Shyne has a lot on his mind when it comes to Diddy and politics. The rapper-turned-politician, who goes by Moses "Shyne" Barrow Levi, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for an in-depth conversation about his life and career, his fall from grace during the infamous nightclub shooting involving now disgraced music mogul Diddy and his rise within politics…timed to the release of his new Hulu documentary 'The Honorable Shyne.'
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00:00I would not agree to anyone to say, hey, you know, let's you know,
00:04let's tell the Diddy story and I'll tell you about how I was victimized.
00:08I wanted to tell the Shine story. I wanted to tell the story of triumph,
00:12the story of overcoming adversity and being the victor, not the victim.
00:19Shine has a lot on his mind when it comes to Diddy and politics.
00:23The rapper-turned-politician who goes by Moses Shine Barrow Levi
00:27sat down with a Hollywood reporter for an in-depth conversation about his life and career,
00:32his fall from grace during the infamous nightclub shooting involving now-disgraced music mogul Diddy
00:37and his rise within politics, all timed to the release of his new Hulu documentary,
00:42The Honorable Shine.
00:43I didn't want to do the Diddy documentary. Obviously, there's a history there. You know,
00:49he did things to me, to my family that devastated my family, but I didn't want to tell that story.
00:58It's ironic that that story is telling itself right now as this story is coming out.
01:04Everybody that heard me
01:08wanted to sign me.
01:10Shine's journey began as an immigrant child who moved to Brooklyn from Belize at just eight years
01:14old.
01:15Started in Belize. You know, started watching LL Cool J and Michael Jackson in Belize as a young
01:23kid. Came to Brooklyn when I was about eight years old. And we continued in poverty, but the poverty
01:29that we continued in, you know, was better than Belize. This ties into my political life of what
01:36I'm trying to create in Belize, where you can go from abject poverty, but based on your work ethic,
01:44based on your talent, based on your ability, you can become a multimillionaire at the age of 18.
01:52The aspiring rapper quickly rose through the ranks after releasing his self-titled
01:56debut album under Sean Diddy Combs' Bad Boy Records in 2000, which reached gold status.
02:02Def Jam wasn't really, no one was even close to Bad Boy Records at that time.
02:10Diddy then took the young rapper under his wing.
02:13However, Shine's promising career was quickly cut short when he was charged in a high-profile
02:18New York nightclub shooting in 1999, along with Diddy. During the subsequent trial, Shine was
02:24convicted in 2001 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Meanwhile, Diddy was acquitted.
02:30I was, I was a fall guy. I was the sacrificial lamb. You know, you have a multimillion dollar
02:38corporation, a hundred million dollars generating hundreds of millions of dollars for BMG.
02:44And so it was either I go to jail or Diddy, who was the CEO and, you know, the revenue generator
02:55for the corporation. It wasn't as if we were in the club and we were acting bad or
03:02we were looking for trouble. You know, people were aggressing. People said that, you know,
03:07I'm gonna kill you. Someone drew a weapon and I was defending myself. So if Diddy did
03:12fire a weapon, you know, it would have been in that context. So I'm not here
03:17to be, you know, the person trying to crucify anyone. As I explained that to you,
03:25Diddy didn't do that for me at trial. He was like, oh, it was Shine.
03:30Shine also notes that the victim of that shooting also has a different stance than the verdict.
03:35Interestingly enough, the victim says today that Diddy shot her, but back then she said,
03:42you know, it was ambiguous. It was, well, you know, they both started firing. But as I said,
03:49you know, what went wrong is that it was a trial of self-defense and we could have all stuck
03:55together and the witnesses could have told the truth. The rapper ended up serving close to a
04:00decade in prison, but Shine did not give up on his music career. The artist dropped a sophomore
04:06album, Godfather Buried Alive, in 2004 while serving time. I put out another number one album
04:13while I was incarcerated. I think Tupac is the only one that did that. Shine also credits his
04:18spirituality and Judaism as his source of peace and liberation during a dark time. My mental
04:25supremacy and mental liberation is what got me through. And so Judaism had a lot to do with that,
04:34you know, and I'm not the first person that subscribes to Judaism that had gone through that.
04:43And what Judaism did for me was give me a blueprint of direct access to God. Shine was
04:50released in 2009, went back to Belize with time spent in Israel and Paris as well. But it was in
04:56Belize that he dove into politics, currently serving as a member of the House of Representatives
05:00in his native country, all of which is covered in his upcoming doc. Everything that I worked so hard
05:06for has been taken away from me. But then you would talk to someone whose problem is what
05:11they're going to eat today. You talk to someone whose problem is their children can't go to school
05:17because they can't afford to pay the school bill. How could I bring the opportunities that
05:23I had in the United States and I see in other developed nations to my people in Belize?
05:29He notes that it was eventually a friend that convinced him to think about politics.
05:33I think you'd be a great leader, not like a leader as what I am now. I didn't even imagine
05:39that at this time. But just a great political figure, a great representative. Yeah. And I said,
05:48you know what? You're right. And now there's so much more to tell. In the next year, Belize
05:53will hold its election and Shine could very well become the next prime minister.
05:58Now, as a legislator, now as hopefully the next prime minister of Belize,
06:03I can create that system that I rapped about. And I asked for the change. Now, I am the change
06:11agent is even when I was rapping as an 18 year old kid, I wasn't rapping for me. I was rapping
06:17for all the other 18 year old kids that had a voice that wanted to be heard, but their voices
06:24weren't being heard. And the system was brutal to them. So that's what inspires me today.
06:30The politician says he hopes his story serves as an inspiration for those overcoming difficult
06:35obstacles to serve a better life. I want to do is tell a story of
06:40indomitable soul of human beings. That no matter what we face, no matter how difficult life
06:50could be, that we all have within us the ability to persevere, the ability to thrive.
06:59I wanted to tell the Shine story. I wanted to tell the story of triumph,
07:03the story of overcoming adversity and being the victor, not the victim.
07:09The Honorable Shine will debut on Hulu November 18th. For more on this interview, head to THR.com.
07:15And for the latest entertainment news and updates, keep watching The Hollywood Reporter News.