*Former rapper Shyne is best known as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs‘ protege when he was an artist on Bad Boy Records label in the 90s. He served ten years in prison for his involvement in the 1999 Club New York nightclub shooting involving Combs that injured three people. Following his release from prison in 2009, Shyne was deported back to his native country as a noncitizen felon.
Life after prison has seen him take a deep dive into politics. As previously reported by The Hill, Shyne, whose real name is Jamal Michael Barrow, was appointed to be the new leader of the conservative opposition party in Belize. During an appearance on the latest episode of Drink Champs, Shyne discussed his political career and the infamous NYC shooting with Diddy.
“I don’t really blame that on him now as much as I did then,” Shyne told the hosts. “Because I did go through a stage of bitterness. But in retrospect, I blame it more on the lawyers that were advising him. Because his lawyers were there to secure a ‘not guilty’ verdict by any means.”
READ MORE: Former Rapper Shyne to Meet with U.S. Lawmakers About Development in Belize
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Shyne continued, “He’s a $100 million corporation and they looked at me as the enemy. This is how many years ago? This is 20-something years ago. Puff is still young relatively. So he’s much younger then and it’s a lot of pressure. He’s about to lose everything. I’m about to lose everything. I’m from that though. Diddy is a musician, but he wasn’t from that. So his response shouldn’t be expected to be my response. When your lawyers are misleading you and misguiding you, that’s how everything fell apart. And he said that to me. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have never listened to those lawyers.’ I forgave him. It was traumatic. I would forgive him and then you might hear me a few months later going in on him. That was over a decade ago and I was in a different space then.”
When Shyne was elected as the Leader of the Opposition at the House of Representatives in Belize in 2020, Diddy came to his defense after government officials sought to prevent ex-convicts from running for office.
“Diddy lost it when he heard that,” he said. “He got the REVOLT people involved, he got the publicists, he got his legislative friends. He said, ‘We can’t let this happen.’ Puff, to me, totally redeemed himself.”
Check out Shyne’s full interview on Drink Champs below.
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