Shyne, the rapper and former Sean “Diddy” Combs protege, says he “was absolutely set up to be the fall guy” for a 1999 New York nightclub shooting in which the pair were implicated – and for which only he was imprisoned.
“One of the most difficult parts of it was watching everyone [else] succeed,” the lyricist, whose legal name is Moses Barrow, says in an upcoming Hulu documentary about his life and career in music as well as politics.
Barrow’s comments – contained in a recent trailer for The Honorable Shyne, premiering on 18 November – are intriguing due to the scrutiny surrounding Combs following the September arrest of the Bad Boy Records’ founder on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
In the trailer for the film, Barrow recounts how “signing to Bad Boy” made him a millionaire. But some of the success that he earned through his acclaimed debut album was significantly blunted after he was convicted – and Combs was acquitted – in what at the time was one of the biggest criminal trials to ensnare famed figures of the hip-hop industry.
The trial centered on a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub that wounded three people while Barrow was there with Combs. Barrow said: “We’re hanging out, and I think we’re getting ready to leave,” when the shooting erupted.
Combs, the singer Jennifer Lopez – his girlfriend at the time – and Barrow were all arrested after the violence. The charges against Lopez – who fled the club with Combs and his bodyguard– were dropped.
Combs, meanwhile, was acquitted of allegations that he took an illicit gun into the club and sought to bribe his driver to falsely assume the blame for the weapon.
“I had nothing to do with a shooting in this club,” Combs says in a clip featured in the documentary trailer, which was directed by the film-maker Marcus A Clarke and produced by the studio Andscape.
Barrow, now 45, was found guilty of assault amid other charges, and received a 10-year prison sentence. He was also deported to his native Belize.
“I was absolutely set up to be the fall guy,” Barrow says on the trailer.
Barrow currently leads the opposition party in Belize’s house of representatives. “There’s a time to pivot,” he acknowledges in the film. “There’s a time to transition. And that’s how I got into politics.”
In one of his last public appearances, Combs brought Barrow out to perform with him during a charity concert held in London in November 2023. Days later, singer Cassie Ventura sued Combs – her ex-boyfriend – for damages while accusing him of rape and severe physical abuse during their 10-year relationship that ended in 2018.
Combs – whose stage monikers include Puff Daddy and P Diddy – then paid an undisclosed sum to settle Ventura’s claims out of court within one day of Ventura’s lawsuit being filed. But a wave of lawsuits from other people aiming similar allegations at Combs has followed.
In March, federal authorities conducting a sex-trafficking investigation raided Combs’s properties in Los Angeles and Miami. CNN in May then obtained and published hotel security camera video showing Combs battering Ventura in 2016, contradicting the three-time Grammy winner’s vehement denials that he had done anything wrong.
Finally, in September, authorities arrested him on charges that he would force sex-trafficking victims to engage in group sex acts with associates of his while he recorded video and masturbated to the encounters. Those so-called “freak offs” were so physically exhausting for Combs and his victims – who, among other things, were purportedly coerced into ingesting drugs – that all “typically received IV fluids to recover”, criminal court documents have alleged.
Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is awaiting the outcome of the case while being held in federal custody with no bail set.
Lopez – a two-time Grammy nominee – has conspicuously avoided commenting on Combs. Barrow, on the other hand, shared his thoughts on Combs shortly after his arrest was announced.
He told journalists who approached him while he carried out his duties for Belize’s government and asked him for his reaction that he gained no sense of schadenfreude from Combs’s arrest. But that day he said he had never forgotten how differently things shook out for him and Combs in the aftermath of the nightclub shooting that has long linked them.
“Let us not forget what the cold, facts are,” Barrow said of Combs. “This is someone who destroyed my life.”
