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Page 1
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"You could die in here. They probably won't find your body for a couple days." ...
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Page 2
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"Somebody pulled out a .40 caliber and I had to pull mine out or I was gonna die." ...
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Page 3
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Shyne accuses P. Diddy of betrayal and says his lawyers didn't do their jobs ...
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Page 4
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50 Cent feels the incarcerated rapper's wrath when Shyne sets the 'Record' straight ...
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By sticking to his code of ethics, Shyne has helped maintain his credibility with fans and his peers in prison as well as in the music industry. One fellow rapper, however, has recently raised Shyne's ire. During a freestyle on the radio in New York, 50 Cent called Shyne a punk and made light of the Club New York incident. Shyne has responded with Godfather Buried Alive's most scathing track, "For the Record." On it, Shyne levies threats and accuses 50 of being a fake gangster and a snitch.
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"I'm not rapping about something I've seen. I'm really buried alive."
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"That's how I feel," Shyne says. "I never wanted to come like that, but when he made that move, that made no sense. Why would you try to sign me but then you go on the radio and talk like you don't know. Even if he wasn't trying to sign me, you know what I do. ... This is my life. I'm not rapping about something I've seen. I'm really buried alive. You don't do that when somebody's going through what they're going through the way they're going through it. I'm not here for raping nobody. I'm not here because my security guard had a gun in the car and I was trying to get on the front page of the Daily News. I'm here for real things. So it just made me look at him like, 'Aww, man, he's a joke. He can't be serious.' "
Life for Shyne is anything but jovial. He's earnest in speaking of the grave material of Godfather Buried Alive.
"It's my soul," he says of the album. "It's really just my soul, like soul music. Everything moving past the Shyne album is soul music, because I finally grew and found my soul. When I started going in the studio, and you go in the studio and you sit in the court all day and, you know, you're facing 25 years, like lights out, whatever you do just has an honesty that is hard to find within yourself. I'm cryin' on the mic, just pouring my soul out over these beats. That's how I'd describe it."
Oddly enough, while you can find plenty of references to snorting cocaine and busting guns, references to his trial or life behind bars are scarce on the record. Still, he argues that "my entire album is a reflection of current events. It's all relevant. It's all urgent in today's atmosphere."
With all ears and eyes on Shyne, he knows he has to deliver if his legend is going to continue to grow. He feels Godfather is the first step toward becoming an icon.
"Good music adds to an artist's credibility," he says. "Because if Makaveli didn't make good music when he came out, nobody would have cared about him. But he made great music, the best music in history, on the highest level, from Pink Floyd to Bob Marley. That's why he mattered. I know some real gangstas that used to rap, and they didn't make good music, so they don't matter. We don't care how many people they shot. We don't care how much time you did. If the music ain't good, the people ain't interested."
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Shyne may be gone, but he's not forgotten. Since he's been incarcerated, several of his peers have shouted him out in song.
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"I can't wait for the day that Shyne's released." — Fat Joe
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"One more for Shyne locked inside. YEAH!" — Juelz Santana
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"I don't like how Diddy did Shyne with different lawyers." — Nas
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"... or he might shoot this mutha----a up like Shyne." — 50 Cent
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As to when we we'll hear more music from Shyne, he's optimistic about being released from prison early next year, but the fact is he faces a lengthy appellate process. Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree and lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Nathan Dershowitz filed an appeal in July that could get him a new trial or a shorter sentence.
"Shyne's appeal is based on a number of errors we perceived that occurred in their trial," says Ogletree, who represented Tupac Shakur during his 1994 appeal of a sexual-assault conviction. "There were a lot of questions about the way the evidence was introduced, the way the instructions were given [to the jury], his right to a lawyer was influenced, basic constitutional rights. The question is whether or not Shyne — like every other citizen — had the right to a fair trial, a fair jury, a fair verdict. Shyne is not above the law but he is not below the law. He wasn't given a fair trial like every other citizen in America."
Ogletree says the legal team wants the court to review conduct by Shyne's lawyers, by witnesses and by the judge who presided over the trial. He, too, is optimistic that his client will be released by 2005.
Even if Shyne has to serve his entire 10-year sentence, he says he'll still be praying to go on to greatness. He points out that Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X and Tupac all did substantial time in prison before coming out and changing the world.
"I hope and pray whatever was in store for me can be just a small percentage as great as those three figures," he says. "[My life has been] absolutely blessed, man. Nobody has a life of nothing but good. I think the good in my life just towers over whatever negatives, because all the negatives have led to greatness. I don't have to even put this album out. I can not do anything anymore and just leave it alone and I can feel my impact — and that's after one album has been made.
"For people overall to have a love and affinity for me, it's like I did it. There is nothing greater than that. You can't calculate it, you can't buy that. Guys go lifetimes and never accomplish that, and this is just the beginning 25 years. My future is ahead of me. When I [get out] it's going to be historical. Right now I'm making history. In order to give, you've got to get, so I'm pretty fortunate now."
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Photo: Johnny Nunez
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