Among the many conspiracy theories and precise allegations towards disgraced media mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, the main points which have perhaps been on individuals’s minds the longest concern the night time he and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez have been arrested after a 1999 nightclub taking pictures in New York.
That’s partially as a result of whereas Combs additionally went on trial for the taking pictures, it was Jamal Barrow aka Shyne, a 19-year-old promising rap star beneath Combs’ Dangerous Boy Data, claiming his innocence, who was sentenced to jail for 10 years in 2001. He was charged with two counts of assault, reckless endangerment, and legal possession of an unlawful weapon.
And each Combs and Lopez walked away from the incident clear.
Followers who have been round then by no means forgot about this morsel of popular culture historical past. And a brand new technology has been itching to relitigate what occurred now that they’re discussing Combs in a extra damning gentle. People grew much more keen after statements Barrow made in April reflecting on that night time in ’99, amid mounting allegations towards Combs that culminated in his arrest on intercourse trafficking and racketeering expenses in September.
“Everyone knew all along that I was the fall guy,” Barrow mentioned. “But my political enemies and detractors try to make me into this criminal. But everyone knew that I was a young kid that took the fall. That was the story. I’m just saying that I maintained my innocence all this time.”
The empathy audiences have for Barrow and the disgust they really feel towards Combs will probably be what drives them to look at “The Honorable Shyne,” Disney-ESPN’S Andscape’s new documentary following the rapper’s rise, fall, and rise once more that premieres on Hulu on Nov. 18.
That’s significantly true given its timing. It’s being launched throughout an ongoing investigation of Combs whereas he sits in jail with out bail, awaiting trial in Might, and as a number of documentaries and docuseries on the mogul and the allegations towards him are introduced seemingly each day. There’s clearly a cultural urge for food for the downfall of Combs. That’s comprehensible.
Viewers coming into the movie, directed by Marcus A. Clarke, may count on Barrow to lastly and extra explicitly dangerous mouth Combs and spill all of the tea about what actually occurred that night time in ’99, regardless of by no means having performed so earlier than, even throughout his personal trial.
For context, the rapper was deported again to his native Belize in 2009 after serving virtually 9 years in jail. Within the decade and a half since his launch, Barrow appeared to have moved on. He had transformed to Judaism, modified his identify to Moses and have become the opposition chief of the Home of Representatives in Belize.
So, audiences on the lookout for one thing extra sensationalized and anti-Combs might be upset with “The Honorable Shyne.”
As a result of the film paints a much more sophisticated portrait of vindication, redemption and even forgiveness. It additionally makes you think about an uncomfortable query many latest tabloid-forward movie star documentaries keep away from: Is it us or is it Barrow that must be doing the forgiving?
For all intents and functions, few issues about “The Honorable Shyne” are what you may count on and even need from it at instances. Clarke ― who’s additionally helmed documentaries on rappers Future and Nas ― and his staff inform a narrative that usually doesn’t cater to conjecture from the peanut gallery or a must appease an viewers chomping on the bit for salacious particulars.
However what we get is one thing extra attention-grabbing — although, sure, together with some WTF moments as you might need come to count on from any tales connected to Combs at this level.
“The Honorable Shyne” isn’t actually about Combs (additionally recognized then as Puffy and now as Diddy), although. Again within the late ’90s and early ’00s, the media did a fairly good job of referring to Barrow as “Combs’ protégé” in reductive headlines for articles that have been principally about Combs’ authorized troubles, when finally, it was Barrow’s life on the road. A documentary in 2024 doesn’t must repeat those self same errors. And Clarke appears to grasp that.
The director as an alternative meets Barrow the place he’s at — actually in Belize preventing the great combat, and figuratively in a spot of non-public peace from his previous — and tells the trajectory of his movie’s flawed and engaging eponymous determine.
“The Honorable Shyne” options interviews with Barrow’s dad and mom, musicians, music execs, mates from his time rising up in Flatbush, political friends in Belize, and other people inside Combs’ camp within the ’90s and early ’00s.
Many of those interviews awkwardly happen on the sidewalks of Brooklyn, although maybe as an instance Barrow’s longtime connection to the place he got here from that, like him, has strikingly advanced. Different conversations, like ones with Religion Evans and N.O.R.E., are set in what seem like studios.
The film presents each allegations of the media mogul’s unsavory conduct and a posh have a look at a political rising star that seems to be in some methods simply as a lot battling how he’s perceived versus who he needs to be as he ever was.
It’s across the 25-minute mark when it begins to construct context round Combs’ relationship with Barrow, sparing no particulars about who Combs allegedly was throughout that interval of his life and profession (the “Michael Jackson” of hip-hop, Barrow’s supervisor Manny Halley says). Because the movie explores, the mogul eagerly pursued Barrow and his music, partaking in a bidding conflict throughout a golden period of hip-hop that turned (principally male) lyricists like Shyne into celebrity millionaires.
Daddy’s Home was the identify of the inspiration Combs established in 1994 to assist nurture underprivileged youth, curiously hiring activist Sister Souljah as its govt director, however its repeated reference in “The Honorable Shyne” provides it one other connotation.
Early within the Combs phase of the movie, Cheryl Fox, a former govt at Dangerous Boy plainly says, “Puff ran Bad Boy, I mean, like he was the dad, and he was here to take care of everybody.” She added later that, “He wanted to always have the upper hand.”
Later, Gene Deal, Combs’ former bodyguard, alludes to that very same paternalistic identify. He alleges within the movie that as Combs anxiously awaited the decision in his personal trial following the taking pictures, he typically accompanied the mogul to locations of worship: “We spent more time in the house of God than we did in Daddy’s House.”
Newsday LLC through Getty Pictures
Deal then alleges that in that point he additionally went with Combs to Central Park, the place the mogul met with somebody who suggested him to succeed in into what Deal mentioned seemed to be “a dog cage.” Deal alleged that Combs pulled out of it a chook that he threw into the air just for it to fall immediately onto the bottom, lifeless. And he claimed that the mogul then walked away.
“Oh shit, there go Damien,” Deal recalled pondering then, referencing the 1976 horror film, “The Omen.”
That’s the single most weird story advised within the movie that offers it an undesirable tabloid vibe that undercuts a few of its strengths. Who is aware of how a lot of it’s true, if any of it, but it surely definitely succeeds at portraying Combs in an excruciating gentle. As does this: Deal recounting the mogul’s alleged emotions towards Barrow whereas awaiting his personal verdict on expenses of gun possession and bribing a witness (Combs was acquitted).
“He made everybody believe that it was Shyne’s fault,” Deal says within the film. “Man, this dude looked me in my face and said, ‘Man, I hate this motherfucker. Don’t let nobody take pictures of me and this motherfucker. I hate him.’”
Interwoven on this phase about Combs is a moderately temperate Barrow, including texture to the story along with his perspective on his life as a baby in Belize and past, at instances whereas seated on a wicker chair in a dignified go well with. He seems to be again on his previous and his relationship to Combs with attention-grabbing readability.
Barrow acknowledges his personal starvation to get into the rap sport as a youngster who obtained caught up within the streets earlier than recognizing his personal present and a chance to make significantly his mom and Belize proud. As lots of his mates confirm, he then pursued that aggressively. However even amid his accumulating success, he couldn’t actually get away from his previous popularity.
With sharp context within the movie from activists like minister Conrad Tillard, “The Honorable Shyne” additionally factors to the idea some had then that file labels have been encouraging younger expertise like Barrow to become involved in “street tiffs” in an effort to achieve avenue cred. Barrow cosigns a model of this, kind of saying that he acted the half to get a file deal, together with how he offered himself and the garments he wore.
“Hip-hop was founded on a drug culture,” Barrow says within the film. “They all dressed like drug dealers.”
Julia Beverly through Getty Pictures
That’s a very jarring quote within the movie that, firstly, isn’t true and, secondly, conflates a method that’s right now rightly heralded and studied as a picture of resistance with the wares of the drug epidemic. It additionally disparages himself and his accomplishments, even whereas celebrating and taking delight in his short-lived although legacy-establishing music, together with songs just like the megahit “Bad Boyz” (that includes Barrington Levy, who can be interviewed within the “The Honorable Shyne”).
He bittersweetly seems to be again on making his first million with Dangerous Boy, and having the ability to purchase each a Mercedes Benz and a Vary Rover by the point he turned 21. “One day he’s in Flatbush,” his childhood pal Derrik Castillo Jr. remembers within the movie. “The next day he’s at the Trump hotel.”
Barrow additionally displays on ruffling feathers contained in the Dangerous Boy camp along with his uncanny similarity to the late Biggie Smalls’ voice, which angered members of the Junior M.A.F.I.A., his labelmates. A lot in order that pictures have been allegedly fired at Barrow.
All of this allegedly unsettled Combs, and drew a wedge between him and Barrow, offering some attention-grabbing context to one thing which may have been brewing lengthy earlier than the taking pictures.
However all of that’s evidently a picture and time interval Barrow now seems to be again on in a extra important gentle. Nonetheless, he talks at size in regards to the love he nonetheless has for his music, the family and friends that have been in his nook when he realized others, together with Combs, turned their backs on him, and the ache he felt and when his American Dream was reduce brief.
A lot of what Barrow says, although, is coated with a way of duality that he doesn’t appear to trouble to reconcile within the movie. That makes for an alluring watch. Whereas not one of the questions the interviewees within the movie, together with Barrow, are responding to are literally heard within the film, it’s clear that the previous rapper was prodded to reply to a few of followers’ most lingering curiosities.
Like, his relationship with Combs, which will definitely be on the entrance of audiences’ minds as they watch “The Honorable Shyne.” That’s with good purpose.
Samir Hussein through Getty Pictures
In 2012, not lengthy after Barrow returned to Belize and made a brand new file that was broadly panned, he did an interview with Scorching 97 about it and the way Combs is “a creep.”
“He pretends to be sorry,” he mentioned in a clip additionally used within the documentary. “Maybe he even wants to be sorry. But he’s so much of a creep, he just can’t find that part of himself. Like when he say, ‘God is great,’ I think he’s talking about himself. He thinks he’s God. He has no accountability.”
However in 2021, Combs helped Barrow safe a U.S. visa, in order that the politician might meet with senators and congressmen to assist strengthen relations between Belize and the U.S. And in 2022, Barrow did a shock efficiency on the BET Awards in Los Angeles, as a part of a phase honoring Combs with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“The Honorable Shyne” rightly raises a query about that BET efficiency and presumed reconciliation then between Combs and Barrow.
“It took a lot of years,” Barrow explains within the movie. “But part of fixing it was fixing me, wasn’t really about Puff. So, once I fixed myself, once I healed and once I was fully immersed in my purpose, then it’s not about anybody else. That’s a distraction.”
That objective, he goes on, is his accountability to remodel Belize and never concentrate on “anybody’s shortcomings.”
Whereas the movie does a considerate job analyzing Barrow’s journey in Belizean politics, full with a scope of the political panorama there and the way honored each his household and friends he’s managed to take care of within the hip-hop sport are, it creates an intriguingly dichotomous portrait.
That feels trustworthy however nonetheless irritating. That’s partly as a result of a number of the individuals interviewed who criticized Barrow going to jail additionally praised his reunion with Combs. “That was important to show that you can get past having a situation with somebody,” Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s Lil’ Stop says. “If they can get past that, the new generation should be able to get past the little shit that goes on.”
Whereas it’s unsure all through most of “The Honorable Shyne” when precisely the interviews all came about, that’s crystallized with not less than the interviews with Barrow that they occurred previous to Combs’ houses being raided in March.
Virtually instantly after exhibiting footage of Barrow celebrating Combs on BET, “The Honorable Shyne” dramatically shifts tones with the politician strolling again to the interview chair in gradual movement as textual content materializes onscreen in regards to the raids. It extra importantly factors out music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones’ lawsuit in March which states that Combs allegedly confessed he was responsible for the ’99 club shooting.
That transition in the film makes it seem like Barrow is going to wildly change his stance on his relationship with Combs. That doesn’t really happen.
Instead, he doubles down on what he said before: “I was absolutely set up to be the fall guy. So, this was shocking not because it’s true. It’s shocking because it’s all finally coming to light and people believe it. Because when I said it, everyone was partying and having a great time with Diddy while I was left to rot in prison.”
And to be clear, not solely did Barrow all the time declare his innocence after the taking pictures, however the sufferer also named Combs then, even testifying that at his trial and claiming that still today.
So, none of what Barrow says at this level towards the tip of the movie is, as he put it, significantly stunning. What’s, although, is that Barrow alleges that Combs known as him amid Jones’ lawsuit and Barrow consequently talking out about it in a press conference with Channel 5 Belize.
“He was like, ‘I just wanted to know we’re on the same page,’” Barrow said, recalling his conversation with Combs in “The Honorable Shyne.” “I was like, ‘Listen, you know that we weren’t good. You know that you destroyed my life. If it weren’t for you, I would have beat the case. I would have walked just like you.’”
As Shyne additionally says, “Those are the facts.” They usually’re tough to reconcile with the opposite undeniable fact that it took seeing Combs in a video that confirmed him brutalizing ex-girlfriend Cassie in 2016 to, as he puts it the movie, “completely disassociate” from him.
Or one other undeniable fact that doesn’t make it into the documentary: Following the U.S. election this yr, Barrow took to his Instagram to congratulate “the president-elect of the United States, Donald J. Trump, on his victory,” and in another post directly following that congratulated current Vice President Kamala Harris for “her historic and formidable Presidential candidacy.”
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While “The Honorable Shyne” dutifully helps illustrate a man who “didn’t portray my friends. I didn’t get on the stand and snitch and get everyone else in trouble,” it also presents someone who has often been of two minds. Choosing to “forgive” and “sacrifice” is, for him, conducive to someone “with integrity, with honor, with character, with humanity.”
It’s just a really imperfect one.
