -[interviewer] Really?
She found a way though, you know, 'cause I'm here today.
-[people clapping] -[interviewer] Alright, you made it.
-[♪ hopeful music playing] -[traffic noise]
[Shyne] I think the first time I came to the States was in '84
and I would go every summer.
And then, in '88, she never sent me back.
I kept him and his dad wasn't too happy about it.
I wanted him to be close to me 'cause he, he wasn't happy.
So, I kept him.
My name is Derrick "DQ" Castillo.
I met Shyne in, in junior high school, Montauk Junior High School.
Now, let me make this clear.
Shyne wasn't so much of a, a likable guy as a youth.
He was that guy who you didn't want a physical altercation with, period.
The guy was a hoodlum.
He was a hoodlum.
This is where Shyne used to live,
Tennis Court and East 19th.
So, this is where you would go if you were gettin' to a dollar,
this is where you would come.
There would be large dice games out here.
Uh, to be honest with you, um, I-I don't know where I'm at anymore
because this is not what it used to be, you know?
I'm very comfortable right now.
This was a rough neighborhood.
-[car horns honking] -[distant siren wailing]
[♪ ominous music playing]
[Shyne] Think someone had broken into my neighbor's house
and I chased after them and beat them up.
And then, those same guys saw me somewhere where I knew I had problems
and I ran into the guys that I had problems with.
[fist thuds]
-[muffled yelling] -[fist thuds]
And then, we just started going at it again.
-[muffled groaning] -[fist thudding]
And I was beating him up again. And then that's when...
[gun cocks, shot fires]
...you know, I got shot and almost passed away.
-[muffled groaning] -Had the gun not been so powerful
that it shifted, that would've been it for me.
♪♪
He showed me that he got shot.
And he said, "Some kid around the block,"
so I said, "Well, we gotta move."
And that's when I moved and he started over his life.
He was still... a little...
you know, doing what Jamal wants to do
'cause that's how he used to be.
Sometime, he just goes off the rail.
And I think too, as I said, he didn't have that father figure,
and I think he wanted that so bad.
That happened because of him
taking on the positive route now.
Him trying to defend the neighborhood,
and, you know, stop people from gettin' their car broken into,
and stuff like that.
The same guys you run with as children,
now you come up,
and now you wanna speak, uh, positivity,
nobody wants to hear that.
I was in the streets and I got shot, you understand?
And it was like-- that was the last straw for my mom, you know?
She couldn't take it no more.
She was like, "That's it," you understand?
She just broke down, you know what I mean?
About to go in depression.
And I was like, "Yo, that shook me up." You understand?
I was like, "Can't lose my mother." You understand?
So, I was like, "Don't go outside, just come straight from school."
I even started going to school.
That's when I started writing these little raps.
-["raps" echoing] -[water lapping]
When I graduated from high school,
the first thing I did was I got a, a bicycle
to go and deliver messages.
I just had to adjust so I could keep my mom
mentally and physically.
[distant sirens wailing]
This was the proudest bike messenger I've ever seen in my life.
With him doing that, he had everything that he needed,
Iceberg, Avirex leather jackets.
This guy was doing the right thing. He wasn't robbing nobody.
[Shyne] I got strong legs,
I got stamina riding around New York City all day
delivering messages.
People running me over, girls looking at me like I was nothin'.
I would ride my 18-speed bicycle up the Brooklyn Bridge
and by the time I got down on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge,
raps would just come to my head, I swear to you.
I'll tell you, it was like a miracle.
♪♪
I met Shyne when he was quite young,
um, because I was good friends with his uncle.
So, you know, obviously I used to hang out with him back then
and, you know, I see him grow.
And yeah, I remember one time he started doing like a mail service,
delivery service.
And then, he got interested in rap. Then I started cutting his hair.
He used to say, "I got somethin' new for you."
You know, Shyne always has some new rhymes for me.
But I'd say, "Okay," you know, I'd entertain him to hear what he got.
[Derrick Castillo, Jr.] If you had any connection to the music industry
or he thought you had a connection to the music industry,
he would run down on you.
You know how you had the street team back in the days?
If he saw a Def Jam truck going down the block,
he's stoppin' 'em.
"Listen to this, da, da, da."
You know, somebody gonna listen.
So, the street team in marketing,
guerrilla marketing tactic, was very important
because it was the only way to touch people, right?
It was a way to directly contact your fan base, right?
We got a van, we wrapped it.
They would give T-shirts away.
People would be like, "Where'd you get that T-shirt?"
You're like, "I don't know, I-- Somebody gave it to me."
You see that big Bad Boy logo riding around,
or the big Def Jam logo,
you know that somebody in that van has a relationship
with somebody in that office.
So, like, you gotta figure out how to get involved
and how to get in touch with that person
because that might be your only shot.
[inaudible dialogue]
[echoing footsteps]
[Jackie Rowe] Shynes is just a unique seed
that you just have to nurture him correctly
and he will grow.
Shynes was a very enthusiastic type of young man.
He was very, very excited about knowing things,
being around people that were important,
being around people that he could learned.
And I think that was a fascination with me.
You know, at that time, I was very popular
and very known with the whole rigamus Mike Tyson era.
And he was just so attracted to that.
I was living that life.
I was that chick.
So, I used to always drive this black Range Rover,
it'd be parked in front of my building.
And out of nowhere, I'd be coming downstairs
and he'd be right in front of my Range Rover
and be like, "Nah, you gotta listen to me, man.
I know how to rap, da, da, da, da, da, da, da."
And I'm like, "What?"
And I was like, "Alright, you got five minutes."
First time he was rapping, I was like,
"Mm, mm, nah.
You're not telling a story. I need a story."
And he was like, "Alright, bet, bet, bet."
So, like another two months or something,
I'm coming outta my building again, here he comes.
He's like, "Nah, you gotta listen to me now, I'm nice, now I'm nice.
You gotta listen to me, man. I'm flowin', ah, ah, ah."
I said, "You got two minutes."
Yo, he got in the car and I'm no-- No bullshit, he ripped it.
He told a great story.
I think he was talking about his life and everything, da, da, da, da.
And I said, "You got it."
He jumped out of the car and he was like, "Yo, she said I was a nine!
She said I was a nine!" [laughs]
-[♪ light music playing] -[traffic humming]
My name is Austin from Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Lived here all my life, 30 years, still going.
I'm standing right in front of the barbershop
and waiting for a haircut as usual.
He was coming down the block, young kid.
He was probably about 17, 18 years old.
[voice echoing] He was right there.
[normal] And for some reason, like, our eyes just connect.
Uh, he noticed me and I noticed him.
He just approached me outta nowhere,
asked me if I worked for the industry.
And I told him, "Nah, I don't work for the industry,
"but I know people that's in the industry that could,
you know, that I could get around to."
He's like, "I wanna leave the streets. You know what I'm saying?
"I wanna get away from, you know, the hard knocks of the streets.
I wanna get it right."
"Well, listen, man, I don't know who you know,
but I'm the hottest thing out here."
Austin was like, "Yeah."
Then Austin kinda looked at me for my approval.
And I was like, "Yeah, Shyne, you know, he got something here."
It was raw talent
and it was from the heart.
You could feel it.
He spoke about things that he went through
and what he wants to have in life,
and, you know, the finer things in life.
You could feel the energy.
After the haircut, I went straight to Manny Halley.
He had a barbershop right there on, um, Lincoln and Flatbush.
Told Manny, "Look, I got somebody that you need to hear.
"His name is Shyne.
Kid is nice."
One day Austin called me,
and said, "Yo, there's this kid that be at the barber shop."
And he always be like, "Yo, I want you to meet this kid.
He can rap, he can rap."
'Cause he know I was kinda like,
you know, connected in the entertainment business.
Instantly, I was like, "Oh, this kid is official.
This kid could rap. He's the next."
So, I wanted to go ahead and sign him.
I said, "You know, let me make some calls."
So, I made about five calls right there in front of Shyne.
I got a call from my boy, Manny, who was with Austin.
They was like, "Yo, you gotta hear this, this kid, um, Shyne."
He's like, "I know you doing your thing with Foxy.
"I think if you hear this kid,
you could really do something with him."
I learned about Shyne through Manny Halley
and he called me frantically one day.
He was like, "Yo, you gotta come hear this guy.
You gotta come hear this guy."
He put Shyne in front of me and Shyne just starts to rap.
And I'm just like, "Oh, nah, he's crazy."
If I had to describe him,
I would have to say he was extremely confident,
extremely eager.
That's what made it even e-easier for me to pay attention to him
because when he rapped in front of me,
he rapped like, "You're gonna think I'm the shit."
And he didn't have a demo at that precise moment.
But then, like, two or three days later,
he had a demo of him rhyming to a bunch of Jay-Z beats.
And I was like, "Oh, he wants to prove something to me."
[Shyne] When I used to listen to Raekwon,
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx,
and Nas, It Was Written,
and B.I.G. and Jay-Z,
I used to always say, you know,
if my music doesn't make me feel the way Nas makes me feel,
the way Jay-Z makes me feel when I listen to their bars,
then I'm not doing it right.
It was always about the feeling. You had--
I knew, I knew the feeling.
He's got this tape and he's rhyming to a whole bunch of Jay-Z beats.
And Jay's my man, so I'm just like, "Yo, I want you to hear him."
And he comes to a party.
Inside of the party, Shyne is like,
"Yeah, I'm the illest outta Brooklyn."
He asked Jay-Z, "Yo, you got your gun on you?"
He's like, "Boss--" "Somebody, you got your gun?"
Jay like, "Whoa, whoa, what-what's up?"
"You got your gun on you?"
Like, like, what the hell?
And so, he started coming around Shyne like, "What is he talking about?"
He said, "Yo, I'ma give you a tape
"and if I'm not the hottest rapper,
you can shoot me."
Jay turns and he's like,
"This your man?"
And I'm... [claps hands]
And then, Jay took the tape, "Alright, cool."
You know, we stepped away.
I'm lookin' at Shyne like, "You goddamn crazy.
"Said you wanna go see Jay, but I ain't know you gonna ask him,
man, he got a gun on him."
Yeah, yeah, he, uh, he tossed the demo out of his car.
It's kind of wild, but...
I actually went to 560 State Street,
and waited for Jay-Z to come outside.
And so, he came out, Iceberg hat low,
and I was like, "Yeah, you know, what you think?"
And he was like, "It was a'ight."
And he drove off.
"It's a'ight"?
Okay, I'm gonna show you what's a'ight.
And I certainly did.
Then, one morning he got up, we were living in Brooklyn
and he said, "Mom, I got a thing from God
"telling me that I can rap and I can be somebody,
you know, get big in the industry."
I said, "Boy, go to college."
But I said it with a obscene language.
"The, the two biggest rapper had got killed,
"Tupac and Biggie.
"And then now you come telling me
that you wanna be another big rapper?"
And I didn't tell him, but I saw death and jail, so.
[♪ solemn piano music playing]
[siren wailing]
The '90s definitely made a mark in history.
Oh man, hip-hop in the '90s was the golden era.
It was the, it was the "gold rush" is what I call it.
The amount of money that could be made at that time was ridiculous.
Like, you had the '80s where you figured out,
"Oh, you can make some money."
But then, the '90s come and it's like,
"No, you can make this much money."
We learned about ownership, we learned about publishing,
and then the doors opened even wider.
So, the landscape was
we can take care of our families and change our neighborhoods.
They were feelin' us and listening to us.
They wanted to be like us, act like us,
talk like us around the world.
But what was happening in hip-hop at that time,
in order to have the authenticity and keep it real,
they were signing these young people coming out of the Bronx,
coming out of New Orleans,
coming outta all of these different communities.
And they would essentially encourage these young people
to get involved in street tiffs,
in crimes, shooting guns,
because that gave their record label
more street credibility.
And the fate of these young people be damned.
[birds chirping]
Everybody that heard me wanted to sign me, immediately.
And so, Pooh gave me my first check, my first 10 grand.
So, I signed Shyne to this production deal in 1997.
A good friend of mine who became Shyne's attorney,
Matt Middleton,
he was assistant DA.
So, this was actually Matt's first client.
And we actually signed the deal in my car in front of the courthouse.
You know, Shyne was signed to-to Pooh
and he was signed to me as-- for management.
[Shyne] I started getting frustrated
because I thought signed to Don Pooh,
in a few weeks, you know, I'd have a deal with Bad Boy,
I'd have a deal with whoever.
Then I got a call that Chris Lighty wants to meet me.
So, I met Chris Lighty.
He's like, "Man, I've been hearing a lot about you.
"You know, um, I'ma put on some beats, you know, I,
I got this new producer, Swizz Beatz."
[echoing] My man, Swizz Beatz, holding it down.
[Shyne] So, he put on the, the Swizz tape,
and I went in.
And so, he took me to Lyor's office.
And so, I-I rapped for Lyor,
and Lyor was like, you know, with the Israeli accent,
"You're not leaving until we sign the deal.
"This is amazing. This is incredible.
"You're going to be the superstar of all superstars.
I'm going to make you an icon."
After that meeting, I think what he did--
I think what they do, they're all friends.
So, even though, though they're competitors, they're friends.
I think Chris called Diddy.
Somebody called Diddy and started talking crazy,
like, "I got this kid, Shyne. Oh, my goodness."
[crowd shouting]
[shouting and cheering]
Puff ran Bad Boy like, I mean,
like he was the dad,
and he was here to take care of everybody.
Bad Boy was very much like a family
for a very long time.
I know that Puff definitely had a great ear
and vision for talent.
A ear first and then a vision for what to do with it.
I think Puff was bringing the rest of the package.
You know, rap talent is one thing.
Being able to see a record to the end is another thing.
And wrapping it up and saying, "Okay, this is what you'll look like.
This is what the video will look like."
He was very good at sealing it up and putting a bow on it
and making it beautiful to buy.
One day, me and Shyne had a meeting.
We sat down, I remember like yesterday.
I was like, "What do you wanna do?"
With the Def Jam deal, it was about two million, minimum,
um, outside of the advances aren't recouped.
And then it started going to three million, four million.
This was back in '97.
I've heard of other bidding wars.
Um, I believe that was the first bidding war, like, I ever really,
like, like, witnessed in real-time.
He's starting out getting millions.
And I remember my first record deal was $5,000.
So, I'm like, "Wait a minute, this is not adding up."
And none of us heard a record.
He started getting offers from everybody.
I think the first real offer was from Sylvia Rhone.
And then she made a offer and it was a good offer.
And then, I think Puff heard about
the fact that there was this offer on this rapper
and then it was like, "Yo, who's this guy?"
They having a bidding war for, for this dude now.
Everybody wants him.
A bidding war without a record!
Who the fuck gets that?!
The rumor was he had a million-dollar deal for his record
and then he had a million-dollar publishing deal.
So, this man came out starting two million in the green,
that is amazing.
I think he asked me, "What you think?"
I said, "Yo, go with Def Jam."
The exact words was, "I do know we can go to Def Jam, Manny,
"and we'll get four million, five million right now,
but Puff Daddy is Michael Jackson."
I'm like, "What do you mean?"
He said, "He's the biggest shit. He's the hottest shit right now.
Yeah, I might get less money, but that's where I want to be."
Shyne's early days when Puff was shopping, the whole thing,
Shyne wasn't goin' nowhere, but to Puff. [laughs]
They were made for each other.
Everybody wanted him.
But I knew... [laughs]
that at the end of the day,
the best person for him was Puff.
What's going on? This is Chris. Setting up the interview.
Diddy, here he come on the side.
Definitely see what's going down.
Hey, what's going on now?
[indistinct chatter]
This is Artist's Corner.
I'm Chris Higg, your host here at Artist's Corner.
Standing right here with the man.
No other, like I told you earlier, P. Diddy.
What's going on?
Having a good time, no doubt.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[♪ "That's Gangsta" by Shyne playing]
[ambient street noise]
♪ Hustler, bad motherfucker ♪
♪ Brooklyn to the rucker, Cali and back ♪
When I heard Shyne, my first impression was,
"Okay, he sounds a little bit like Big."
♪ I'm what niggas wanna be, a straight G ♪
♪ Whore bitches wanna suck... ♪
Man who is this guy that's, you know,
trying to sound like the late, great Christopher Wallace.
And by the way, when you talk to Shyne,
you realize he was not trying to sound like Big.
That's just the way he actually sounded,
which is probably one of the reasons
that Puffy gravitated towards him to begin with.
Their tone came from the same place.
And so... [chuckles] you thought they sounded alike.
You thought they were alike.
♪ A hundred carats... ♪
They were two different people. They had two different voices.
It was somethin' about how he talked
that reminded me of Big's, and I-I'ma tell you what it is
and here's what's crazy about it.
It's not the deep voice, it's not even the delivery,
it's the West Indian accent!
It was a compliment.
Some people, if they tried to sound like B.I.G.,
it wouldn't be a compliment,
but Shyne, it was a compliment
because it wasn't really sounding like it,
but it was like a, a feeling,
which is incredible.
He's from Brooklyn, you see what I'm saying?
So, it made it feel like this guy gon' be a problem.
-♪ A hundred carats in the watch ♪ -♪ That's gangsta ♪
-♪ Gettin' skull off in the parkin' lot ♪ -♪ That's gangsta ♪
[Shyne] You know, signing to Bad Boy,
obviously I got a big check, I became a millionaire.
Again, you don't have anybody telling you what to do
when you get a million dollars,
how to spend a million dollars.
It's a drug dealer's mentality.
Hip-hop is founded on the drug culture.
They all dressed like drug dealers.
Like, that's where that comes from.
First person I went to Jacob, I bought an Audemars Piguet,
and a platinum Rolex,
and I got a Mercedes Benz,
and a Range Rover.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[Don Pooh] Instantly, he goes from Brooklyn to Hollywood,
like, instantly.
So, it was, like, one day, he's, you know, in Flatbush,
the next day he's at the Trump Hotel. [chuckles]
[Manny Halley] Eating expensive meals in five-star, diamond hotels,
presidential suite, private jets.
Bam, zero to one hundred in one day.
[Frances] I didn't care about no deal, no money,
anything.
I wanted him to go to college.
So, I wasn't excited or anything.
That's me.
[car engine roaring, tires squealing]
So, when I came to the label,
it's like Kobe coming to the Lakers,
and, you know, Shaq is already there.
And then Kobe comes and he thinks, you know, outta high school,
it's all him.
With Mase, you know, he was seeing a girl,
I was s-seeing the same girl.
Everybody knew he was-- he dated Brandy at some point.
Hey, that, that's not-- That's not...
And so, that caused, like, a whole thing at Bad Boy.
You know Puff is like, "Yo, what are you doing?
"Like, yo, you're Kobe, he Shaq,
"like, you just got to the team.
"This is the MVP.
"Like, how you gonna be going after his girl?
"Like, what's wrong with you?
"Like, you're screwing up my-my dynasty here.
Like, come on, you're messing up the franchise."
Rather than delivering on the great opportunity
and the great talent that I had,
I spent too much time living this fantasy
that I had willed from this nightmare.
I was just hearing a lot of stuff about Shyne.
I never tried to be friends with any of Puff's artists.
And this was because if he told me to do something,
I would have to do it.
Signing Shyne caused a lot of drama
around Bad Boy and Daddy's House.
If Shyne was in any place
and the crew from Junior Mafia was around there,
they was causing beef with him and-and trouble for him.
Yeah, it was a, it was a light, it was a light situation,
altercation we had.
And, you know, some things, some things happened
that shouldn't have happened, you know what I mean?
Like, it shouldn't have went that far.
We were just young and, you know, everybody just had that,
you know, that mentality of just being aggressive.
And, you know, we was already on that aggressive time
'cause we lost Big.
So, some of the people from my camp felt a way about
the "sounding like the Big thing" and all that.
And, um, one thing led to another and some things had happened.
Little altercation, some shots had rained out.
He was shot at, um...
by some people around that...
was in the Junior Mafia crew...
in front of Daddy's House.
So, it made Shyne somewhat vulnerable
to come to the studio.
And that if he didn't keep security with him,
he had to secure himself the best way he knew how.
You know, there was that incident that happened,
which, you know, resulted in shooting, um,
in front of Daddy's House.
And so, after that happened,
you know, that's when I started carrying a weapon
because I had come too far.
Nobody was gonna stop me from recording and making my music.
Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen,
but I'm gonna go to the studio
and I'm gonna keep pursuing what I'm pursuing
because I, I came too far.
I always say I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six.
-[gunshot sound bangs] -[crowd cheering]
I think in the summertime is when we did Bad Boyz.
♪ What type of nigga slang and bang in the streets? ♪
♪ Bad boyz ♪
♪ What type of nigga stay in the Trump for weeks? ♪
-♪ Bad boyz ♪ -♪ What type of nigga fly Bentley Coupes ♪
♪ Bad boyz ♪
♪ Aim for the sky, cop the shit then shoot ♪
Puff played the Ez Elpee beat.
[♪ slow tempo drum music playing]
And he like, "Yo, this is it right here.
"If you can kill this,
"if you can body this,
you're gone."
♪♪
"This is the single right here,"
he said it, he said it.
I-I take nothing away from him.
And he's the one that said, "We gotta put that guy on it.
"You know the guy that goes, um,
"you know... [vocalizes] ♪ Ooh ♪
Who's that guy?"
And I'm like, Barrington Levy?
[♪ vocalizes]
[♪ Barrington scatting]
♪ Whoa, scene ♪
♪ I'm a bad boy on the corner ♪
♪ So move from on here 'cause I'm dangerous ♪
♪ Dangerous! ♪
[♪ scatting]
♪ Whoa, scene ♪
There you go.
[♪ "Bad Boyz" playing]
First, when I was gonna do the song
when they called my manager and asked him to do a song with Puff Daddy.
That's what they told him.
But when I went to the studio they said it's not Puff Daddy,
it's one of his artists.
♪♪
I was a bit disappointed,
but when I hear the rhythm...
♪♪
...oh, um, creativity just chipped in, right on, bam.
So yeah, this is a bad beat, you know?
I mean, and-and Shyne was doing his thing, so we did it.
[♪ "Bad Boyz" continues playing]
[distant sirens and traffic noise]
♪ Ah, ah ♪
[♪ Barrington scatting]
♪ Now tell me who want to fuck with us? ♪
♪ Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ♪
♪ I bang and let your fuckin' brains hang, snitches ♪
♪ Fuck Marla Maple bitches with riches ♪
♪ Who carry 22's, up in they hosiery ♪
♪ A Black teller when my father... ♪
Boom, boom, boom, when you hear that bass,
you know what song that was.
I mean, when he says, "Oh!" Like, I, I don't know what.
♪ Hate Nicky Barnes for hittin' my moms ♪
♪ Letting the condom pop, nigga I was born in the drop ♪
Bad Boyz, when that came out, everybody knew about him.
Just seeing the backdrop of him in Jamaica,
the crispy white tee with the big jeans and the crazy bracelet.
He just had, like, "star" written all over him.
♪ ...hollow point shit, four-point-six ♪
The way his hair was cut and the-the gold teeth,
and he representin' the yardman
and he representin' Brooklyn.
He from Belize.
Everybody was like, "Oh, shit, now he's dead serious."
-♪ ...fly Bentley Coupes? ♪ -♪ Bad Boyz ♪
♪ Aim for the sky, cop the shit then shoot ♪
♪ Man a Bad Boy on the corner ♪
♪ So move from on here 'cause we are dangerous ♪
♪ Man a Bad Boy on the corner ♪
♪ So move from on here 'cause we are danger, danger ♪
♪ Dangerous! ♪
All my niggas that bust their fuckin' gats, make some noise!
Now sing along.
[♪ Barrington scatting]
[crowd cheering]
♪ Whoa, scene ♪
[voice echoing]
♪ Oh! ♪
♪♪
[♪ brooding music playing]
[Shyne] I was on Nirvana, I was like the Dalai Lama.
I was so focused and so centered about music.
Everything was about music.
At this point, I'm with Puff all the time.
Puff and J.Lo were in the Hamptons for Christmas.
-[traffic noise] -And so, they hit us up.
"Yo, we want to go, go out tonight.
We're coming back from the Hamptons."
We were off.
We was happy 'cause Puff and Jennifer was taking this Mediterranean cruise,
I think, somewhere.
I get a phone call,
"Yo, Gene, Puff is coming back from the Hamptons."
You-- Man, listen here, click. [laughs]
I'm hanging up the phone.
I ain't-- Nah, we off, man. I'm off.
-Club New York. -[producer] Club New York.
I was gonna go that night, I believe.
[Gene Deal] It's a go-to spot, fashion on a hundred.
You know, a lot of bottles poppin', everything parked outside.
It's a small-ass room.
It looks big, but it's really a small-ass room.
And what happens is
-there's only one VIP section. -[crowd cheering, shouting]
It's like, you see tough guys, you see gangsters
just start groupie-ing out.
If you don't need to be there, don't go there.
But, um, you know, he's in that position now
with the entertainment and all that.
You gotta be there, you gotta show up,
you gotta show your face.
[Shyne] I go to Club New York.
You know, I go in there,
-nobody searches me. -[door bangs shut]
I think I actually had two weapons on me that night.
I had one in my boots and one in my waist.
December 27th, 1999, I was in, um, Club New York.
Me and my brother, my cousin, we went in there,
was hanging out, checked our coats.
And then, through the course of the night,
Puff and Jennifer Lopez,
-and somebody, a guy "Wolf" came in. -[crowd cheering]
[♪ tense music playing]
-[cheering continues] -[Shyne] Puff and J.Lo come
and, you know, we hanging out.
That's where I see Scar, Nino, and that whole crew.
You know, Scar was my friend from Brooklyn.
They were guys that if anybody was messing with me,
or, you know, was there-- were any problem,
they'd be like, "Who, what, where, when?"
Scar was known.
His name definitely rang bells, streetwise.
And these guys weren't enemies, these are friends.
Friends with an ego.
[eyewitness] The music was pumping. It was a good night.
I do remember at one point
Puff and Jennifer Lopez come down in the middle of the floor
and start dance, and then they went back up top there.
Go upstairs, come back downstairs,
and I think we're getting ready to leave.
By this time, it's like the height of congestion and crowd.
And we're moving through the crowd.
It got real crowded.
Puff and Jennifer Lopez and all them
started to file out the VIP.
The club bouncer was, you know,
pushing people outta the way.
And when they got up to the bar, they pushed this one guy
and he turned around and said,
"Damn, you ain't the only person with money in here."
And then took some change that the bartender gave him
and threw it up in the air.
Well, I don't know how they got into it,
but I just know Scar's like, "I'ma effing kill you."
And they throw money into him,
and then, Scar looks over to me and is like,
"Shyne, you sure you wanna be a part of this?
You-You holding him down? You gon' go against us for him?"
And then, the guy that I shot, uh, Julius Jones,
you know, reached for his weapon.
And that's when I, I reached for my weapon and, um...
and yeah.
[♪ muffled house music playing]
[muffled screaming]
-And then you hear, pop, pop, pop. -[muffled gunshot sounds]
-Sounded like firecrackers. -[tires screeching]
[muffled screaming continues]
The police, they were, like, right there... waiting.
My lawyer always says I should have tossed the gun.
[reporter 1] New York City police are questioning entertainers,
Sean "Puffy" Combs and Jennifer Lopez
following a shooting at a nightclub.
[reporter 2] Around 2:20 a.m.,
shots rang out in a packed dance club.
Three people hit the floor with injuries.
[reporter 3] After the shooting, Combs, his bodyguard,
and girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez,
fled the club in an SUV, speeding and running red lights...
-[sirens wailing, engines revving] -...until they were stopped by police.
Officers discovered a gun in the vehicle.
[reporter 4] Prosecutors say Combs got into an argument with someone.
That person reportedly then threw a stack of money in Combs's face.
One of Combs's associates, 19-year-old, Jamal Barrow,
also known as the rapper, Shyne,
opened fire while Combs reportedly pulled out a pistol of his own.
-[camera shutters snapping] -[reporters clamoring]
[Frances] My world had crushed.
My mom came tapping on my door and said,
"Jamal is in some problems."
And I said, "What?"
And that was like, oh, that was the end of my world.
I didn't get any phone call from anyone.
Nobody called me.
[Gene] Sean made a big mistake.
Let security take care of that.
Me as an officer, somebody pull a gun on you,
I can shoot that individual.
Shyne can't do that.
It only takes one second
for someone to blow your head off.
So, waiting one second for security to see what I saw
was not an option for me at the time.
[ambient street noise]
That was a sad moment, though,
'cause you could tell that it--
His mom...
[scoffs] I don't even want to know. I don't--
That-- I don't know. It, it was a tough moment.
It was a tough, tough moment.
I got the news about the Club New York shooting hours,
-maybe an hour or two after it happened. -[siren wailing]
I knew somebody who got shot. I knew who was shooting.
So, it was like, "Oh, my God, like, this can't be
what is really happening."
[Manny] I think Shyne got his phone call
and he called me, say, "Hey, um, I'm in jail."
Um, told me, you know, he don't know what happened, yada, yada, yada.
So, he said, "So, I wanna get a lawyer,"
and he wanted to get up outta there.
[Shyne] You know, Puff got bailed out, Wolf got bailed out.
But instinctively, I think Puff's-- his lawyers advised him
that, "Yo, you know, you gotta stay away from this guy.
"You gotta act like you don't even know this guy.
Like, you just gotta distance yourself from this guy."
You know, I spent a week in The Tombs
'cause I couldn't make bail, Puff wouldn't pay my bail.
And Manny paid my bail.
Manny put his house up and paid my bail.
I went to a bail's bondsman, put up my house.
I had, um, had a house s-- well, since I was 18.
So, I put up my, my first house to bail him out.
Went there, got him outta jail,
and then, um,
that's when things started goin' left field with him and, like,
the Bad Boy label.
And so, like, that whole week, I'm calling Daddy's House,
I'm calling, you know, Park Avenue,
and we couldn't hear anything from, from anybody.
[Murray Richman] My name is Murray Richman,
and together with Ian Niles, we represented Jamal Barrow,
also known as Shyne.
The only one who was charged with the possession of that weapon
in the shooting was Shyne.
And here is a perfect example of where the line from The Godfather comes in,
"Drop the gun and take the cannolis."
Had Shyne dropped the gun,
he never would've been arrested.
Puffy was charged with possession of a weapon, as was Wolf.
It was they were thrown out of the car.
As I recall, there was evidence that supported
that there could have been other weapons fired that night.
-[camera shutters snapping] -[people chattering]
[Shyne] You know, Puff wasn't responding to anyone,
couldn't go to the studio, didn't have contact with anyone.
Only person I-I had contact with was Wolf.
I kept, you know, telling Wolf, "No matter what happens,
"at least let my dream finish its completion,
"that I put out my album
and let the world appreciate the Shyne music."
Anthony "Wolf" Jones
was a street entrepreneur that got into the business,
helping finance Bad Boys in its earlier days.
He became Puff's security and head of security,
but he was more than that.
I think BMG was gonna drop me.
And I think Wolf is the one--
I know Wolf is the one that told him, you know, "You can't do that.
"You can't do that to him. Like, just can't do it.
You gotta, gotta give him an opportunity to make his music."
One of the first songs they played for me was The Life.
And when I recorded that song,
everybody was like,
"Yeah, we gotta finish this album."
[♪ dramatic music playing]
♪♪
I do recall the back-and-forth about should the album go out
based on the incident.
And I feel like that's what Shyne's most concern was.
Puff and I would kinda go at it
because I would tell Shyne everything.
Puff was like, "You can't tell him all that.
"You can't tell the artist that.
The artist isn't supposed to know all that."
And I'm like, "Why wouldn't he know that? It's his project," you know?
So, he wanted to always have the upper hand.
[camera shutters snapping]
[Sean "Diddy" Combs] I want to make this 100% clear,
I had nothing to do with a shooting in this club.
He made everybody believe that it was Shyne's fault.
Man, this dude looked me in my face,
and he said, "I hate this motherfucker.
"Don't let nobody take pictures of me and this motherfucker.
I hate him."
And I was like, "Yo, what?"
[Murray] There seemed to be some, uh, difficulty between him and Puffy.
Whether it was over money, whether it was taking the fall,
whether it was a lot of other things.
We were not privy to what was going on between them.
And I'll be quite candid with you,
they approached us on more than one occasion
to see if we could, uh, get our client to turn,
and Shyne said to the DA,
"I'm not a rat, I'm not gonna be cooperating with you.
"If you wanna give me a plea, I'll take a plea...
"that's reasonable.
"But I'm not gonna be informing on anybody.
"Whether I agree with Puffy or not,
I will not inform on anybody."
[reporter 1] Surrounded by photographers,
Sean "Puffy" Combs walked into the State Supreme Court Building
to face yet another charge.
A charge he offered his driver $50,000 plus a ring
if he would say the stolen gun Combs is charged with possessing
belonged to him.
[reporter 2] Puffy, this bribery charge, this bribery charge, what's the deal?
It's outrageous. The bribery charge is outrageous.
The way they're acting in court,
trying to try this court in the media is just outrageous.
If convicted, Sean Combs faces up to 15 years in prison.
Puff was stressed out like crazy.
He thought he was going to jail.
I've never been in so many different churches,
never seen so many people rub oil on an individual.
Uh, we spent more time in the house of God
than we did in Daddy's House.
[♪ "Bonnie & Shyne" by Shyne ft. Barrington Levy playing]
♪ Whoa ♪
♪ Oh I, eh-ay, eh-ay ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
[N.O.R.E.] The trajectory of Shyne after that changed.
It wasn't, "Oh, this kid from Brooklyn who got a-a-amazing record deal."
It was, "Yo, this guy's a shooter."
[DJ Khaled] He was living his raps.
So, musically, you felt that shit different.
It felt like he was still in the streets.
[Shyne] Your greatness comes from the mud.
Your greatness comes from sacrificing everything.
You know, one of the catalysts to that greatness
was all that was on the line.
♪ On the telephone, she heard my voice ♪
♪ Tell me to pick her up in my Rolls-Royce ♪
♪ If my Rolls-Royce is not for ladies ♪
♪ Then girl, I'm gonna take you in my Mercedes ♪
-September 26th. -[interviewer] September 26th.
-Shyne, self-titled. -[interviewer] Self-titled.
Bad Boyz on the radio right now.
-[interviewer] Yeah, it's hot, it's hot. -Thanks a lot, man.
[♪ "Bonnie & Shyne" fades out]
[reporter] Sean "Puffy" Combs has hired an all-star team
to defend him against gun possession charges.
A team that includes OJ Simpson's former attorney, Johnnie Cochran.
Again, I think that there'll be a number of witnesses
who will indicate Sean "Puffy" Combs did not own or possess a weapon at all
on the night involved.
[Murray] Ben Brafman was lead counsel
and Johnnie Cochran was brought in.
And, uh, and Johnnie and I were, were, uh, good friends.
That was the first case he handled in New York, you know?
He didn't really know New York,
but he was Johnnie Cochran.
Members of the jury said,
as they were being selected-- Do you remember that, Ian?
"It's an honor to be in your presence, Mr. Cochran,"
the jurors said that.
"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit." [laughs] You know?
This is the Johnnie Cochran.
-[camera shutters snapping] -[indistinct chatter]
[reporter 1] How did it go?
-How did it go? -[reporter 2] How'd it go in there?
It went fine. It w-went as expected.
[indistinct chatter]
-[reporter 1] How did he plead? -Plead not guilty.
[reporter 1] How are you feeling?
-How are you feeling? -Fine, thank you. God is good.
-[reporter 2] What's that again? -God is good.
[Conrad Tillard] There was a perception, at least on the part of some,
that he was being left out to dry.
I first heard about Shyne Barrow from Jamie Brown.
She knew everybody, all the rappers.
And she called me one day,
and said, "You know, you gotta get down there
and support, uh, Shyne. He's really in trouble."
Shyne was an interesting, uh, person.
He introduced himself to me as "Po."
I saw a young man that was at war with,
uh, like many of our young people,
the image of the streets at war with how they, uh, project themselves,
and how the world sees them.
But it was very evident that he was a very decent,
uh, intelligent young man.
On one hand, everything is-- you know, had happened,
we're on this path to success.
And it just felt like this is going in a different direction now.
Sitting in a courtroom, like, feeling like, "Wow, is this really real?"
[reporter] In another development today,
Natania Reuben, who was hit by a flying bullet during the shooting,
criticized the media for focusing on Combs and Lopez
rather than the victims.
[Natania Reuben] I'm not famous.
[emotional] Does that make me any less valuable?
Well, I would say the most significant point in the trial,
the turning point, so to speak, with respect to the case against Shyne,
would have to have been the woman who had been shot in the face.
She turned the tide against us.
She was an innocent party who was severely injured
and her face was deformed as a result of being shot in the face.
[Frances] Every day, me and my mom went to trial, and was not good.
Shyne's lawyer and Puffy, they were working together.
My client is innocent.
He has taken this position of his, of his innocence,
and he stands by it without question.
[Shyne] It was clear that, you know, Murray was throwing the case.
All the witnesses came in there to acquit and vindicate Puff.
And people are talking about me in a way that's like,
I was not defending myself.
Like, all it had to be was, "Yeah, listen, Puff didn't have a gun.
"Wolf didn't have a gun.
"Shyne pulled out his gun
"after we saw a guy pull out their gun.
And, um, you know, Shyne was just trying to defend himself."
And my lawyers did nothing to try to make that point.
We called no witnesses to try to make that point that I could recollect.
It was just, like, it was-- I was mortified. I couldn't believe.
And I said, I said-- It's on record,
I went to the judge a few times asking to change my lawyers,
asking to, you know, call a mistrial so that I can get a new lawyer
because he was deliberately throwing the case.
He was betrayed.
He wasn't worried about Jamal, was just an upcoming rap artist.
I said, "What are you guys doing?"
[Murray] This particular trial was of such a magnitude,
at least it was viewed such,
it made the front page of The New York Times for God's sake.
How important was it? It wasn't important.
But it's certainly important to people who were watching at the time.
And the world was watching us.
It was very important to Shyne.
Wolf being who he was,
had somebody that he knew that was on the witness stand,
and they was gonna make sure
that if each one of 'em gave 'em $20,000,
then none of 'em would've went to jail.
And Shyne didn't want no part of that.
I would say that if somebody had to go from the Bad Boy camp,
it's better him than them.
Wolf would've had to do 25 to life.
He was already a double or triple felon.
-[camera shutters snapping] -Puff couldn't handle going to jail.
Everything would've crumbled with Bad Boy at the time.
So, had he went to jail, it would've been over with.
Every man for hisself.
[♪ melancholic music playing]
The day of the trial, the, uh, the sentencing,
we were supposed to be going downtown.
And I was like, [mutters]. So, we started going uptown.
-We pulled over in Central Park. -[engine idling]
-Puff jumped out the car, "Come on, Gene." -[car door opens, shuts]
"Where is he going?"
So, I'm walking behind him, you know, we walking through the park.
-[footsteps] -As I look ahead of us,
it's like a individual just standing in the park.
When Puff got close to the guy, he just dropped down to his knees.
[gravel crunching]
And next thing I see, this smoke just going back and forth around Puff,
I guess it was sage or something like that.
And then he had what appeared to be a Bible in his hand
and he started praying on Puff.
You know, you start praying-- laying hands on him.
-[indistinct praying] -After he said what he said,
he told Puff, "Go in this cage,"
it looked like a dog cage or something like that.
And Puff went in the, went in the cage, right?
-[cage rattling] -And grabbed this white bird.
Yo, Puff took this white bird
-and threw it up in air. [whooshes] -[wings fluttering]
And the bird just fell to the ground.
Boom! Like it was a brick.
I was like, "Oh, shit, there go Damien!"
[laughing] Yo!
And the bird died, man! The bird didn't even--
I'm looking back at the thing, the bird didn't even move.
He just walked away from him real quick.
-[♪ music fades out] -[birds chirping]
[crowd] [chanting] Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.
Not guilty, not guilty. Not guilty, not guilty.
Uh, there were a lot of people in the courtroom that day
and, uh, it was a, a very, uh, tense moment.
It now looked like Puffy may be going to jail as well.
So, the day the verdict was read, it was really heavy,
and super heavy, and it just got heavier.
So, there were more people in the courtroom that day.
It was pretty much standing-room in the courtroom.
Mom Dukes was always there, grandma.
Yo, when I saw his pops...
I was like, "Yeah," he looked just like him.
[Dean Barrow] I certainly had been hoping against hope
that he would not have been convicted,
and the rest is history.
[Cheryl Fox] Well, when the verdict was read,
I'm sure everyone cheered for Puff
because his verdict was positive
and we were all happy.
Puffy was acquitted.
And I remember the throng of supporters...
-[people cheering] -...that were there with Puffy.
They just exited the courtroom in-in-in joy and jubilee.
And when Shyne's verdict was read,
we were hoping that it would be similar to the verdict that Puff had.
[Ian Niles] I remember it like it was yesterday.
The verdict's being read, "Attempted murder: not guilty."
Okay, so we're like, "Yeah, okay."
"Assault in the first degree: not guilty."
When they got to that, "assault in the first degree,"
the reckless theory of that crime,
it was like all the air went outta the room.
And they said, "Guilty."
And it's physically painful to hear that.
His mother, uh,
whether she gasped, or whether she, she...
cried out in-in shock and-and-and dismay.
When I heard the verdict, I-I'll be honest, I just--
I walked right out the courtroom and went in the bathroom and, and,
and started banging on the, um, on the wall.
It was fucked up.
If you really want to be clear, it was fucked up.
It was fucked up that Puffy got acquitted
and he got 10 years.
-[camera shutters snapping] -[reporters clamoring]
Thank you for your prayers, you giving me support.
The people in New York, just when I'm walking in the streets,
just telling me to keep my head up,
and I'm just so grateful today, and my whole family.
[reporter] What about Shyne, Mr. Combs?
I'm just grateful. Thank you.
-[overlapping chatter] -[camera shutters snapping]
[Conrad] They took him in custody immediately.
He was actually, um, chained.
One arm was, uh, handcuffed to the wall
and he asked me to take his jewelry, uh, to his mother.
The deal was now done.
He was convicted, um, he was going to jail,
and he was all alone.
He ended up in Rikers Island
and, uh, I would go see him every week.
As we say in the movement, he was in the "belly of the beast."
It's like having, you know, having the world at your feet
and then I see him go from that to-to-to be a villain.
And in the media that way, that was definitely--
I was disheartened to see that.
I know his family was hurt.
You know, a-a young man trying to live his dream.
I was sitting exactly in this chair
that I am now,
looking on the television...
-[camera shutters snapping] -...and I break down,
and it was one of the saddest moment
of my life.
Emotionally, it just struck me as being
one hell of a... [stammers] of a sentence.
Um, I think it was, basically, 10 years.
And then, when it was broken down,
I believe I discovered that
well, he would have to serve at least eight-and-a-half years.
But certainly, what I heard was, "10 years."
And for this to happen, I certainly thought,
"Christ Almighty, this is, in effect, the destruction of his young life."
[Shyne] When I was incarcerated,
I was as successful, musically, as I was when I was out.
I think I became bigger.
I became like Elvis. Like, it was crazy.
People that were visiting me,
the biggest record labels, the biggest artists from Dr. Dre to Jay-Z.
Like, Jay-Z, when the Maybach first came up,
drove a Maybach to Rikers Island to come sit down,
and sit in the prison with me.
The incident went around the world.
So, not to say that he needed that incident to become even more famous,
but the whole world now knows who Shyne is.
His whole album was incredible.
He got bigger.
I wound up getting locked up and I had to go,
I had to go to Rikers Island,
and they put me in the same building as Shyne.
And they wasn't gonna send me there at first
'cause they thought we still had issues.
The officer was like, "You know what?
"I don't care if y'all kill each other, I'm gonna let you go up there.
Y'all say y'all cool, y'all cool."
You know, that was my brother after that, like, you know?
I used to-- When I had a visitor in there,
I'd bring him down on the visits with me.
He used to let me use his call.
If I had to make calls and shit like that, I could use his minutes.
He gave me outfits to go to my court hearings.
And I went back home, when I got out,
I went back to my whole team and was like, "Yo,
"whoever feel a way about Shyne,
that shit is, like... we letting that shit go."
I never used to like to go visit him.
I get sick, I go to the bathroom,
I throw up,
and it was not good thing.
Every minute I have to get up and go away.
I didn't recognize him 'cause he got so little.
And when I see the person coming out, I didn't know it was him.
I couldn't deal with it.
You know, I think one of the most difficult parts of it
was watching my family leave.
But I think the most difficult was watching everybody succeed.
Watching, you know, Jay-Z continue to become Jay-Z.
Watching 50, watching The Game,
you know, watching, you know, the newer artists...
[cheering and applause]
...and knowing that if I was out there,
that's what I'd be doing on that level.
And again, I did another deal,
put out another album while I was there.
Number one, sold almost a million copies.
You know, I died. That's why I called it godfather buried alive.
I was dead.
[♪ "More or Less" by Shyne playing]
♪ It's like New York's been soft ♪
♪ Ever since my nigga, Shyne, been sittin' in prison ♪
On, no, this thing is for real.
Like, you know, this, this thing is serious.
You know, this is life or death, you could die in here.
You know, they probably won't find your body for a couple days.
Now, I don't want to be a bad guy.
I don't want to be a tough guy.
But I had to do the things that I had to do.
You know, in that club that night, I had to pull my gun out.
I didn't pull it out and wave it around and say, you know,
"Somebody want a piece of me?"
Somebody was trying to pop my head off.
Overall, like I said, I-I put that into a box,
a box of destiny.
All of that stuff was meant to happen.
[Derrick] I've never seen him broken down ever in my life.
You're not gonna catch him with his head down
and, "Oh, man, damn." I-- N-Never, from a kid.
He adapted, you know, to his, um, surroundings.
I was always a fan.
And... no man's left behind.
So, if somebody's beefing with one of us, inside one of us,
but there's an opportunity for one of us,
we make sure that opportunity's in the family.
Shyne was in the family.
Puff knew what the issue was,
and we all felt that that was the best thing.
I think everybody was cool with the decision that we-we made
and, uh, for me to sign him to Def Jam.
The music industry really wanted to, you know,
sign artists who had those real gangsta stories.
They wanted to sign artists who really had a real street past.
And I remember Def Jam did that deal with Shyne.
They signed him and gave him a deal
just because of the situation he's in.
Just because of the-the-the "gangsta shit" that he did.
Shyne's going, when they let-- He let me down, too--
He let me down big time.
Man is supposed to be on the road promoting the song,
I woulda sell more albums.
Somebody told Shyne, in the hip-hop world,
if he does not go to jail, he's not a real steal.
And that's a lie. They lied to the kid.
Go to jail is waste of time.
A lot of people go to jail and turn Muslim,
turn Five-Percent, turn Christian.
He's the first person I learned that went to jail and turned Jewish.
I didn't even know they was in the jail.
He didn't become a Muslim
like the "typical stereotype" guys that go to jail,
they become "Muslim."
He "became a Orthodox Jew."
I always prefer to deal with the source, the connect,
you know, I don't want to talk to the plug that knows the plug that knows the plug.
And that's how I felt about Judaism.
I felt I want to learn what Moses did.
I want to learn what Abraham did.
And that-that's how I want to connect directly.
That's what led to me being in there unscathed.
And that's what led to me surviving.
Not, not getting any new charges,
and making it out there in, in one piece,
and with as-as much as my sanity as possible.
-[speaker 1] Yeah! -[speaker 2] There he is.
-Po, Po! Shyne Po! -[laughter]
[speaker 3] Yeah!
-[♪ gentle music playing] -[people cheering]
[Michael] When he get off the plane,
he didn't look like the person that left Belize those many years ago.
I was looking to see a more
structural, robust person.
His spirit was not high, but it was not low neither,
because he's a--
Shyne is a tough guy.
One thing I can say for him, he's a tough guy.
[Dean] When Shyne came back, we went to meet him,
Finnegan and I, a number of others.
There was a, a decent delegation
to sort of welcome him back home.
But his appearance was shocking.
He was... frail.
He was weak.
He was... tottering almost.
I think before he was deported he was held in some immigration facility.
And I think that really,
apart from the, the long spell in Dannemora,
that helped to, to put the finishing touches
on what clearly was a nightmare-ish, Kafkaesque, sort of ordeal.
And after he got out, having served all those long years,
and he came back to Belize, um,
I tried to make sure that he and I...
would reestablish,
or establish, a proper father-son relationship.
I don't want to say too much and reopen old wounds.
But after he went to the States,
naturally, I had started my family.
And in that sort of a context,
he wasn't living with me and my new family.
And I, in effect, suggested that, "Well, you know,
"my other children with my wife,
"uh, they are born in consequence of a marriage,
you weren't," that sort of thing.
Uh, th-there's no need to, to, as it were, rehash it.
The fact is what I said was absolutely inexcusable.
It-It-It was, perhaps, one of my-my-my lowest moments.
I-I-I'm not going to try to run away from it.
No matter what I may have said
in a very low moment, he is my son.
People may, may not think that,
you know, he's the perfect father,
but for me, he's exactly the father that I needed
for the purpose that I have in life.
And I use the example of a turtle.
When a turtle is born,
a turtle makes its trek from land to sea,
supposed to do it on its own
because if it doesn't do it on its own,
if someone just throws the turtle in the water,
then the turtle's gonna drown
'cause the turtle won't have any legs.
And you may want to help that turtle,
but you'd actually be hurting that turtle fatally
by picking that turtle up.
And that's the story of my life.
My mom couldn't do it, my dad didn't do it.
Nobody picked me up.
I was left to develop my legs.
[rapping] ♪ Fresh out the can, like, fuck the man ♪
♪ Got my mind on this paper, so what's the plan? ♪
♪ Ain't got no alternative but to bang ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm down on my luck tryna up this cash ♪
♪ Ain't nobody giving shit to me ♪
♪ These young motherfuckers just quick to bail ♪
♪ But you wanna be my goons, or Pistol Petes ♪
♪ But I'ma put them on they back, won't skip the beat ♪
♪ An ex-con can't get no job ♪
♪ What I'm 'posed to do to feed my moms? ♪
♪ You know what I'ma do, help me God ♪
♪ 'Cause survival is the rule, so fuck the law ♪
♪ Sing along to the roller song ♪
♪ My name ain't Obama, and I ain't LeBron ♪
-[speaker] Woo! -♪ Got a baby on the way ♪
♪ And life is hard ♪
♪ Ain't nobody to blame, this is all-out war ♪
We have a society that really revels
in reducing personalities to
caricatures and spectacles.
And society pounced on Shyne with that.
They wanted him, we wanted him,
to come out of prison as a normal, well-adjusted person.
[store patrons chattering]
But, instead, he went and rented an entire floor of the Radisson
just for himself.
Um, later he was at the penthouse at the Renaissance Tower,
as far as I could tell, all by himself.
And, perhaps, that entire adoption of the Hebrew personality
was a way of finding a danger to feel safe in.
I remember my mother used to come and see me on the visit floor,
and my mother couldn't even look at me.
She would start to shake...
and she would go off the floor and go to the bathroom.
Right?
I couldn't process that.
This thing is enough to drive a man insane.
When I was incarcerated,
every year, when we would pray during Rosh Hashanah,
you know, we'd say, "Next year in Jerusalem."
Booked a flight to Jerusalem.
I had no intentions of doing anything other than go there for Rosh Hashanah.
And I went there and, um,
I never came back for, like, two years.
[♪ dramatic sting]
[birds chirping]
[excited chatter, people cheering]
[Jeffrey Schottenstein] I met Shyne at the King David Hotel in Israel.
And, um... I knew he looked familiar,
but I, I couldn't put a name to the face because,
you know, he had the beard, the-the-the payot,
you know, the black hat, the-the shtreimel.
I had a feeling that it was Shyne
because I heard, you know, many different stories
that... he was in Israel.
But, you know, I was kind of shy to go up to him.
So, the rabbi that I was with went up and asked him if he was, uh, Shyne.
And, you know, it ended up, uh, it ended up being him.
You know, uh, you kind of correlate times in your life,
periods of-- with music.
So, uh, my junior year of high school, it was all I listened to.
He was my favorite rapper, uh, growing up.
When Shyne came here, it was like this, like... unbelieva--
I dunno, like, a--
I mean, say a rock star, you know what I mean?
Like, this gentleman came with an aura around him,
and everybody was drawn to him.
Well, we are on Misgav Ladach Road
in the Jewish quarter in the old city where I used to live.
I used to live upstairs, uh, on the top floor.
I was very fortunate, uh, to find this place
that overlooks what you call the "Wailing Wall,"
where the temple once stood,
the Dome of the Rock, and Temple Mount.
And that's where I spent the years that I lived in Israel.
Right here.
[shofar horn blowing]
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[Lewis Gordon] Some of the biggest misconceptions
around the history of Black Jews
is that somehow Black Jews are a recent development.
Implicit in it, is the notion that "real Jews" were not Black.
And that's connected to a very mistaken view
that Black people entered the modern world through Christianity.
So, the moment many people meet a Black Jew,
they presume that's a Christian who converted to Judaism.
It's interesting when people meet Blacks who are Muslims,
they don't presume that,
although Islam didn't begin in Africa,
Islam began in, what today we call the Middle East.
[Frances] I think he had to find his way.
And if that was the way, then I supported him.
I didn't like him changing his name.
So, as again, I supported it
'cause I have "Moses" here on my hand.
Where is it?
Um, I remember, uh... [chuckles] Shyne calling me,
saying he's changing his name.
It wasn't about Moses.
It was a redefining of who he was.
Had nothing to do with the name.
It had everything to do with him rediscovering himself,
him reimagining himself,
and finding a way to reinvent himself,
to actually get to the point where he felt comfortable,
that he could be everything that God needed him to be.
-[traffic humming] -[birds chirping]
[Shyne] You know, I went to a yeshiva called Ohr Somayach.
And that's where they send
all of what they call the baal teshuva, the people repenting,
the people turning their lives around.
Interesting enough, they rejected me.
So, I had just gotten my, what they call a brit milah,
which is a circumcision,
very painful experience to do as a,
as a 30-something-year-old.
And some rabbi made up a controversy around me
that I'm not Jewish and I'm not this and I'm not that, and...
And so, I-I-- You know, again, I'm down here
spending my own money.
I don't need anybody for anything.
It was just, like, so ridiculous to me.
Like, the only reason I was here was to get closer to God.
For me, the experience,
the studying, the mentorship had its limit
as to what I felt I was here to accomplish on Earth,
which was not gaining acceptance.
You know, yeah, I could donate to you, I can come to your Shabbat table,
but I can't marry your daughter.
Didn't make any sense to me.
[rapping] ♪ Against the wall while the hellfire burns are chasin' ♪
♪ Between a rock and hard place ♪
♪ So I sold raps to the fiends ♪
♪ When they see me they see God fixed ♪
♪ For God's sake... ♪
[Shawn "Pecas" Costner] The hardest thing for an artist to do
is not be able to find another hit record.
You lose your popularity,
your phone doesn't fuckin' ring anymore.
Nobody cares.
Shyne, you gotta chill all the way out, B.
You've been home for six months
and you haven't dropped one hot record yet.
The material you're droppin' isn't even a'ight. It's terrible.
He's released a new track called King David.
Let-Let's hear a little bit of this garbage.
-[♪ plays "King David"] -♪ Get your Louie 13 and ro'se too sip ♪
♪ Presidential... ♪
It's a bruise on your ego, you know what I mean?
And it's not like Shyne wasn't talented,
but just his life changed.
[Shyne] You know what I'm saying? When I came out, the records was trash.
I admit that. You dig? 'Cause I lost my voice.
I got five XXL covers. These dudes is new.
They new Jacks, they new on the scene. I don't got nothin' to prove.
Like I-- You know, I'm good.
The Game ain't no gangster rapper. He's a dude with a butterfly on his face
and a tongue ring there.
That's what they said he had when he used to be a stripper.
Like, these dudes is frontin', man.
When Shyne was selling a million records, where was Rick Ross?
Where was Robert?
Robert was guarding somebody's jail cell in Miami.
[interviewer] So, what's the situation with you and Diddy?
I thought you guys made up, you flew to Paris,
you guys were watching a fashion show together.
[Shyne] He pretends to be sorry.
Maybe he even wants to be sorry,
but he's so much of a creep.
He just can't find that, that, that part of himself, you k--
Like, like when he say, "God is great,"
I think he talkin' about himself. [voice echoing]
When he started lashing out [laughs]
on certain people,
I was like, "Boy, the fuck is wrong with you?
"You fuckin' crazy?
Like, what are you doin'?"
[♪ "Bury Judas (Game Diss Record)" by Shyne playing]
♪ This little buster name Game wanna rhyme like Po ♪
♪ Cuz I rhyme like gold ♪
♪ I rhyme like, I be climbin' out that Rolls ♪
-[♪ song stops playing] -[laughter]
[The Game] Yeah, I can't, I can't do it, man.
I mean, you-you can't, you just can't beat that guy, man.
-You know? -[Big Boy] Oh, man.
That's the Floyd Mayweather, the rap game right there.
Yeah, man. Can you hit that for me?
[mimics Shyne] ♪ I rhyme like Po ♪
♪ I rhyme like I'm hoppin' out the lambo ♪
-[laughter] -♪ So... ♪
Play that for me one more time.
[Jeffrey] He was stuck, um,
because he didn't know what to do with himself.
You know, all he knew was the music industry.
It took, you know,
I don't wanna say a courage in me,
but finally I said, "Shyne, that part of your life is gone.
"You know, you have so many other attributes to you.
"You're not Shyne, 'Bad Boyz Shyne',
"You're not 'Shyne the musician',
"you're Shyne with so many other different dimensions to you
that you haven't even tapped into."
[indistinct chatter]
[♪ light sitar music playing]
[indistinct praying]
[speaker] [echoing] Drive the nail aright, boy.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
Hit it on the head.
Strike with all your might, boy.
While the iron red.
When you've work to do, boy,
do it with a will.
They who reach the top, boy,
first must climb the hill.
Standing at the foot, boy,
gazing at the sky,
how can you get up if you never try?
Though you stumble oft, boy,
never be downcast.
Try and try again, boy.
You succeed at last. [voice echoing]
[♪ dramatic music continues]
[♪ music fades out]
[insects chirping]
[ambient animal noises in background]
[Shyne] There's a time to pivot, there's a time to transition.
And so, not only was it not working,
I was serving no purpose in Israel.
As much as I love Israel, I think I got all that I needed.
You know, an extreme of anything is not really good.
And I felt that being ultra-religious created more division
and barriers for me.
And I packed my stuff and, and I came back to Belize.
And I said if I-- At first, I thought I was gonna go to law school
and I was trying to figure it out.
Uh, you know, politics wasn't a guarantee.
The politics just came naturally because I was just always helping people.
Like, when people talk about how I became the Area Representative for Mesopotamia,
they don't tell you it's not my fault.
It's the people's fault that came before me.
They took the people in Mesopotamia for granted,
and me, I was just always there.
So, y-you need to pay education bill,
Grandma's in the hospital, you need some food.
We'd s-start giving out school bags,
thousands of school bags, back to school.
We start giving out turkey, we start doing sporting events.
So then, the community's like, "Yo,
"we want you.
"Like, when it's gon' change, it's gon' be you.
We don't even wanna hear about these other people."
Um, and that's how I got into politics, you know,
and that nothing felt better.
That made me have a purpose, that made me feel driven that,
you know, what could I do?
How could I make life better for them?
[birds chirping]
[indistinct chatter]
[gate rattles]
[car door bangs]
Officer, all is well?
Yes.
Good evening.
[dogs barking]
-Yo, brother, you alright? -Fine.
[speaking native language] You ready for Sunday?
Gonna have a big thing Sunday, right?
Can't let me down.
[both speaking in native language]
[barking continues]
-Good evening, ma'am. -[neighbor] Good evening.
So, we're straight for Sunday, right?
Yes, man. I started to tell the man I got my clothes clean.
-[Shyne] Alright. -[speaking in native language]
-Respect. -[laughter]
[indistinct greetings]
[car horn honking]
[plane engine whirring]
Need to start developing all this land
and this whole beach.
We don't want Belize to be the best kept secret anymore.
There's just so much to do to bring Belize
to a first-world nation.
And I have no doubt that it can be done and it will be done.
But I don't necessarily feel accomplished
until I get to the Prime Minister's office
and I start implementing policies,
start taking definitive steps towards dismantling
the systems that have oppressed Belizeans for so long,
and start seeing the development.
[plane engines humming]
[Tony Herrera] The real truth of Belize is in the streets.
It's a lot of killing.
These youths are not doing anything with their life.
They're on this-- They're on the corners.
But Shyne has been there.
And seeing Shyne succeed,
that's a successful story.
A story that has a lot of meat for the young people.
That if he can do it, anybody can do it.
Even though his father played a role in him being elected as party leader,
the reality is that Shyne did the groundwork himself.
Shyne went to his uncle's constituency
and he worked his butt off.
Shyne worked for where he is.
I want to serve for two terms as Prime Minister,
implement all of my policies,
transform this country, uh, like never before,
and then retire.
[Jules Vasquez] I think Shyne has benefited from nepotism
because they made a way for him in Mesopotamia.
They put him in the-- Statistically,
the UDP's strongest seat in the country.
And that was done through the orchestration of his father
and the acquiescence of his uncle.
Basically, his father telling his best friend
and closest political ally,
"Make a way for my son and your nephew."
Shyne will always say, and perhaps rightly,
that you know, he never--
um, his uncle never helped him.
That's fine.
But... I don't have to help you to sleep
if I have made a perfect bed for your rest.
-[♪ soft guitar music playing] -Shyne became leader of the party
because he worked and earned it.
The UDP's a mass party.
I thought he was going to lose in the convention,
but you never doubt him.
He made it.
And he made it by three votes.
[Dean] I think his most outstanding characteristic is resilience.
He's focused,
he knows where he wants to go,
and he will not allow
the efforts of those who would bring him down to prevail.
This guy is absolutely laser-focused.
When he puts his mind to something,
he is going to follow through.
And he's put his mind to this job of being a politician,
this job of being a leader of the opposition,
and, hopefully, the prime minister.
And anybody who counts him out is--
doesn't know the real Shyne,
and is being completely and utterly premature.
[Allen Chastanet] The story of who Shyne Barrow is,
is a story that's still being told.
Um, it's evolving.
And the more and more I learn about Shyne,
the more inspired I become.
I genuinely believe that the perspective that he has
and his ability to get younger people to listen
is invaluable.
This not about no Hollywood or entertainment, huh?
Because I come from the mud.
So, when I talk about pain and suffering,
I know what Belizeans are going through right now.
[people cheering]
I come from the canal side.
Yes, I come from the garrison.
[cheering]
So, I know what you are going through.
Belize first! The Belizean people first!
Shyne, I don't know, Shyne's a one of a kind.
This guy-- You know how people say that about people?
This-- How can he go from one extreme to the next extreme?
Now he do-- It-It just-- Who lives--
Who does that?
Like, literally, who you know that-that-that can do the things,
or have accomplished the things in a-- such a young age?
Who you know can do that? Or have done that?
It's unbelievable.
His story is unbelievable.
[Derrick] You can see it. You see it on his face, it's clean.
You know?
You don't see that-- all that poison,
you don't see it, you know?
And Belize has done well.
[N.O.R.E.] It's a win for people who made mistakes in their life.
It's a win for people who really turning over their own leaf.
I respect this man.
I'ma stand by him.
I'm trying to move to Belize just to vote.
I don't know if that's illegal.
So, I'm, you know, I'm kinda scared.
That's a beautiful thing, man, when somebody, you know,
finds their true purpose in life.
'Cause all of our true purpose in life is service to others.
And that's what he's choosing to do
by being a politician in Belize.
So, man, I, I hope and pray he becomes the prime minister of Belize
'cause that would just be, like, you know, the crown jewel.
I know he will take care of the poor people in Belize
and make everybody live well
that is suffering right now.
He's that type of person.
[♪ music fades out]
Just, you know, I'm in my bag right now.
I'm crazy. I've got my brother here.
Y'all see him.
The leader of opposition in Belize,
my brother, Shyne.
We'll be gettin' to that later, but, um...
You know, it took, took time. It took a lot of years.
Um, but part of fixing it was fixing me,
wasn't really about Puff.
And so, once I fixed myself, once I healed,
and once I, you know, was f-fully immersed in my purpose,
then it's not about anybody else.
That's... that's a distraction.
So, I was able to see that in order for me to elevate,
I gotta cut... those chains.
You know, that was a s-- form of self-imprisonment.
So, I'm not focused on what anybody did to me.
I'm not focused on, you know, anybody's shortcomings
and how that may have devastated me
or that may have impacted me.
I am completely focused on my responsibility
to transform Belize.
-[♪ "Bad Boyz" playing] -[audience cheering]
Come on, y'all!
- ♪ Ah, ah ♪ -Come on! Bad Boy, where you at?!
♪ Ah, ah ♪
-[♪ Barrington scatting] -♪ Now tell me ♪
♪ Who want to gang with us? ♪
♪ Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ♪
-♪ And Puff... -♪ Shyne, Shyne, Shyne, Shyne! ♪
♪ ...with some Belizean women who glisten ♪
♪ Bitches wearin' Jimmy Choos up in they hosiery ♪
♪ A Black teller... ♪
He killed it!
That was the-- That was phenomenal!
[DJ Khaled] The way Shyne was flowin', reppin' his people,
it don't get more iconic than that.
[♪ "Bad Boyz" live continues]
-♪ Shook the feds ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Prime minister the next stop ♪
[Charlamagne tha God] For them to be able to have come to a conclusion,
you know, by where their relationship is,
I thought it was dope.
[Lil' Cease] That was important to show, like,
when you get past having a situation with somebody.
If they can get past that,
new generation should be able to get past the little shit that goes on.
-♪ Bad boyz ♪ -♪ What type of ♪
-Come on, come on! -♪ Comin' straight from Belize ♪
-♪ Bad boyz ♪ -♪ What type of fly made Bent Coupes? ♪
♪ Yeah, bad boyz ♪
♪ Legend after legend only Diddy produced ♪
[♪ music fades out]
[newscaster 1] Breaking news,
the Department of Homeland Security has just confirmed to CNN
that federal law enforcement agents have raided properties
owned by musician and producer Sean "Diddy" Combs.
[newscaster 2] A tremendous amount of law enforcement present there,
all around that home.
Multiple allegations against Sean "Diddy" Combs over the years,
including human trafficking.
[newscaster 3] R&B singer, Cassie,
has accused hip-hop mogul, Sean "Diddy" Combs of rape,
and a decade of physical abuse.
[newscaster 4] Music producer Rodney Jones is suing Combs,
claiming he has evidence of sex, drugs, and weapons offenses.
[newscaster 5] Jones claims in the lawsuit,
"Mr. Combs shared that he was responsible
"for the shooting in the nightclub in New York City
with rapper, Shyne."
[Natania] In this lawsuit with the producer, Lil Rod, Puffy said,
"That's why I shot up the club in New York back in 1999
and let Shyne take the fall for it."
Let me tell you why that's of utmost importance to me
because I am the woman who he shot in the face.
[♪ dark music playing]
That just... like... slashed open,
you know, a-a scar that had healed,
but it, it precisely... just...
ripped it open.
[reporter] Yeah, and you have said since, really, right after the shooting,
that it was P. Diddy who shot you.
Um, I mean, I think you even said it to, to the doctor that night, right?
I said it immediately.
I literally watched them pull out the guns.
I had a clear point of view.
I mean, for God's sake, I got shot in my nose.
I was absolutely set up to be the fall guy.
[newscaster 6] She was shot in the face.
So, she was facing the shooter,
and she has said from day one that the shooter was Sean Combs.
It's not the guy they had ultimately convicted,
an underling of Sean Combs, in his entourage that night.
Uh, so this was, um... well, shocking.
But, you know, what was shocking is not that it's true,
what's shocking is that, you know,
finally, it's all coming... [chuckles] uh, to light,
and people believe it.
Because when I said it,
everyone was partying and having a great time with Diddy,
while I was, uh, you know, left to rot,
uh, in prison.
You know, nobody really cared.
I maintained my innocence all this time.
I said I was defending myself.
I didn't get into who did what,
um, but the victim is telling you who did what.
[♪ music fades out]
So, when that briefing happened,
you know, that spread like wildfire, um,
you know, so, he reached out,
and I said, "Listen, um, it is what it is.
"You know, uh, those are the facts, right?
"I didn't say-- I, I wasn't being unkind.
"I wasn't being mean.
"I didn't get into your other allegations and accusations,
"uh, but as far as it comes with me, you know, you know what the facts are.
"You know, y-you-you-you apologized back then and we've moved on
"and-and, you know, I've healed, but I can't re--
"I'm not gonna restate the facts.
"I'm not going to reconfigure the reality.
"I'm sorry.
"You know, uh, I'm a political leader. My integrity is all I have,
and I have to speak, uh, based on facts."
Um, and he was like, "Yeah, you know, I-- you know, I just wanted to,
know, you know, we're on the same page."
I'm like, "Listen, you know that we weren't good.
"You know, that, you know, you destroyed my life.
"Like you-- If it weren't for you, I would've beat the case.
I would've walked just like you."
So, you know, the, the idea, uh,
that he and I are, are, are, like, best friends and brothers,
and now I'm, I'm maybe changing my t-tune
is just not rooted in, in reality.
And then when the, when the Cassie video came out with, uh, Diddy,
uh, brutally attacking her, assaulting her,
um, you know, I had to, I had to disassociate myself from him
and condemn, uh, those actions.
And, um, and that's been it.
[car engine roaring]
Everybody's journey's different.
Mine was 23 years,
10 years of incarceration,
13 years of deportation.
I didn't betray my friends.
I didn't get on the stand and snitch and,
and get everyone else in trouble.
As devastating as it was,
as excruciating as it was,
I did that.
I sacrificed my entire career,
and life, and family,
to be someone with integrity, with honor, with character, with humanity.
[crowd chattering]
-[♪ gentle music playing] -[flag fluttering]
[waves splashing]
[boat motor revving]
You know, there's some people that say heaven is on earth,
and this is as close as it gets.
♪♪
[water splashing]
[inhales sharply]
[water bubbling]
♪♪
[seagulls cawing]
When I go in the water, I don't go in the water just to, uh,
just to swim.
It's really an immersion.
So, it's so holy to me.
Um, even when I'm in there and, and it's refreshing, it's relaxing,
I'm still with the mindset of cleansing myself
and washing away the, the filth.
[♪ fast tempo drum music playing]
[people chattering]
[♪ horns blowing]
[indistinct chatter]
[♪ fast tempo drum music continues]
[group chanting in native language]
-[♪ drum music fades out] -[chanting fades out]
[♪ upbeat music playing]
[Derrick] This is reform.
This is the true story of reform.
He was the chosen one, to me,
because, like, what Top say, "Who does that?"
To get something, have it taken away, and then have to figure out again how to,
to come from nothing again,
he didn't have to hurt anybody to do it.
He didn't have to do anything illegal to do it.
And he's helping people.
No obstacle is big enough to get past.
We go from, you know, from the early days on Curassow Street,
the heights of fame, the depths of prison,
the wilderness of ultra orthodoxy,
and then the rebirth.
[crowd chattering]
[Shyne] I believe that everything in life
is a constant preparation.
Everything that I've been through
has certainly prepared me or conditioned me
to do what my life's work is.
It all molds you and, and shapes you.
And the design of life is evolution.
♪♪
[muffled crowd chatter]
[waves crashing]
[seagulls cawing]
[♪ "Take Me to the River" by Vincent Berry II playing]
[water splashing]
♪ Ohh ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Let me wash my feet ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Let it wash over me ♪
♪ Man, I've been troubled ♪
♪ On every side, Lord ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Let it wash over me ♪
♪ Take her to the ocean ♪
♪ Out in the dark ♪
♪ Waves of emotions ♪
♪ Floodin' my heart ♪
♪ But I just can't take it ♪
♪ I'm back down on my knees ♪
♪ So tired of fakin' ♪
♪ I just want to be free ♪
♪ Go back and forth prayin' ♪
♪ 'Cause, honestly, I don't believe ♪
♪ Not like I used to ♪
♪ So, take me to the river ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Where I find my peace ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Take me to the river ♪
♪ Where I can be clean ♪
[♪ song ends]
[♪ gentle music playing]
[♪ music fades out] <!--A-d-s-t-e-r-r-a---C-0-d-e--> sc_online_i(1650698,"ffffff","e61c1c");free online counter