How Rapper Shyne Evolved From Diddy Protégé to the Belize Opposition Leader
Dear America, I was only what you made me / Young, black, impoverished, crazy / Then I saved me / I was dying inside, then I opened my eyes / Liberated myself, opened my mind, awoke the divine.
So go the lyrics to a decades-later rewrite of a late ’90s track from Belizian rapper-turned-politico Moses Michael Levi “Shyne” Barrow, delivered with pitch-perfect poise and years of anger at a rigged system. He stands on a rooftop, looking at Brooklyn, where he spent his adolescent years, and rapping about his future as a political leader in the cold open of the new Hulu documentary, The Honorable Shyne.
The current Belizian opposition leader was sent from a meager life in the Central American country’s capital into the streets of Brooklyn, where he climbed to the top of the rap world and then crashed down suddenly into the depths of the U.S. prison system.
The circuitous paths taken by Barrow are detailed in the documentary by director Marcus A. Clarke, which features a mix of archival footage, interviews and artful reenactments.
As a young rapper, Barrow, going by just “Shyne,” made it into the inner circle of Sean “Diddy” Combs, then going by Puff Daddy, and will forever be associated with the now embattled, imprisoned mogul, who faces federal racketeering and sex-trafficking charges and numerous sexual assault lawsuits. (Combs has vehemently denied all of the charges and accusations against him; he is being held in a federal jail in New York while awaiting trial.)
Barrow was part of Diddy’s entourage during an infamous 1999 club shooting and ended up taking the rap for firing a weapon in a crowded bar room. He refused to speak up about what he says happened that night and what evidence seemed to indicate: His gun did not fire the bullets in the club that night. Nevertheless, he was found guilty and sent to prison for nearly a decade as Combs and his bodyguard walked. Barrow emerged from prison only to be deported back to Belize and take time to figure out how to start his life over.
Soon enough, he was elected as the vice chairman of his local constituency. He used his own resources to help residents open an office and get Apple laptops. His friends in academia or entrepreneurs would speak to the young people there “to give them the information and to liberate them so that they can unlock their potential.”
Years passed and he followed his father’s path into the Belize government. In November 2020, he won the House seat for Mesopotamia on a platform that promised lower-interest student loans and a crackdown on crime. He was then appointed the Belize House of Representatives Opposition Leader for the center-right Belize United Democratic Party.
“The work that I do is helping people. If you go back to my rap that started off the documentary, the way that I was able to remake it is the epitome of my life now because as 18-year-old Shyne, I was crying out to the system to save me. That’s what I said, ‘Dear America / I’m only what you made me / Please save me.’ I didn’t want to sell drugs. I didn’t want to kill people.”
The “Dear America” track he wrote in his youth was a cry for help asking the powerful to change things so he “could be a normal functioning member of society,” he said.
“Now, as a legislator and as, hopefully, the next prime minister of Belize, I can create that system that I rapped about and I asked for the change,” he says. “Now I’m the change agent. Nothing inspires me more than that.”
The Honorable Shyne will start streaming on Hulu on Monday, Nov. 18.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
