INTERVIEW: Shyne Talks New Doc 'The Honorable Shyne;' Prime Minister of Belize, Diddy; Incarceration, Rap + More

The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Shyne To Discuss His New Doc 'The Honorable Shyne;' Prime Minister of Belize, Diddy; Incarceration, And Rap. Listen For More!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that answer up in the morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ Envy Jess hilarious, Charlamagne the guy.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
We are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest
in the building.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yes, indeed you have Shine.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome brother.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
I'm so happy to be here, happy to have you
here in the morning. I feel great. Hello Brooklyn, Hello
New York City, and hello Blease.

Speaker 5 (00:23):
Last time I saw you, I think it was the
first time I ever met you. I believe was ter
South Carolina. Yes, right, it was the grand opening the
International African American Museum.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
We was in bourbons and bubbles together.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
Okay, yeah right, brother Bacari Sellers Bakari, absolutely, my guy.
How you feeling, man, I'm feeling great.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
You know, we got this documentary coming out on Monday
on Hulu, and I believe that, you know, the journey
that I've had a forty six years very inspirational, and
I believe that, you know, part of wanting to get
this story told now is that I have so much

(00:59):
more want to go and do. So the next phase
of my life is becoming the Prime Minister of Belize,
and that's going to be an entirely different story and
narrative as to how well I do as Prime Minister
to transform Belieze and to create greater connections with the
United States and all the different people I know around

(01:22):
the world and see that unfold. But you know, the
last forty six years have been cinematic. You know, we've
had tragedies, we've had triumphs, and I believe there's so
much to take away from that from somebody right now,
the young Shine that's out there, or whoever that's dealing
with a difficulty, you know, that's stuck, that's going through

(01:45):
the most devastating period of their lives, to understand the
resilience that lies within all of us. And so I
think it's a very timely story.

Speaker 5 (01:53):
I've heard you say, I've heard you say that what
you've done since your incarceration is and has been in
the name of believe right, So it's kind of like
a two part question. I want to know what that means,
But I also want to know, you know, what were
you doing in the name of before incarceration.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Before the younger Shan. You know, I wanted to be Shane.
I wanted to be a great musician. I wanted to,
you know, make my mark on the world through my music.
The quietest kept when I prayed. You know, I used
to always pray to be a billionaire. I pray because
I wanted to be a billionaire. I remember having this
discussion with my father, you know, telling him that you know,

(02:34):
what's the what's the what's your debt? You know, I
know some billionaire friends. It's back in like two thousand
and nine that you know, we'll cancel the debt of beliefs.
So I always thought about believes but more from you know,
being a great musician and then philanthropically I would be

(02:54):
able to give back. But I was thinking about, you know,
my art and how I can be successful. Whereas now
my success is becoming a politician, becoming the Prime Minister
in order to create policies, to create a society for beliezings.

(03:14):
That's everything I do. My success is not a documentary.
My success is not investments. It's not anything to do
with personal gain. My personal gain is how do I
make housing a reality as a human right for beliezings
that right now can't afford it. How do I make
you know, MSM a capital available for people who want

(03:37):
to do startups? How do I make sure that people
you have students and beliefs that can't afford a tertiary
education when they graduate high school and they're brilliant, but
right now, the facilities that they get for a loan
they have to pay immediately, Whereas if they were able
to pay those facilities after they got their degrees and employment,

(03:59):
that will make a world of a difference. That'll help
grow economy because the more skilled our people are, the
more they can contribute to the GDP, and GDP is
everything because that pays the taxes so that we can
guarantee the student debth loans, we can transform the public
health care system, and we can make housing as a
human right of reality, et cetera, et cetera. So that's

(04:19):
what I live for right now, and that's that's Belieze.
And even here talking about Belieze when I first traveled
to the States and today that brings so much tourism
to believes. And you know, even if I wasn't in
a political space, I'd still be doing whatever I could
to promote beliefe. But certainly in that political space in

(04:43):
my life period, it's all dedicated to believes.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
I want to I want to go back if you
don't mind for for shine. So your mother came here
from Belize and you.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Guys moved to Brooklyn, right, and you fell in love
with music.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, tell us about.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
When you started rapping and how you ran into you know,
Rest in Peace, Clark Catt and how that, how that
kind of you know, accumulated your your whole rap career
and why you wanted to become a rapper.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
So, you know, my Pops was a DJ. You know,
my Pops was a DJ. We always that's the only
thing I have over him because obviously, you know, he
was a prime minister for three consecutive terms of retiring
parliamentarian for over thirty years, and I said, you know,
I might never be able to compare to you as
prime minister, but you can't compare to me as a musician, right,

(05:34):
But he was a DJ, So you know, being a
musician was innate. It was my DNA, my genetics, and
you know I listened to a lot of dance all
music obviously being from Belize, Uh, you know, heavily influenced
by you know, Shaba Ranks. That's what they used to
call me. My name used to be Shaba because I
always had the baritone, and I knew every single Shaba song.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Did you feel intilted when they first started calling you?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Nah? It was.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
It was a compliment because I look, you know what
I mean, No, no, no, remember when Marlon Wayne did mister.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
We gotta respect that African bro. That's right, you know,
you know Melani his propet. But you know, we gotta
respect the license. Guys. I'm yeah watching but so so yeah.
So music was always a part of the household. My
moms loved music. You know, we were poor, you know,
but we were determined people. And you know how in

(06:29):
the inner cities we celebrate everything. You know, Saturday, we
just go to my aunt's house and music would be playing.
And I got to thank my uncle's my uncle Newton.
He's in He was in Charston when I met you, uh,
and you know, so he was a big munic music.
And so I remember I came to America in eighty eight.
My moms came here like eighty three, and so eighty

(06:50):
eight that was big Daddy came. Ain't no half stepping,
that was rock Cam, I ain't no joke. That was
LL cool J. I'm bad. I actually bad boys comes
from LL COOLJ. Because you know he was, you know,
like one of my idols. So yeah, so you know,
my life was filled with music and I really took

(07:12):
it seriously, really believed that I could do it, Like
as I was getting ready to graduate high school, because
I was more of a tough guy, you know, on
the block, holding the block down, and you know, rappers
kind of looked at them like they were coring, like
that's not something that you wanted to be. That was
like we'd tell the guys here, bust a rap for
us and entertain us. And so I wasn't in that
mind space, but you know, I'd be in class and

(07:35):
just be writing raps and it just became more and
more of something that I thought I could do. And
I had gotten shot when I was like fifteen or
sixteen years old, like the year before I graduated high school,
and I made a promise to my moms that i'd
stopped going outside, you know, I wouldn't be involved in anything.
I just finished high school and I went to New

(07:57):
York Tech for like a semester before I dropped out
and signed the deal with Bad Boy. And that's how
the music thing really became my focus, because that's all
I was doing. I was in the house listening to music.
That's when Only Built for Cuba Lynx came out and
it was written and Ready to Die and Chronic and
Reasonable Doubt and Volume one and Hard Knock Life, all

(08:20):
these great albums that you know, molded in shape, you know,
my music career, and molded and shaped me as a
human being growing up at that time. But you know
when I used to deliver messages right around here, all
up and down these New York City streets as a
messenger boy, that's when it really intensified. You know, it

(08:41):
was like, I guess a blessing from God. I almost died.
I made a promise to my moms to straighten my
life out, and I guess that was kind of my
blessing because every time I would, you know, ride my
bicycle back to Brooklyn, by the time I got down
on the Brooklyn Bridge, you know, raps would just come
to me. And then I just developed this confidence. I

(09:02):
think really, after I got shot and I faced death,
even though I'd seen friends get killed and I saw
those things, actually having it happen to me, there was
nothing I was afraid of. So when I would see
the Street Team i'd see the Deaf Jam Street Team
or Loud Street Team, I'd run them down literally, you know,
jump off my bike and start rapping. If I got

(09:23):
into this, if I delivered a message here, I try
to sneak and see if I could see Charlemagne and
DJ Envy. I remember going to Hot ninety seven doing
the same thing, you know, in all the different radio stations,
just wrapping. And that's how it happened. You know. I
ran up on my brother Austin, bless him. We was

(09:44):
at the barber shop that I usually get my haircut,
and I wrapped for my barber. You know, if you
hid in the barber shop. Yes, yeah, the barbershop merciless.
They are ruthless, like they would literally take you out
the chair and be like, yo, get up o my trash.
Don't ever, don't ever come back to the barber shop
rapping that nonsense. But the barbers loved me and that's

(10:07):
how you know. That also built my confidence. So there
was this gentleman by the name of Austin leaving the
barber shop, and you know, I just willed. That's that's
one of the good things about this documentary. It shows
you how you can manifest, you know, your greatness manifest,
where you're going to will yourself into existence in whatever
space you want to be. Because I ran up on

(10:29):
Austin and it's a dangerous thing to do to people
in Brooklyn to run up on somebody and be like,
you're in a music industry. And I ran upon him
and I said, you know, are you in the music industry?
And he said yeah, And I just started spitting for
him and he was like, wow, hold up. And he
called Don Pooh, who was managing Foxy Brown, who would

(10:51):
manage b I G and my boy Manny Manny Hilly's
a big time movie producing la now where he was
managing Nicki Minaj's future Keisha Kole. And that's how it
all came together. You know, they call Mark Pitts and
and that was in like maybe August. I dropped out
of New York Tech, got my first check from from

(11:11):
down Pooh. I taught ten thousand dollars, like a million dollars,
So that was my first check.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Then why did you sign with bad Because at the time,
you know, every every label wanted to sign you. Everybody
offered you money, Death Jam Loud, bad Boy, I think
they said even Rockefeller. They all offered you money, but
you decided to go with Bad Boy, which which at
the time could have been a little weird because you

(11:37):
sounded like Big a little bit. Yeah, and you know,
people didn't know if that was your real voice or
if that was a voice that was made up.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
But Puff was trying to replace Big, trying to find
another Big.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Right, Yeah, I mean you know I was so hot
that like nobody was thinking about that, you know, because
I really went through it. So now this is August.
I got with with Don poohing them. Now, I didn't
sign to Bad Boy until like February of ninety eight,
so ninety seven in August it started. But you know
I had rap for Park. He was like, yeah, you nice,

(12:08):
you know, but I got to teach you how to
make hits. That was over the phone office. Pitt's put
me on the phone with him. You know, I gave
jay Z my tape. He threw it out the window.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Isn't true when you first made jau Athams, did the
others gun on him?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (12:20):
I was. I was a wild boy.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Why at them? Now?

Speaker 4 (12:24):
I mean that's that's the mentality, Like, you know, we
street guys and you know, that's how confident I was
that my music was incredible and that you know, I
was willing to rest my life.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
That's literally I used to used to two guns on you.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
You know. I Well, that was that particular night I
had gotten shot at. There was a shootout in front
of Daddy's house literally like thirty days before the club
New York situation happened. And that and after that shootout,
that's that's when I started carrying because once I got
into the industry, I had kind of forgotten about that

(12:57):
life because you know, you in the end the street
like this is a fairy tale, this is a fantasy.
But that was like a rude awakening. You know, respect
to the Mafia and rock and Season everybody. You know,
it's all love now.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
But that shoot out because you sounded like big.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
You know, that's not the way that it unfolded because
we used to all be cool. But you know, I
don't know exactly what drove it, because there was a
point where everything was good, like we was on tour together.
You know, we used to hang out, but you know
when left, but you know we recovered that because you know,

(13:38):
when Seas came to Ryker's Allen. I took care of him.
You'll see all that in the documentary. He's in the documentary.
And it's been love ever since. When Rock, when de
Rock went up state, you know, made sure that you know,
my guys were with him.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Everything was good.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
He was also telling us why you decided to go with.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah, So so it was it was a couple of
months between getting with uh, you know don Pooh Manny
and you know I want to rap for for I
went to rap, you know, because we just had a
deal with Sony. You know, like I said, I try
to wrap for whole. Clau Kent, you know, took me

(14:21):
to Clarence Avon the legendary, Yes, the legendary when he
was the head of Motown Universal. But nothing was really sticking.
So like I was having these meetings, I was rapping,
you know, we was moving around, but you know, nobody
was presenting an actual deal to sign. And finally with

(14:44):
the breaking point was December when Chris Lighty invited me
to death cham God bless his soul, and Chris Lighty
put on he said, I got this new producer, Swiss Beats,
and he put on a Swiss Beats tape. This back
in the days where you know, you had to ask yeah,

(15:05):
and I wrapped over that and he went crazy. So
that's what I'm saying, Like nobody was talking about anything
other than how nice I was at that time. Like
everybody thought I was nice. Nobody was like, oh, you know,
you sound like whatever. Everybody was just like, yo, this
kid is incredible. So he took me into Leaw's office immediately,

(15:25):
and Leo was, you know, an Israeli voice, You're not
leaving here until he signed the deal. And that's when
it just went like wildfire. Did he flew me out
to Los Angeles? I think it was like the Soul
Train Award. It was him and j Lo at the
record plant. He was he was calling something came out said, listen,

(15:49):
we ain't even got to go back and forth. If
you want to sign to me, let's do the deal
right now. So he had a party at his muhulland
Drive mansion, and Russell le or Chris everybody came to
the party, and I was like, you know, I'm gonna
just tell him, I'm gonna just go have a little

(16:09):
meeting with them and let them know that, you know,
just out of respect. And I never came back because
I was always a businessman, and so while I appreciated
the magnitude of the celebrity and the power, and you know,
Puff was the greatest hitmaker at the time, there was
nothing even close to him. This is before Death Jam

(16:29):
re emerged with with whole Hard Knocked Life and DMX.
You know, they was cold at the time, and Puff
was the hottest thing on planet Earth. But you know,
the numbers that they were talking, you know, it was crazy, unprecedented,
the numbers that Death Jam was talking. So I was like, man,
you know, as a business there was giving me everything.

(16:50):
Like I was just making up stuff, you know, I
would just just test it because obviously being with Puff
is what I thought was the best thing. But it
was two the numbers they were talking that the ownership,
the publish and everything. Whatever I wanted, they were prepared
to give me. Jimmy Ivan, everybody. And so we flew

(17:12):
back to New York and I went to the Saint
Regis Hotel waiting for the deal to close. And I
woke up one day and I was like, you know what,
I called mak Pitts and I was like, let's do
the deal with Diddy and the reason I did the
deal with Diddy, I never forget. I had a meeting
with Jimmy Ivan and he said, listen, you know, come

(17:32):
to me if you want to be your own boss.
You know, I want self contained people. I want you
to have your own death row, your own aftermath. You know,
I don't want to micro manage you. But I knew
I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, I was a young kid. I had a lot
of confidence, I had a lot of skills, right, but
I wasn't self contained. You know. I wouldn't even know
how to put the infrastructure together to run a company
at that time. So for me, it was about getting
the blueprint, getting the manual, getting the key to unlock
the holy Grail from someone who had it. And at

(18:10):
that time, Diddy was you know, irrefutably, you know you
regret that. No, no, absolutely not, because the things that
I learned from Diddy, as far as you know, being
a great performer, being a great musician, also transferred into

(18:31):
everything else that I do in life. Transferred into my resilience,
transferred into my confidence, into manifesting you know, my destiny,
into manifesting my way out of you know, challenges and
struggles into being an entrepreneur, into being you know, so
diverse with the way you look at yourself, understanding that

(18:51):
you could be at any table and that you know,
there are no boxes for us, especially as hip hop.
You know. So despite what he's going through and despite
what you know he has done to me in the past,
you know, because those things only come up now because
when you're telling them a story, you got to tell everything.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Well, I mean, it's always come up in your past
because we've seen that, you know. And then so you
signed with Diddy. Yeah, you sound like Biggie.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
It sound like me.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
You sound like you. People think that you sound like
Biggy And because.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
I love that, you sound right, the love that you
thought you were going to get, I don't think you
first received because at first it was like, is he
trying to sound like Biggie? Is he doing that with
his voice? And I remember, you know, it was funny,
you know, talking to bad Boy people. They were like,
you know, it was hard at first with DJs because
it was like, a, he sounds like Biggie. But they said,
out of any bad Boy artist that ever would signed

(19:46):
to bad Boy, you was the only one that would
be there before the people that worked at the label
and would leave after. You would get on the phone, call,
call every DJ, you would go to every club, you
would talk to every programmer like you had everything it
took to be a super duper star. Sounded like yourself,
which you know people say, sounded like big.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Was that good?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Was that bad?

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Was it bonus? Was it difficult? How was it getting.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Into the industry like that?

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Well? Remember I didn't come into the industry like that.
I came into the industry with everybody wanting to sign
me thinking that I was that I was nice. I
think the entire comparisons came about because I wasn't putting
out music that met the benchmark of greatness and excellence.

(20:38):
And the reason I wasn't doing that is because I
was an eighteen year old kid who just got a
million dollars, you know. So I went from you know,
sleeping on my mom's couch. I literally never had my
own room as a kid, That's how poor we were.
My mom's never my grandmother and my aunt as most
immigrant people from the Caribbean do initially, and we was
never able to get out of that, you know. So

(21:00):
going from uh, you know, literally your couch, the living
room is your bedroom. I never had money to go
to school. I never had much to getting a million dollars.
I spent like the entire ninety eight just running around.
That's how I got the name Poe. I was actually
dating a woman. She was a music executive who used

(21:21):
to date Alpole, and so you know, she was the
one that called me autpo because you know, she thought
I looked like him, and you know I was wild
like I used to you know, do the same thing,
like pull up in the six hundred and just hop out,
just leave it in the middle of the street, like
I was a wild boy. I was living, you know,
this fantasy of a young you know, inner city youth
with a million dollars in an entertainment world, you know,

(21:44):
with my future in front of me that seemed you know,
unlimited in its potential. But I lost focus. So when
music did come out, it wasn't sounding the way that
it was supposed to sound. I keep it, you know
as young people's wow with you. That sounded like trash initially,
so so when that came out, obviously the people that

(22:07):
I didn't sign to, they wasn't happy that I didn't
sign to them and and you know, that's when Diddy
started to decline as well, because he was so hot
and when you when you peak, you gotta come down,
and his peak was like, you know, unparallel, and then
he started to decline. So a lot of the shots
and then that's when hard Knock Life came out. That's

(22:28):
when you know X came out, and it was the
total contrast of what Bad.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Boy was doing.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah, so when y'all never forget, when you know, get
at Me Dog came out, that was it. That was it,
That was that was it for bad Boy, Like you know,
if you remember, like that was it. The whole the
whole dynamic of the music industry totally transformed into raw
and gritty. So a lot of the criticisms were a
result of that parademic shift and the result of my

(22:58):
lack of focus.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
You know.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
So I was running around driving the six hundred, driving
the road, Platinum ROLLI, platinum ap and living this life.
But I wasn't putting in the work. I wasn't disciplined,
I wasn't focused, and so the music that would get
leaked sounded like trash, and so people were like, you know,
come on, you know, it's trash.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
So the rule that you were forced to sign where
bad boy wasn't true.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
That was on your decision.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Tell you, I was in Saint Regis Hotel, listen, I was.
Everybody wanted to sign me. I left Puff's mansion. Deft
chair put me in the Peninsula Hotel and I was there.
We got on the plane, flew back in the same
regions for a couple of weeks waiting for the dealer
Simon and going to John McNally, you know, like every

(23:45):
week to whatever I wanted, you know, tens of thousands
of dollars every week waiting to sign the deal. So yeah,
I again, Kobe couldn't come into the league. Kobe was
on the bench when he came into the league, right,
people don't talk about that. And Kobe had Phil Jackson,

(24:08):
you know, and that's how Kobe became Kobe. So for me,
I wasn't ready to be, you know, a coach player,
and something instinctively in me told me that I wouldn't
have gotten that tutelage at death cham in my opinion,
and again, say what you want about Puff, but the

(24:30):
things that he's accomplished in music and entertainment, space and
in his entrepreneurship. You know, it'll be it'll live forever, right,
and so to get that information from the source itself.
And interestingly enough, even though that's why I came EGO
got the best of me when I when I got

(24:52):
that million dollars because I thought I was puffed. So
so I'm telling you there's there's stories I can't say who,
but there's stories like of his like main girl that
you know, I was dealing with because I thought, you know,
I was that guy. You know, I really thought it
was about me at the time. Yeah, in ninety eight,

(25:13):
like I got on, I got on you you know, No,
not her. I'm just saying, OK, all right, but not her.
But at the time I got on in ninety eight,
and instead of getting in the studio and getting the information,
I was living the life. And so that caused a

(25:35):
strain between him and I because he was like, like,
who does this kid think he is? And there's even
situations like with with Mace. Mace was dating the girl,
you know, and I started dating the girl, and that
caused like a big thing we had to have like
a family meeting, and it was like, yo, what you're doing,
you know, like Kobe coming to the Lakers and you
know you want to go after Shacks joint, Like you

(25:57):
can't do that. And that's what I was on for
night the eight. I wasn't focused. And it wasn't until
ninety nine after that same girl, this is the girl
that was also seeing Mace. She's you know, she's selling
millions of records. She had like the biggest record that year.
And and she said, she said, she's not listen, it's

(26:22):
a documentary. Is in the document It's in the documentary.
Cat can sense who it is. So and we had
an argument and she said, Yo, you're nobody.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
That's you.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yes, yeah, you're nobody. You ain't selling one record. You
think you style and you think you're that, you're nothing,
you haven't sold the record. And that hit me like
the hand of God just you know, slapped me back
into reality because she was she was telling the truth,
like what I wasn't there to date you know, R

(26:58):
and B divas and pop d is and you know, look, fly,
I was there to make hit records and I wasn't
doing that. And that shook me up. And I was like, yo,
a puff at all? Right? You know I carry your bags.
You know what, let's let's get in the studio. And
that's what we did. So the entire ninety nine, you know,

(27:19):
I was in the gym, I was in the studio,
and that's how we made Bad Boy because we were
we were in the Hamptons.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
The song bad Boy Guys, the song back bad Boy
by the.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Song we We we were in the Hamptons and he
gave me the easy p beat and boom boom but
boom boom, boom boom, and he's like, yo, if you
could kill this, you're gone. And he's like, who's the

(27:50):
guy that goes WHOA? And I'm like, Baron Toon Levy.
He's like, yeah, we're gonna put him on there. Write
the second verse, the second verse, Puff's verse, things dragging
on the floor because you know he's the mink guy,
the fir guy.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
And yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
So so I have no regrets about signing to Bad Boy.
I got everything that I came for. Didn't expect that
I get a ten year sentence out of it.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
But it feels like back then, at least to me anyway,
if it's lootening at you talk, it felt like it
was more important to prove how screeched you were like
walking up on Jay and asking j why you still
got your gun? Getting in the shootouts with Junior Mafia.
I don't know, it didn't feel like you were Anybody
was focused on rap back then. It was by like
who's can be the toughest.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Well, I'm not sure if it was a competition to
be tough or it was a lack of the ability
to transition. You can't just go from being on the
street getting your getting shot at getting shot, watching your
friends die, to just this three sixty adjustment, you know,
the healthy, stable human being I am now. It took

(28:59):
me forty six years to get here, you know, going
from a young kid, you know, fighting for survival that's
all you know. So you know, that's just the mindset
that you had. So like you know, when I met Jay,
I was literally a year before that I almost got killed.
So that's just the state of mind. You know, whatever
happened at the studio, that's just the state of mind.

(29:22):
Like you know, it's very difficult to transition out of
that state of mind. So for me, it was never
a competition. I wanted to get away from that. I
didn't want to go back to that.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
So why did you care if he had his gun
on Like I'm really stuck on that, Like why did
you care?

Speaker 4 (29:37):
It was a it was a figurative thing more than
a literal thing about you. But that's but actually that's
how we used to do it back then. Like guys
in the music were real, Like Jay's was a real
like Kingpin, like it was a real streak, you know, hustler,
So he might have had his his weapon on him,
like that was a reality. Not not everybody was making

(29:59):
up their There were some guys that actually lived at
and so it wasn't what you were trying to be.
That's what you were. Like when I first when I
first moved, you know, to there was an apartment that
Didy was living on Park Avenue. He had an apartment
on on thirty sixth Street, and I was at that apartment.

(30:21):
You know, I had a shotgun in an apartment with
me because that's that's where I came from. You know,
Like these raps are not just things that people make up.
You know, I almost got killed. Now I'm getting I
just got a million dollars. You know, maybe you know
the people that try to kill me in Brooklyn, you know,
might try to find where I'm at, and you have

(30:42):
forty six year old shine. Of course, now you say,
in hindsight, why would you do that? Why would you
jeopardize you know, your career, Why it's difficult to make
the transition?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
I always wanted to. Why was it so hard for
you to get your flow back after you got out
of prison? I think flowed in the doc a little
bit too.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, I think you know I came out with the
wrong energy. You know, I came out I was attacking
Rick Ross, I was attacking fifty. I was attacking Drake
and understandable. No what I'm telling you. I think that
was again another slap from the hand of God, because
it's like you just did ten joints and the energy

(31:23):
you're coming with its dangerous, right, that's not the energy
that you're supposed to be putting out there in the universe. Again,
lack of focus, similar to when I first did the deal.
Just the lack of focus. And so I believe you
know that was the most high just saying, come on, man,
you ain't learned nothing Like let me let me put

(31:46):
you on pause for a minute so that you could
figure it out. Because the direction you're going, No, that's
not what we that's not what we sat up for
ten years for. So I think that was a colossal
mistake to come out and focus on other people. Which
is one of the greatest things that I've been able
to do, is to focus on myself and take responsibility

(32:09):
for the things that I've done, take accountability for my
life and where I want to go. But I think
that's what's happened. That's because I got it back. But
now I'm not interested in rapping. But you know, I
use my voice now for the people who believes in
the House of Representatives, because when I'm writing my speeches,
it's similar to writing my rhymes, and the same way

(32:31):
my rhymes were based on what I actually experienced, what
I actually lived and saw, it's the same thing I
do in the House of Representatives. Now I go when
I meet people, I send in their homes, I eat
food out of their pots, and I listen to the
things that are impacting them. And when I go in
the house, that's what I talk about. I'm not just
attacking the government to attack them. I'm actually reporting live

(32:52):
from the streets of Mesopotamia and other parts of beliefs.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
I always wanted to know when you need to come
out now out. You know, it was always said that
Puff hisself didn't get on the stand and snitche but
witnesses he put on the stand cleared him and pointed
at you.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
Absolutely not that they didn't just clear him. They lied
because even today, I'm still not saying anything to get
him in trouble.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Right, you said you didn't see the shooter.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Right, the victim says Puff shot her. So my thing
is and I'm still saying here and now, and I've
said in interviews, if he did shoot her, he was
defending himself. It wasn't intentional because people were trying to
kill us that night.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Now, the person that that's a fact that y'all alleged
got into the argument with. They were saying that the
issue was with you and him. Maybe you were signed
to him before all the money.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
That was a story.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I don't know what type of drugs Flex is on
or what type of mental breakdown he's having, but that
is absolutely untrue. This is the first time you've ever
heard anybody say such ridiculous, outrageous statements. So Nas is

(34:09):
lying when Nad said, you know, I don't like the
way Diddy did Shine with different lawyers. Everybody's lying on
Diddy now, like, come on, the first Double Excel cover
death before this, honor everything that I'm saying now I've
been saying. It doesn't mean that I didn't forgive Diddy
and move on. But when Little Rod, you know, puts

(34:31):
a suit out saying that Diddy is bragging about shooting
up the club and making Shine take the rap, that
changes things right, And then you're looking at it like, okay, well,
you know, is he just saying that? Then the guy
that Little Rod said was carrying the drugs for Diddy
on the planes, they get them at the hangar and

(34:55):
the guy got the drugs on the plane and gets
arrested by the fads. So then you're like, okay, well,
if he wasn't lying about that, then you know, maybe
he is telling the truth.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
How do you forgive that?

Speaker 5 (35:07):
Though?

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Sitting ten years in the box knowing you know that
Diddy's holding with bad Boy and all the artists will
say that is it was all about family, right, That's
what it was sold on.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
It was family.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
We all are family, we're all together, we all listen
in this together. But when it hit the fan, it
was no family. It was every man for himself. Absolutely,
you get out and you forgive him, and you know, no.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
I didn't forgive him right away. If you notice, when
I got out, I was attacking him too. It was
one of the most erroneous strategic moves that I made,
because I was fighting with Diddy, I was fighting with fifty,
I was fighting with Drake, fighting with Rick Ross like
I was literally, I was like Samson, you know, pushing
the pillars to collapse on me. So there wasn't an

(35:50):
instant forgiveness I got out in two thousand and nine.
We didn't There wasn't an attempt at reconciliation until twenty
twelve when I went to Paris to meet him, and
that was the first attempt at forgiveness. But I was
still in the place of he owes me, he owes
me his life, he owes me. He's a billionaire. If

(36:12):
it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have been a billionaire.
If I would have cooperated with the district attorney, he'd
have went to jail, and heaven knows what would have
happened to his career. Right, So, you know, that's worth
at least a couple million dollars out of the billion
that you're worth. And interestingly enough, you know, one of
the things that Cassie alleges in her lawsuit is that

(36:34):
when you know he would assault her, then he would
you know, take on shopping spreeds. And so I saw
that in Paris he spent like a half a million dollars,
like in one day shopping for her. And then you know,
after I left, he was then that's twenty twelve.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Oh, twenty twelve, okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Twenty twelve. That's what I'm saying. That was the first
attempt at reconciliation. I got out in two thousand and nine,
and then it took a couple of years before I said,
you know, we reach out. I was actually living in
Israel at the time, and but I felt he owed
me something. And so it's like, you know, he probably

(37:14):
gave me like fifty racks, and I'm like, you know,
you can't be serious, Like that's ten years fifty racks.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Like that whole ten years you were in jail, he
didn't reach out to you at all.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
He came to see me once, and I think I
tried to spin in his face and right because Alance
so when he didn't come back, I didn't want I
didn't want him to come back. I didn't even want
to come see me. I didn't even know he was
coming to see me. They just brought me down in
the lawyer's office.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
And you know, so you did an angry bit. I was.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
I really, you know, my life was destroyed, devastated, and
I was figuring out how to continue living, buried alive,
and I didn't want anything to do with him. And yeah,
it was a lot of hurt and a lot of
pain in that. But I wasn't just sitting there. I'm angry.

(38:04):
I sat there, I got into my spirituality, got into
my Judaism. You know, I did the deal with death Jam,
you know, a couple million, a couple million dollars put
out god Father, buried a live album album I love,
and you know, continue living every day to get out.

Speaker 5 (38:27):
But yeah, you know I got a if you were
because they always said that you and the brother Scar
God blessed it Dad.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
They said y'all were.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
Cool before you even met, did so exactly, So why
didn't you side with him that night?

Speaker 4 (38:41):
No? But it doesn't work like that, you know, doesn't
work like that, like literally it was scared Nino, the
whole crew of Brooklyn kids from Saint John to Washington
app Yeah, but I know, I know, I know, you know,
I know those guys and everything was all good, like
we embraced. Everything was good. But but you know, Diddy's
my vault us like didd he's you know, he's we

(39:03):
remember ninety nine. We spent the entire ninety nine making
this record. It's about to happen, be about to shoot
the Bad Boys video like you know, and we developed
that bond, you know, making the record, and I'm not
gonna leave his side and be like, oh man, you're
on your own. I'm not gonna do that.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
Well, Puff was able to get Scar to help his case,
but not yours.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Now, I don't scared somebody put him out.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
But I don't have that hippie died at Gumbo.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Yeah I don't. I don't remember. I don't think Scar
helped the case. If I remember, I think Scar hurt
the case. Who helped Diddy and hurt me with Sharise Myers.
And again, if you go back to my interviews, I
said all this, I've been saying all this. It's just
the power of Diddy. The power of his celebrity is

(39:54):
his iconic status was just so loud and so nobody
cared to listen. There was like, yo, you know you're
the mad rapper. You know whatever. I got business going
on with him. But again, now I's wasn't lying when
he said I don't like the way did he did
shine with different lawyers? He was telling the truth.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah, have you ever thought about suing any of the lawyers?

Speaker 4 (40:15):
I thought about sueing did he?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
You know?

Speaker 4 (40:19):
But like I said, I'm focused on Belieze. I'm focused
on becoming the next Prime Minister of Belize. And I'm
really again, I can't come up here and not talk
about my life in totality.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
I mean, that's actually the beautiful redemption.

Speaker 5 (40:38):
Absolutely, I think about you saying that you almost got
killed back in the day. I think about I heard
about a car accident that that that you was in.
One of your peoples paralyzed and one got one got killed. Yeah, yeah,
I just And then I think about that that happened
like a couple of weeks before the shooting, right, No.

Speaker 4 (40:58):
No, no, no, that happened happened in ninety eight. Yeah, that
happened as soon as I got my deal. I got
the six hundred. Wow, and you know, the road was slippery.
We're actually on the way to the party. And I
was because I still go on the block and we're
going on the block. After this, I always go see
my cousin Ron, do you know, It's like it was
one of my childhood heroes on eighteenth in church, and

(41:22):
so you know, I would always come on the block
and take everybody to go party and get right. And yeah,
so it's been a lot of tragedy.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
In that situation too, Yeah, Scar.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
Right, Yeah, but yeah, there's been a lot of tragedy,
but there's also been triumph. There's also been the ability
to be resilient. And you know, you can't tell the
story of trumpf you can't tell the Prime minister story,
can't tell any of those great things without talking about
the obstacles, you know. But I lost my train of thought.

(41:55):
But the when you asked whether Scar helped, and I
was telling about Sharise Myers. So Sharisse Myres was a
security guard and I begged Puff not to call her
as a witness because, as I'm saying now, all these
years later, despite Puff being in federal custody, I'm still
not saying that he did anything wrong. I'm saying, even

(42:16):
if he did shoot, he was defending himself because we
were all defending ourselves. So why would it have been
so difficult for him to call witnesses that were saying
the same thing, Because that's the truth. I wasn't in
there being belligerent and acting in a depraved want because
that's what I got convicted of assault for depravedness, and

(42:38):
that was due to him, that was the most damaging witness.
And we begged him, wolf begged him, all of us
begged them, you know, please don't call this witness. This
witness is gonna bury me. And he called the witness.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
So why why wouldn't you look at everybody?

Speaker 4 (42:52):
Because you wanted to say to himself the strategy is
somebody got to go to jail and it ain't gonna
be ditty, so you gotta be shy. And and and
the plea agreement that the DA was given because the
DA wanted me to testify against uh Diddy, and he
called me in for what they call him a profer,
so in the profert they wanted me to come in

(43:13):
there and be like yo, he had the gun, he
passed me the gun he started shooting. It was it
was him, and I refused to do that, and so
the DA was like, okay, I give you a plead
deal for thirteen years. So so yeah, so that's what happened.

Speaker 5 (43:31):
Have you ever spoken to the woman who was shot
in the face, and because she's been speaking.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
Up, No, I haven't spoken to her.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
You know.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
I I apologize and I regret. I think I did
a was it Kojack? What's what's the name of the brother?
Reggio says he was Pece. I had done a I
had done an interview with him, and I extended, you know,

(43:59):
sorrow that she got hurt. And I said it in
interviews that I've done over the last couple of days
when they asked do I have any regrets. I don't
regret defending myself, but I regret that people are hurt.
And so I said that as far as you know,
she's concerned.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
She said it was Diddy.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
Yeah, she said Diddy shot her. Yeah, And but we
don't know because the bullet fragments were never extracted from
any of the victims. Uh. But definitely there were three
guns fired, mine and two other guns. Uh. And you know,
she she said what she said actually immediately to the doctor.

(44:38):
You know, she said, I just got shot by Diddy.
But then when she got on the stand, Uh, she
was trying to blame the both of us without blaming
the both of us. And now she maintains that it
was Diddy got paid off. You know, I can't speculate.
I don't I don't know. I don't know what happened.
I just know that, you know, it's tragic. But you know,

(45:01):
like I said, we pivot, we move forward, and that's
what I did in the second reconciliation with Diddy, when
we reconcile again in like twenty twenty or twenty nineteen.
And so that forgiveness was a different forgiveness because I
was at a different space.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
That's when you perform.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
No, I performed in twenty twenty two. But I'm just
telling you how we got to that, because there's a
gap from twenty twelve to twenty twenty.

Speaker 5 (45:30):
But before before we get to that, you have you
and Jalo ever had a combo about that night?

Speaker 4 (45:33):
Yeah? Never, okay, Yeah, I've never seen her since since
that night. But the second forgiveness, that was a forgiveness
of power and strump for my part, because that forgiveness
came with no price tag. That was a strategic forgiveness.
And I'm about to be, you know, an elected official.

(45:55):
I wasn't close to being the Prime Minister then, but
I was going to the House presentatives and my mind was
just in a different space and so everything was just,
you know, no baggage, nothing that would, you know, keep
me from soaring to the heights that I wanted to sew.
And I already understood who he was and it was like,

(46:18):
you know what, it's just clean with everybody. And even
if you saw different interviews that I've done, whether it
be Rick Ross or or Fitty, all the people that
I've ever attacked, you know, I've expressed contrition for that.
I was just in a different space and getting in
that space of wanting to help Belize. You know, I

(46:38):
don't want to fight with anybody because I'm fighting for Belize.
So this is not about me anymore. This is not
about any grievances that I have with anyone. It's like,
even with your elections, I congratulated President elect Trump and
I congratulated Vice President Harris because it's about Belize. I'm
not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat, and that's how

(47:00):
that forgiveness came about because I knew I would never
get anything from him, but it wasn't about getting anything
from him. And then when he came and he asked
me to perform at the Lifetime Achievement BT Awards, you know,
to me, that was a moment of power because now
he was begging me to do something because I didn't
want to perform. I'm not a rapper, right. I was insulted,

(47:24):
to be honest, because I'm an elected official and I'm
on my way to try to be the Prime Minister
of Belize. And it's confusing to my electorate because you know,
they want a serious person that's dealing with serious policies
that are going to solve the problems in their lives.
They're thinking about, you know, the GDP, they're thinking about,

(47:45):
poverty alleviation, housing is a human rights, citizen security, food security,
you know, that's what they're thinking about. And they don't
want a guy on stage, you know, performing they want
a prime minister that's going to come and give them hope.
And I was very uneasy about that, but he was like, no,
you know, you got to do it for the legacy,
and you got to do it for Belize. You know,

(48:05):
this is going to be a great opportunity to promote Belieze.
And that's when he got me. And I was like,
all right, well, you know, the flag got to come
down when I'm performing and everything got to be believe
And I have no regrets about that because it worked.
It's the biggest flag ever on stage, the first time
that's ever happened for Belize. And he, you know, he
was chatting Belize and I changed up the first verse,

(48:28):
you know, just to say Belieze believee. And so that
was great for Belize. And I got nothing for that
other than promoting Belieze. So that wasn't about him. That
was that wasn't even about me. That was about Believes.
But if it was about me, it was a moment
of power. Was because he needed me.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
There was a rumor that he paid you to perform
that night.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Absolutely not not a dollar, nothing, because.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
I think there was a room that he paid you,
and there was a rumor that he paid Mace and
Mason shot. But that was the rumor that paid I
think a hundred thousand dollars. That that's what and.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
I could have used that towards my campaign.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Have you really moved on from the Diddy situation?

Speaker 5 (49:04):
Because I saw you saying on Tammer Hall that you
know you healed from it, But then you also say
he destroyed your life, and it feels like after he
went to prison you started kicking his back in.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
I guess it feels like that.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
But we just went through prison. But yet, no, we just.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Went through a chronology of all the things that I'm
saying now been saying. Number one, number two, you can't
delete the Little Rod lawsuit and those accusations of him
bragging about shooting up the club and making me go
to jail.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
So after you perform with him, once you hear those rumors.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Of course it.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Okay, okay, you gotta do the chronology.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
It's not happening in the orbit of chaos, right, you
got to do that. That's legit that he made those accusations.
Then the guy gets caught with a fanny pack at
Tita or wherever they were, and so that makes you say, okay, well,
what else is Little Rod, who produced the love album?
What else is he telling the truth about? So that

(50:09):
makes you look at him crazy. Then the video comes
out with Cassie, so then another lies is exposed and.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Only a few people who know the truth about that night.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (50:21):
Right, So if you know the truth and then you
hear Rod say something like that, you're like, oh, word, exactly,
you're out here bragging about it exactly.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Okay, exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
But even even still, I say here what I've said
in all my interviews, but that doesn't make the headlines
when they asked, how do you feel? I would not
wish incarceration on my worst enemy. I take no joy
and no satisfaction in what is happening to Ditty, And
I pray for the victims, especially Cassie, that they get

(50:52):
closure and they heal. And I pray for Ditty that
he's able to figure out why he is where he is,
because sometimes the same way the hand of God slapped
me a few times, the hand of God comes down
on you, and I reformed, I rehabilitated. So I'm not
going to condemn Ditty in perpetuity. It's time for him
to find his rehabilitation and his reformation and learned the

(51:16):
lesson that he needs to learn. And I pray for
him and wish him well. So nothing that I'm saying.
I'm saying from a place of hurt and hate. I'm
saying from a place of love and healing and moving on.
But the truth is the truth. You know, when your
brother does something wrong, you gotta tell him, well, you're
not a good brother. No.

Speaker 5 (51:36):
He never so he never apologized. He never said, yo, man,
thank you, here's a bag something.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
He never did.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
You know that in Paris, In Paris, you know, in
Paris he did say. We were at the La Maurice.
He was like, oh, you know it was the lawyers.
You know, you know I shouldn't have listened to the lawyers.
Lawyers a term me against you, you know, my bad.
But the bag never came. You know, the fifty I
wanted to give the fifty back. You know, I was insulted.

(52:07):
You know, I just seen you spend a half a
million or Cassie in the day.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
It's like, man, you know I did ten years.

Speaker 4 (52:13):
A ticket A ticket would have been you know, yeah,
you know that would have been the starting point because.

Speaker 5 (52:18):
They offered you a deal, right, they offered you a deal.
If you stitched on Diddy.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Absolutely walk I would have walked.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Yeah, you know, I want to know and in ninety nine,
of course with everything going on with Diddy, now people
would say you were with him for that whole year?

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Tight, right, Yeah? Was there anything that you've seen that
looked a little.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
It wasn't called freaking Did you see the baby oil?

Speaker 4 (52:40):
No? Absolutely not, absolutely not strictly focused on making music
and yeah, no, I didn't see any.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Of that and none of the violence that people are
saying that that are coming up in all these things.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
No, I didn't see anything.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
I wanted to ask also when Usher came out with Confessions, Yeah,
and you did the remix.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Break that down?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Had that call came and how y'all did that? Because
that was something that we haven't seen or heard before
back then.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Yeah, so it was it was so divine how that happened,
you know. And if you listen to the raps, I say,
excuse me, I say, you know, sitting in my cell
head about the bursts would be alive if I didn't
shoot first, and I was literally you know, incarceration. All

(53:27):
you have is your music, your music and your TV
that's life, right, and your books. Obviously you know you
train your mind. So I had my yamaha. You use
your yamaha. Piano as your speaker set so and then
you plug in your walkman and and then you start
to boom out. And so when all the new music

(53:50):
would come out, you know, I'd get the tapes. And
so when Confessions came out, you know, I got that,
and the Confession song was my favorite song. I remember
playing that song, you know, over and over and over
and over and over again. And I actually even came
up with the lyrics to it without anybody reaching out

(54:11):
to me. Then Mark Pits and Jermaine Duprix reached out
to me because I still had my phone, still had
my same number, and I used to check my own
messages when I would go to the yard, and I
checked my message and I got a message from Jermaine Duprix,
and I got a message from Mark Pitts that you know,
I should want you to get on this record. And

(54:33):
I already knew the record, so it was easy work
for me, and I already had started formulating lyrics, and
I literally was in my cell and I came up,
you know, with those bars, and then I recorded it
in the yard, literally in the yard, and so you know,
in the yard, you know, I got my guys and
so I always have people, you know, watching whatever I'm doing,

(54:56):
because you know, any day could be your last day arcerated.
And so yeah, I remember being on the phone, you know, rapping,
rapping that song. Yeah, so that was first Grammy.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
Maybe we got a Grammy for that.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
I hated the music industry around that time. And the
reason I hated the music industry around that time because
I felt like they were rewarding the worst shit in
our culture. Because fifty had just sold a bunch of
records and you know, he got shot nine times. And
then I felt like def Jam was just giving you
the deal because they were really looking for authentic.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
That's how I felt like.

Speaker 5 (55:32):
They were looking for authentic street dudes who had liked
real street stories, and they were just rewarding people for that.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
You know, I disagree for the most part. Maybe there
are some record companies that you know, were just in it, uh,
you know, for the sensationalism. But I go back to
what I said, Uh, you know, when I was out
on trial and the media kept asking me about you know,

(55:59):
my album, my lyrics, I said, you know, hip hop
is not responsible for violence in America. America is responsible
for violence in America. So you can't blame fifty. You
can't blame Tupac, You can't blame Shine for living the

(56:19):
life that we live. You have to blame a system. No,
But what I'm saying so the system creates the art
that we project. And so you know, in a creative space,
you have the right to express your art. And so

(56:40):
I don't think it would be fair, you know, for
the music industry to suppress anybody's art. There's a debate
as to, you know, censorship and how far do you go,
what's responsible, what's irresponsible? But fifty stories, fifty story. I
knew him before he got shot nine times, and he
was always an artist. He was in Daddy's house, writing

(57:02):
for Diddy, writing for other people. But you know, he
told his story. He wasn't lying, And so so should
Sony say, oh, no, you know, we're not going to
sign or no he moved the aftermath. But should Jimmy
I Van should have said no, we're not going to
sign him, said Jimmy Ivan say no, we're not going
to pick up death Row when time wanna drop death Row.

(57:24):
I don't know, you know, it's it's a it's a
conundrum because our art is a result of the society
that has been created by the powers that be, and
our art has also been a blessing from God for
us to escape those harsh realities and do better. So
if it's one thing I can say though for you
know people coming up now, is hopefully they learn from

(57:48):
the mistakes that I've made and they try to make
that transition and turn that corner before it gets too late.
You know, he saw a young thug, you know, just
get off, you know, thank God, you know he got
his free them. You see little dirt, you know, facing
life for that abatement to murder. You know, my prayer
and my hope is for this new generation to learn

(58:09):
from what I've been through and not have to face
that ten years of that life sentence and to turn
the corner. But I'm very careful even today, you know,
I still finance musicians and believes always try to help
them out and that's their art. I can't you know,
I can't tell a young musician in Belize who is
selling drugs or you know, who's a part of a gang,

(58:30):
or you know, who resources the violence as a means
of survival. I can't tell him what to sing about. Right,
Who am I like he's singing about his life.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
Well, I agree with that, and I feel like fifty
did have great music.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
I guess for you, it was like, I'm like, why
I definitly am' giving him three million.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Dos because I had great music too. The Sean album
was a classic. That was a great album. But you
had been in jail for a minute. No, I was
in jail two thousand and one, two thousand and four.
But here's why Deaf Jam gave me the deal for
the same reason Doctor Dre was on the phone wanting
to sign me. Why jay Z came to Rykers Allen

(59:05):
in the mayback, why Murder Inc. Like, this is what
I'm saying. There has to be something about Shine that
no matter what I go through, people keep wanting to
sign me. There has to be some extraordinary talent there.
Because Murder Inc. Nas irv Gotti, Jaru, Shanti, I was

(59:26):
in the box on Rykers Allen. Literally all came up
there to sign me. Shook Knight wanted to come and
see me. Everybody wanted to sign me. Dan Wy shout
out the Rough Riders. Everybody wanted to sign Shine when
I was behind the wall. So it wasn't a matter.
Oh he's locked up. Anybody could get locked up. It's
a matter. He's nice. He put out he put out

(59:48):
a great album because there were questions about Shine until
that Bad Boy A song dropped. And when that Bad
Boy song dropped, the music industry shook. Everybody was like, Okay,
all right, yeah, this is serious. Then Bonnie and Shine,
and then That's Gangster, and then the entire album. You know,

(01:00:10):
the Neptune song with Pharrell. You know, people gonna die,
like there's some serious records of Commission. That's Fat Joe's
favorite song. I met Fat Joe at All Star Weekend
and Pistol Pete and his whole crew, and they're like, yo, Commission,
that's my song. Like, people grew to love Shine, and

(01:00:31):
the body of work spoke for itself. So whatever speculations,
whatever misconceptions were had, when people listened to the work
of art and they saw the life and they saw
the real situations that I was going through, you know,
all it did was give credibility to what I was saying.
But if what I was saying was trash, if it
wasn't great, then it doesn't matter how tough you are.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
When did you decide to give up rap, because I'm
sure when you came home or even recently, I'm sure
people are taped to you to say, hey, I want
you to get on my record. I want to hear
your voice on my record. How many artists have reached
out to you in the last couple of years and
how many times have you said no?

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
I've said no several times, you know. Respect to my
my god bust rhymes. Uh, you know, he's he was
one of the difficult nos because when I came out,
he was in Belize. He brought a he brought an
ap for me, like is a welcome home gift?

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
You know, he's a real stand up, solid god. And
then he wanted me to do a record with him
and nas and I was like, ah, you know right now.
Then he wanted me to do a song a couple
of years later with a Belize and artist by the
name of Prayer. You know, respect to him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
He's signed Prayer, right, yeah, he's in Prayer.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
And I was like, you know, that's when I was
in that I was already elected official. I was like,
I can't do it. So yeah, there have been many
people that have asked.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
You still perform.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
No, no, no, like not even at all, not even
charity events, nothing at all.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Well, I did the charity event in the UK with
Diddy and Gigs, and I did the Lifetime Achievement award.
You know, those were those were legacy moments. So like, sure,
if the Grammys, you know, says, you know, they want
to give me a you know, an award or they
want me to be you know, things like that, that's legacy.

(01:02:22):
That's you know, that's those are things that you know,
once in a lifetime. So I do it for that.
For the documentary, I was thinking about putting out an
album similar to American Gangster, where it would be an
album for the documentary, but it's so difficult being an

(01:02:43):
elected official who's not just an elected official but the
leader of a mass party government and waiting that, you know,
I just can't find a space to do that because again,
you don't want to put out a body of work
that's subpar, that's below the standards that people I want.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Did this team reached out to you since doing all
these interviews just you know, because I mean I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
No, no, I think the team put out a statement though.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Yeah, a statement.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
I didn't see it, but.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
There were we had a phone call when the when
I because there's a there's a journalist uh in Belieze
that you know, is obsessed with linking me the ditty.
So that's why initially some of the sound bites that
you heard on Shade Room, it wasn't me, uh, you know,

(01:03:33):
throwing anybody under the bus. It's just that I'm not
going to take the fall again because you know, this
particular journalist in Belieze was trying to say, you know,
oh diddy's your guy, you know, or that's your friend,
and how do you think it's going to affect your
political career? And I'm like, hold on, that's your path
though exactly No, I'm just I'm telling you it's crazy.
So then that's where I'm like, behold on, why are

(01:03:54):
you trying to pretend as if I wasn't incarcerated for
ten years in the port for teen years? And you know,
we went through all these different phases like why are
you trying to link me with him? Yes, he agreed
to give a donation and Howard scholarship for Believing Youth.
Why would I not want to take that? But don't
try to, uh, you know, distort the reality. Don't try to,

(01:04:18):
you know, recreate and rewrite history. This is someone who
destroyed my life. And that's when you hear that SoundBite.
It's not me wanting to talk about that. These are
the first interviews that I'm doing since his tragedy befell him.
And I could show you every media house reaching out
to me over the last couple of months, but I
refuse to do it. But now I have the documentary

(01:04:40):
coming out, so I have to engage with the free.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Press, he says.

Speaker 5 (01:04:44):
Mister Colembs categorically denies mister Barrell's allegations, including any suggestion
that what you're reaching for men, including any suggestion that
he orchestrated mister Barrow to take the fall and sacrifice
him by directing witnesses to testify against him. These claims
are unequivocally false. He was acquitted of all charges in
ninety nine, and he appreciates the path that you're on

(01:05:06):
and which is you continued success. And it's unfortunate that
you've chosen to revisit these allegations. Mister Kom's trust that
responsible journalism will we're both to establish legal outcomes, and
mister Come's positive long thing and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Support for those he has worked with.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Listen, I don't have to tell you what is obvious.
Everybody and beloved mothers knows what happened. That was just
a fact, you know. Now, it's not going to rhyme
about it just to lie with him. And nowas became
cool after the fact, But there were so many people
that were hurt in hip hop that felt that he

(01:05:40):
did me dirty. And it's just a matter of fact
that I've been saying it and I'll continue to say it.
Even if what happened to Diddy didn't happen, that would
have to be in a documentary and it would have been,
you know, a bit more. He did it. You know,
he blamed it on the lawyers. We forgave him move on.

(01:06:01):
But then when the little rod thing comes out and
he's bragging about shooting up the club and having me
take the fall. I don't know who this guy is anymore.
And then all these other accusations come out there. He's like, no,
it's not true. Then we see the video. Listen, I
don't know who this guy is and I'm not taking
the fall again, So don't put me, you know, next

(01:06:25):
to him in that regard. This is the fact we're
not going to rewrite history and we're just telling the facts.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
I got a couple more questions.

Speaker 5 (01:06:33):
You got a whole documentary out of the yea, all
this stuff, But how can you be comfortable with people
who you know assisted in your career but they were
still friends with Puff and they maintained a relationship with him,
knowing what happened that night, and while you were incarcerated
fighting for your life.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
It was difficult. It was extremely difficult. But as I said,
I got to a space where, you know, the currency,
the capital that I was looking at is how relationships
could benefit Belieze. So it was having to develop that
emotional intelligence to think about the bigger picture and to

(01:07:12):
understand that, you know, in an entertainment business, who's really
friends who really loves you? They don't even love Puff,
They're really not even his friend. I don't know, so
you know. And then I moved on, Like I said.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
I'm not the one. I'm not little Rod.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
He's the one that put the suit out there, you know,
Cassie's the one that put thish. I'm not the one
that brought these things back to life.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
You wanted to though, absolutely not. I thought you said
you wanted through puff.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
No, no, no, I'm saying when all these lawsuits came out,
I thought about, well, listen, you know, if they if
he owes them thirty mil, then I should get a
hundred mil out of that billion dollars. But what I'm
saying is I was content with the way it was
living my life and Belieze accomplishing the great things that
I'm accomplishing, and just moving forward with trying to become

(01:08:04):
the next Prime Minister of Belieze, and using all my
relationships in the entertainment business to promote and market Belieze.
And so that's what it was about. It wasn't about,
oh yo, you were friends with Diddy while I was
locked up. You know, I can't be your friend. Listen,
we're not here for that. You got love for me,
Come visit Belize, buy a condo, you know, build a

(01:08:24):
beachfront resort, you know, come do a show there, Come
talk to the kids, you know, give some laptops. That's
how I treated those relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Now, in twenty twenty, during COVID, Belieze Press released I
guess an incident or article that you got into an
argument with your wife that was later, I guess dropped
what happened with that withdrawn? It was withdrawn? Yeah, what
happened with that incident? And why was it so big?
And I want to know what's worse, politics or the
rap game, because they seem like they both in your

(01:08:54):
life like crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
And I think both. I'd say politics for me, because
I'm doing politics to help people and helping people that
come from where you come from, there's nothing like it.
I was making music for the world as young musician,
but to be in my country, you know, the the

(01:09:17):
gains from politics to me are greater than the games
from music. But you could argue, if you make music
and you're touching people's lives and you know you're inspiring people,
there's a game there too. But I guess I live
where I'm at and where I'm at right now, I
wouldn't trade where I'm at in politics for anything as
nasty and as dirty as it is. And that's all

(01:09:38):
that was. You know, we had an argument, and so
you know, there was an exaggeration of the events, and
that's what she said. She said that, you know, she exaggerated, exaggerated,
you know, whatever she told and withdrew it and we
moved on.

Speaker 5 (01:09:54):
Do you remember your attorney Matt Middleton attempting to sit
down between you and little Sean in order to tell
you how to deal with puff?

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
No, okay, I don't remember that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Okay, I want to.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
You got another one because I I want to. I
want to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
I want to ask about Belize. Right, That's That's one
thing we didn't discuss that much in here. Explain to
the people what Believes it's like to you, right, especially
for myself who's never been to Belize.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
And why should people go to Belize? What's beautiful about Believes?
Where should they eat? Tell us about the country that
you smile about all the time?

Speaker 4 (01:10:27):
Yeah, Believes is paradise. You know, Belize is heaven for me.
You know, the most beautiful beaches in the world. Uh,
you know, White Sands. If you love diving, we got
the greatest diving, uh, in all of the free world.
In the Blue Hole, we got the best food. We

(01:10:48):
got the most beautiful, humble, warm and welcoming people. You know,
my two favorite I got a few favorite resorts. If
you're going to stay in San Pedro, which is like
the Miami of uh, you know, Belize, I'd stay at
the a Liar. That's that's my place of choice of
Beech Trump Villa at the Liar. And then I go

(01:11:11):
south sometimes because south you can drive. When you go
to San Page, you gotta take the boat, or you
gotta fly because it's like an island, it's a key.
But then for mainland, when I still want to be
on the beach, I go to Placentia at the it'sana
ah Bee Trump Villa, or in Hopkins, which is you know,

(01:11:33):
one of the greatest places. I'm going there on Sunday
because that's where the Garyfuna community is. Garyfuna. They're very
big and in New York and throughout. My My grandmother
is from Honduras, where a lot of Garifuna are from,
so they have a very culture rich cultural experience there.
But yeah, so and then something what I got into

(01:11:55):
in my older age is the rural area, you know,
starting to love the river and and that jungle vibe.
And so there's a place called Kaana, you know, that's
in Cayo, that's like on the border of Guatemala. So yeah,
those are my those are my favorite places that I
would recommend people to go if you're going to the city.

(01:12:17):
The Fort George Hotel is great. Uh, you know, that's
like five star luxury. And you know, I encourage people
to eat at There's a place called D n D's.
It's a place that I've been eating so on Saint Thomas.
The best food that you never taste if you're in
Believe City. J.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Prens got an out out there, right.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Yeah, he's actually having I think a big party tomorrow
and belieze. But I'm here. Everybody's flying out there. So
he got a few islands out there. He's been out
there for a while. He owns an island, a few islands.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
He always said that come to believe.

Speaker 4 (01:12:52):
Believe believes it is paradise. You know, it's great to invest.
We have a strong democracy, strong transition to power. So
even though I'm not in government right now, still invite
people to come down there, because when governments do change,
you know, there's no victimization, so your investment will be stable.

(01:13:13):
You know, our violence is limited. You know, obviously have
the impoverished communities and so most of the violence is
restricted to those communities. So we don't have a problem
with tourists. We don't have a problem with investors coming
down there. So I definitely invite everyone to come down
there and enjoy paradise.

Speaker 5 (01:13:32):
My last question, way does God fit in your decision
to forgive somebody that the world can now see could
have been guilty of all that you accused them of
back then?

Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
Divine intervention got me to where I'm at today, and
I couldn't be where I'm at today without forgiveness. Doesn't
mean that I'm going to come here and refuse to
answer questions, doesn't mean that I'm gonna sanitize history or
rewrite it to protect anyone or to preserve anyone's feelings.

(01:14:09):
But forgiveness is extremely important. So that's one thing for
people to take away from the documentary is that you
do forgive. It doesn't mean you forget, it doesn't mean
you rewrite history. But you have to let go. You
have to let go because holding on to anger, holding
on to hatred, holding on to you know, those deep
rooted trauma can become a cancer for you, and it

(01:14:33):
can block your blessing, it can block your pathway. So,
like I said, the greatest thing I did was not
expect anything from anyone, and that was hard because, like man,
you're a billionaire at least let me get you know,
percent of that and percent of that. But when you
change that mindset, which is, you know what, I don't
want anything from anyone, get everything from God. I'll just

(01:14:53):
work hard and I'll just keep going forward, and no
one owes me anything, you have a much healthier life.
And that comes from a lot of prayer. That's why
I spent, you know, all that time in Jerusalem. You know,
I don't regret that that was one of the greatest
experiences of my life. But I learned from that experience
that it's not about being religious. It's about being a

(01:15:15):
good person. It's about humanity. And humanity has to be
about forgiveness, has to be about tolerance, has to be
about compassion, has to be about empathy. And those are
action words. So religion is an action sport. You can't,

(01:15:36):
you know, be on a pulpit or you can't you know,
wax religion, but not live spiritual, not live a clean life,
not live a healthy life. So you know, I've been
praying for for thirty years, every single day. You know,
there was a time when I was in costrat fast
for six months sun up to sundown. So the type

(01:15:59):
of rigorous spiritual training that I've gone through has prepared
me for exactly where I am today and being a
political leader. We always hear about corruption. So many people
get to the office that I hold, in the office
that I want to hold as the next Prime Minister
of Belieze, and they betray the people. They betray the

(01:16:21):
values that they've promoted all along to manifest those the policies.
They totally forget that. And so everything that I've been
through prepares me because if I didn't betray Diddy, if
I'm still not, he might, you know, be offended, he
might be hurt because I'm telling the truth. But I'm
still not up here saying, oh, did he shot them?

(01:16:43):
Did he had the gun? He gave me the gun.
You know he told me this about Tupac. I'm still
not up here saying those things. I'm still loyal to integrity,
not to him. I'm loyal to character. That's why it's
called the honorable. My title in the House of Representatives

(01:17:04):
is honorable. That's what they call all members of the
House of Representatives. But I was honorable when I decided
to risk twenty five years instead of getting my friend
and my brother in trouble, even though he was getting
me in trouble, right, So God, that relationship with God,
and I'm not talking about that superficial that you know fronting.

(01:17:26):
I'm talking about when I was in the tombs, got
you know, down and prayed with tears coming down my eyes,
and I said to God, you know, I'm not going
to ask you why. I'm not going to ask you
how because I was just driving a Bentley last week.
I was just in my Ferrari last week. You know,
one of the biggest stars in America. And that's from

(01:17:50):
growing up in Belize where we didn't even have a
toilet in my house, to a single pair of home
in Brooklyn. I didn't ask you why and how then,
So I'm not going to ask you why. Mean now,
all I'm going to ask you is give me the
ability to endure what I'm going through. That's all because
I know the same way I got through. The most
difficult thing I ever did was to become successful as

(01:18:12):
a musician. To go from being poor and you know,
making millions of dollars as an African Caribbean American. It's
no easy feat. Definitely not back then. That was the
most difficult thing I did in my life. So being incarcerated,
I knew I could manage that, but only by the

(01:18:32):
grace of God. And so yeah, God has played a
serious role in my life. You don't always listen because
I sat up for ten years praying, and when I
got out, you know, I made stupid mistakes. But you
keep praying, and that's what the documentary is about. You
keep praying, keep working, you fall, you get up, and
it's all about analysis, self reflection, constant assessment. You're constantly evolving,

(01:18:59):
and you know you gotta have the target. The target
is to be a good person. The target is to
be the best person, best father to your children. You know,
God bless my daughter Naomi. You know, the best brother,
the best you know, friend, the best everything. And that's
a constant that's every day. You gotta fight for your
soul and and and for me. You can't come without

(01:19:21):
divine intervention.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
You made me understand some things today. You made me
overstand something because you said something. Just now, you said,
you said, I know what he told me about Tupac,
so you know he can You know, he had to
have the tendency to do that, so that he probably
did say those things the little rod I get.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
I understand that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
Maybe in the memoir I'll speak some more about it, But.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
I love your story. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:19:47):
I think that you are, you know, just to watch
you evolve over the years, you are a reason why
you gotta let things just play out. And you really
shouldn't judge people when they're young, because you just never
know the journey justice.

Speaker 4 (01:19:58):
Criminal justice reform, that's one thing that I don't think
I've been verbalizing enough. I am the poster child criminal
justice reform. I'm the reason that we shouldn't be engaging
in mass warehousing. I'm the reason why young people, you know,
when they become involved in the criminal justice system, should
be given every opportunity to reform and to rehabilitate, because
this is what happens. You got a bunch of young

(01:20:20):
people that could become politicians, could become just law abiding
contributors of society. You don't want to destroy people's lives.
And I think for too long, incarceration, you know, hasn't
worked the way that it should work, and there's been
this rush to incarcerate rather than to rehabilitate. So definitely,
I hope that the people that are fighting I got

(01:20:41):
to acknowledge. My friend Bazz Drve Singer, she's a professor
at John Jay and she does wonders with her movement
of you know, like going to bringing school university to prisons.
You know, been doing a program prison to university pipeline
where you know, guys going there their masters, their doctorates.

(01:21:02):
Is actually a guy that's a professor at John Jay
that started in her program, So he went from being
incarcerated getting his degrees to being a professor at John
Jay University. So definitely, you know, I hope and I
pray that the documentary can inspire people as they're dealing

(01:21:23):
with the criminal justice system from the side of being
an offender, knowing that there's hope for them in changing
their lives and in becoming you know, the best version
of themselves, and that that is not the end of them.
And for the people, the legislators, for the advocates to
keep you know, advocating for a system that is truly just,
because justice is not condemning someone for the rest of

(01:21:46):
their lives. Justice is the victims the justice, you know,
but perpetrators need the opportunity to be contrite and the
opportunity to reform. For the betterment of society.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
Well, we appreciate you joining us. The Honor Bot Shine.
The documentary is streaming now on Hulu and Seane, we appreciate.

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
You for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Make sure you come down to believe.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
I'm gonna make out there, go out there, you know
absolutely years ago I would love to absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:22:11):
Ladies, gentlemen, it's Sean. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club