Belizian emcee Shyne was on his way to being next big star from Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment label when he made his debut in 1999. Unfortunately, his rise to fame came to an abrupt end after an altercation in a New York City nightclub ended in a shooting that eventually earned the up-and-coming rapper a 10-year prison sentence. He would also be deported to his home country of Belize. 

In a recent interview with DJ EFN and N.O.R.E. on their Drink Champs podcast, Shyne opened up about his strained relationship with his former label boss after that life-changing incident, saying he felt “bitterness” for Diddy after being charged and sentenced to a decade-long prison bid. 

"What happened with Diddy, with Brother Love, I don’t really blame that on him now as much as I did then," Shyne admitted. However, he suggested that it was Diddy's lawyers who were at fault for the situation, more so than Diddy himself. "Because I did go through a stage of bitterness. But in retrospect, I blame it more on the lawyers that were advising him. Because his lawyers were there to secure a ‘not guilty’ verdict by any means," he added.

"He's a corporation -- a $100 million corporation, and, you know, they looked at me as the enemy," he said, recalling that Diddy was still young at the time. He also explained that he had come from the streets while Diddy had already established himself as a public figure. Shyne explained that the stakes were much higher for Diddy at the time. 

"He’s about to lose everything. I’m about to lose everything. I’m from that, though. Diddy is a musician, but he wasn’t from that," he said. "So his response shouldn’t be expected to be my response. When your lawyers are misleading you and misguiding you, that’s how everything fell apart. And he said that to me. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have never listened to those lawyers.’ I forgave him. It was traumatic. I would forgive him, and then you might hear me a few months later going in on him. That was over a decade ago, and I was in a different space then.”

Shyne explained that Diddy helped him during his political campaign in Belize. "Diddy lost it when he heard that,” Shyne said. “He got the REVOLT people involved, he got the publicists, he got his legislative friends. He said, ‘We can’t let this happen.’ Puff, to me, totally redeemed himself.”

 Check out the entire interview with Shyne and the Drink Champs team below.