Shyne Involved in NYC Nightclub Shooting – Today in Hip-Hop
On this day, Dec. 27, in hip-hop history...
1999: A few days after Christmas in 1999, Belize-born and Brooklyn-raised rapper Shyne and his then-girlfriend Monay Hawkins went to partake in post-holiday celebrations with Shyne's record label boss, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez. The two couples hit up a club in Manhattan called Club New York.
The young rapper, born Jamal Barrow, had a debut album on the way and everything was looking up for Bad Boy Entertainment's next rising star. All that changed when a fight broke out inside the club and Shyne, then 21-years-old, pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd. The whole incident left three people injured, and during the melee, witnesses say they saw Shyne holding a smoking gun, which ultimately sealed his fate.
In the time that followed, Shyne would go on to face a high-profile legal battle that eventually got him dropped from Bad Boy Entertainment. He was convicted of criminal possession of a weapon, assault and reckless endangerment, but found not guilty of attempted murder, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Shyne went on to serve nearly nine years of his bid and when he was released in 2009, he was deported back to his native country of Belize.
Though he's been exiled to Belize for years at this point, Barrow has not forgotten by the hip-hop community. In 2016, he even made an appearance at the Bad Boy Reunion shows in Brooklyn, N.Y. via satellite to perform his biggest hit, "Bad Boyz."
In the Spring of 2017, Shyne-Po posed for a photo with the legendary Slick Rick, who paid the "Whatcha Gonna Do" MC a visit down in Belize. Shyne also welcomed a baby girl into the world at the very beginning of 2018.
See 22 Hip-Hop-Related Police Raids