Never underestimate the power of perseverance, especially in the case of Shyne.
Not long ago, the formerly incarcerated rapper introduced the first and second RapFix diary entries. In these personal paragraphs, the MC described readjusting to his relatively new freedom in Belize, traveling and shooting the video for the first single "Roller Song" from one of his two long-anticipated LPs Messiah and Gangland. Now, he's describing why he may not sound like the Shyne you remember and why he's never going back.
Be sure to check back in as Shyne elaborates on his day-to-day activities on the road to his upcoming projects scheduled to drop later this year.
Shyne's Journal Entry #3 on Visting Israel and Releasing The 'Old Shyne'
It's 5 in morning and no, I ain't coming out the club ... I'm in Israel! I was on my way to France but stopped here instead.
This sh-t is great! I just got off the plane and I'm standing in the center of the universe. I waited my whole life to be in the land of Moses, Joseph and a guy by the name of King David. To keep it one hundred, one week ago I was on my way to Paris [where there's a] big orthodox community and fashion week so I could kill two eagles with one stone. I couldn't get to club 1Oak so I'd have 1Oak come to me. With six foot Brazilian stunners, German blonds, African amazons, I was fittin' to show out! But then I remembered last year I was locked in the Feds for 23 hours on the Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah. In those dark days, making kiddush with a half a cup of Kedem grape juice saying "Shana Tova" with shackled hands and feet on a bus during Yom Kippur and fasting for 30 hours, I said 'Next year I'll be in Jerusalem.' How could I not be in the holy land for my first Rosh Hashanah outside of prison? So thumbs up to Barrington Levy ... here I am!
As the sun rises, it seems so close I could use it to light my Monte Cristo cigar. From the kosher McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken to the non-kosher strippers in Tel Aviv to the 6 feet tall Bar Refaeli look-a-likes walking in their painted on Balmain jeans, this sh-t is a motion picture!
From the airport, I went straight to an ultra orthodox community in Bnei Brak for the morning prayer and set things off right. I met with Rav Rosenberg (more on that next journal) and sped off to Jerusalem where I spent Shabbat sleeping in the King David hotel and praying at Orh Samayach yeshiva ... who better than me?
But I can never fully enjoy this sh-t because part of my soul hurts for my comrades caged in a cell but here in Jerusalem my soul hurts for Abraham's grandchildren ... Ishmael's sons and my first cousins behind the wall a few feet away in Palestine. I wish there was a Palestinian state. I wish there weren't terrorist bent on destroying the Israelis. I wish there weren't Zionist who cared nothing about God but use religion only to accomplish their fascist nationalistic goals.
When I think about mothers and children in refugee camps and rabbis strapped with uzis living in settlements, whether or not I sound like the same Shyne who was 19 years-old and recorded songs with a hot pistol in his waist seems trivial.
A couple of months ago, when I put out the "Messiah" record on MTV, I had no idea I sounded like a shell of the Shyne people loved so much. I had no idea what ten years of suppressing my emotions did to my ability to express my pain through my music. In prison I took insults and ordered hits without emotion, going to the synagogue to pray while my foes got steel poked through their necks. No emotion.
I'm such a f--king boss I don't have to jump up and down to announce myself.
But when I listen to my music now, on the first songs I made fresh out the penn, I sound dead and that's because I was. Unlike your average rapper who wins the Golden Globe for the best rendition of Shyne circa 2000, I live in truth so my music reflects the life that was sucked out of me combined with my modus operandi to never show emotion. That's how I made parole, I'd be serving life if I showed emotion. I saw so many warriors loose their cool and get caught at the scene with blood dripping from their hands. After ten years I can't just turn that sh-t off and on, there's too much pain and too many scars. But at the same time I owe it to the masses, that believe in that voice with unmatched passion and velocity, to give them what they fell in love with. But f--k that, I ain't going back to prison and in order for me to sound like the old Shyne, I have to live that truth! But that's a match I can't light because that sh-t is gonna lead to hell's fire.
So I battled everyday to find that pain and emotion I've been suppressing for so long and thank God I was able to find those emotions and breath life into Shyne. But the old Shyne doesn't live, he died in Clinton Correctional Facility! Let it go, he ain't coming back! I'm not a rapper. Young bloods listen up, this is what happens when you live a life of crime, you don't ride off into the sunset, you die!
Do you miss the old Shyne or are you ready to hear where the rapper's "truth" lies now? Tweet us at @MTVRapFix or tell us in a comment below!
Tags israel, jail, Shyne
