Review: ‘The Honorable Shyne,’ starring Moses ‘Shyne’ Barrow

November 17, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Honorable Shyne”

Directed by Marcus A. Clarke

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in New York City, Belize, and Israel, the documentary film “The Honorable Shyne” features a predominantly black group of people (with some white people and Latin people) discussing the life and career of Moses “Shyne” Barrow, a rapper-turned-politician.

Culture Clash: Barrow (who was changed his first name from Jamal to Moses, after he became an Orthodox Jew) spent more than eight years in prison in New York, for a controversial shooting that involved entertainer/business mogul Sean Combs, and ex-convict Barrow has reinvented himself as a politician in Belize.

Culture Audience: “The Honorable Shyne” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about hip-hop stars from the late 1990s/early 2000s and stories about people who reinvent themselves after experiencing scandalous downfalls.

“The Honorable Shyne” doesn’t reveal anything groundbreaking about former rapper Moses “Shyne” Barrow and the 1999 shooting scandal that sent him to prison. But this carefully curated documentary has some interesting interviews, which don’t include his ex-mentor Sean Combs. Barrow is currently a politician in his native country of Belize, which is south of Mexico. “The Honorable Shyne” does a fairly capable job of balancing the “before prison” and “after prison” aspects of Barrow’s story. The movie gives a bare minimum of information about what Barrow experienced while in prison, and some details of his post-prison life have inexplicably been left out of the documentary. “The Honorable Shyne” had its world premiere at the 2024 Urbanworld Film Festival.

Directed by Marcus A. Clarke, “The Honorable Shyne” greatly benefits from having Barrow participate in the documentary, because most people watching will want to get his perspective of the many controversies in his life. Barrow’s biggest scandal happened in New York City on December 27, 1999, when Barrow (who was 21 years old at the time), Combs and actress/singer Jennifer Lopez (who was dating Combs at the time) were involved in a gun shooting at a nightspot called Club New York. At the time, Barrow was an up-and-coming rapper who was signed to Combs’ Bad Boy Records.

Witness statements and testimonies vary, but the general consensus is that a convicted felon named Matthew “Scar” Allen got into an argument with Combs. Guns were drawn. Shots were fired. Three people who weren’t involved in the argument ended up getting gunshot injuries. The worst injury happened to Natania Reuben, who was shot in the face.

Reuben has not changed her eyewitness account that Combs was the person who shot her. Combs and Barrow denied that they shot anyone during this incident. Barrow, Combs and Lopez fled the scene and were all arrested by police. Barrow did not change his story: He said he pulled out his gun but didn’t shoot anyone. Lopez was ultimately not charged with any crime. “The Honorable Shyne” does not mention if the filmmakers attempted to interview Combs or Lopez for this documentary.

Combs and Barrow went on trial in 2001, for attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of an illegal weapon. Combs was acquitted of all the charges, while Barrow was found guilty of assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of an illegal weapon. Barrow was sentenced to 10 years in prison, served eight-and-a-half years, and was deported to Belize (where he was born) when he was released from prison in 2009.

“The Honorable Shyne” tells Barrow’s story in chronological order, so this shooting scandal isn’t covered in detail until about halfway through the documentary. Most of his biographical information in the documentary is already public knowledge. Barrow was born on November 8, 1978, in Belize City, the largest city in Belize. His first name at birth was Jamal, but he later changed his first name to Moses after he converted to Judaism in the early 2010s.

His family history is emotionally complicated because he grew up with the stigma of having a father who didn’t really want to acknowledge him and wasn’t in his life as a parent for all of Jamal’s childhood. His biological father Dean Barrow, a politician in Belize, cut off contact with Jamal when Jamal was a child, due to pressure from the woman who would become his wife and the mother of Dean’s other children. Jamal’s mother Frances Myvette was never married to Dean Barrow.

Myvette and Dean Barrow are each interviewed separately in the documentary. Dean admits that he was mostly an absentee father during Jamal’s childhood because politics was his life’s main priority. He also expresses regret over hurtful things he said and did at the time about Jamal being an illegitimate child. For example, he refused to sign Jamal’s birth certificate and often acted like the children he had with his wife were the only children of his who mattered. Myvette describes how the pain of this rejection affected Jamal, who was a rebellious child who got into trouble but had a creative and sensitive side.

When Jamal was 3 years old, his mother moved to the United States, while he stayed in Belize and was raised by his mother’s brother Michael Finnegan (who is interviewed in the documentary) and Dean Barrow’s sister Denise. In 1986, Jamal moved to the U.S. to live with his mother. They lived in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. He came along at a time when hip-hop was exploding in the mainstream, and New York was at the epicenter of hip-hop.

Derrick Castillo Jr., a friend of Jamal/Shyne during their childhoods in Brooklyn, describes him in the documentary as “that guy you didn’t want to get into an altercation with. He was a hoodlum.” On the other hand, was he a hoodlum with a heart? People in the documentary also describe him has having a generous side to his personality.

A turning point in Jamal’s life happened when he beat up a man who robbed a neighbor. Jamal was shot out of revenge for this beating. And it was enough for Myvette to move herself and Jamal out of the Brooklyn’s rough Flatbush neighborhood. By the time Jamal was a teenager, he was regularly writing rhymes and beats, with dreams of becoming a rapper. His rapper name became Shyne.

One of his idols was Jay-Z, who was signed to Def Jam Records at the time. A story told in the documentary is how Shyne boldly approached Jay-Z to give him a demo of Shyne’s recordings. Shyne asked Jay-Z if Jay-Z had a gun in his possession and told him that if Shyne’s demo wasn’t the best demo Jay-Z ever heard, then Jay-Z could shoot Shyne right then and there. This bizarre statement got Jay-Z’s attention, but he ultimately threw away the demo, according to what people say in the documentary.

One person who made a tremendous impact early on in Shyne’s rap career was DJ Clark Kent, who is interviewed in the documentary. (Kent died of colon cancer on October 24, 2024, at the age of 58.) “He was extremely confident, extremely eager,” Kent says about Shyne in the documentary.

In 1998, Kent was working on the Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous album “Born Again” for Bad Boy Records when he introduced Shyne to Combs. Like many entertainers in hip-hop, Combs has had multiple stage names and nicknames. Combs’ nicknames have included Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy and Love.

Shyne made enough of a name for himself in the New York rap scene that there was a bidding war to sign him. Def Jam offered Shyne the most money—reportedly $2 million, which was unheard of at the time for an unknown rapper who never recorded an album. Shyne ultimately decided to sign with Bad Boy because he felt more of a personal connection to Combs. This alliance would bring both highs and lows to Shyne that still have repercussions to this day.

“The Honorable Shyne” dutifully chronicles how Shyne became a hit artist before and after his imprisonment, during a time when record companies wanted rappers to have a “criminal” image to exploit so they could market the artists as having “street cred.” Ironically, Shyne could not fully enjoy the success of these hits because he was locked up in prison at the time. Although his deep voice and swaggering style got some comparisons to the Notorious B.I.G. (also known as Biggie Smalls), Shyne was much more of a sex symbol than the Notorious B.I.G., who died in an unsolved shooting murder in 1996.

Shyne has only two studio albums: His 2000 debut album “Shyne” (released on Bad Boy Records) and 2004’s “Godfather Buried Alive,” an album released on Def Jam. Both albums debuted in the Top 5 of the Billboard 200 album chart and were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Shyne’s singles from his first album are “Bad Boyz,” “That’s Gangsta” and “Bonnie & Shyne.” His second album yielded the singles “More or Less” and “Jimmy Choo.”

But loyalty in the music business can be fickle, which Shyne found out the hard way during his trial. In the documentary, he claims that he took the fall for crimes he didn’t commit because he didn’t want to be a snitch. Although he refuses to name who’s guilty of the crimes that sent him to prison, he will only say that Combs distanced himself from Shyne and essentially abandoned Shyne. Before the trial, it wasn’t Combs who bailed out Shyne but it was Shyne’s friend Manny Halley, who put up his own house for collateral for the bail. Halley is one of the people interviewed in the documentary.

“The Honorable Shyne” has interviews with Ian Niles and Murray Richman, who were Shyne’s attorneys who represented him in the trial. Richman says that Shyne’s biggest mistake was not getting rid of the gun after the shooting incident. Shyne doesn’t disagree with that opinion, but he also says that at the time, all he was thinking about was taking out the gun to protect Combs during that nightclub argument. In retrospect, Shyne believes that his attorneys gave up on him because they were up against Combs’ celebrity and legal “dream team” (which included Johnnie Cochran), who were determined to put all of the blame on Shyne.

By the time Shyne was released from prison and deported to Belize in 2009, he had no record deal, and he was considered a “has-been” in the music industry. His uncle Michael describes Shyne as being a shell of his former self (physically and emotionally) right after being released from prison. Shyne seemed lost and unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. By this time, Shyne’s father Dean had became Belize’s first black prime minister in 2008, and he continued as Belize’s prime minister until 2020.

Shyne says that his journey toward self-discovery led him to live in Israel from 2010 to 2013, which was the period of time that he converted to Orthodox Judaism and changed his first name to Moses. He says that Orthodox Judaism helped him keep his sanity and turned his life around. As an Orthodox Jewish rapper, Shyne released a few songs in hopes of making a comeback in the music industry, but those songs were poorly received. The documentary includes a montage of other rappers making fun of and insulting Shyne’s post-prison songs in various radio interviews.

Shyne says that during his time out of the spotlight, it was hard to see many other rappers—such as Combs, Jay-Z and 50 Cent—go on to even greater fame and fortune than he was able to accomplish. There’s no doubt that Shyne’s rap career was cut short because of his incarceration, but it’s debatable if he would have gone on to become a superstar if he hadn’t been in prison. Plenty of artists have been signed to major record companies, only to get dropped by these record companies and then fade into obscurity.

After deciding to retire as a rapper and moving back to Belize in 2013, Moses reinvented himself as an activist for the working-class people of Belize, and he became a politician in the Belize United Democratic Party. He reconnected with his father Dean. In 2020, Moses was elected as a member of the Belize House of Representatives for Mesopotamia, a position that was held by his uncle Michael Finnegan from 1993 to 2020. In 2022, Moses became the leader for the Opposition, who is the leader of the largest political party in the Belize’s House of Representatives that is not in government.

Moses says of mending his relationship with his father: “He’s not the perfect father, but he’s the father I needed.” Belize politician Juliet Thimbriel comments in the documentary on Shyne’s success as a politician: “Shyne worked for where he is.” However, Belize journalist Jules Vasquez has a different opinion, by saying that Shyne “benefited from nepotism.” Regardless of how Shyne came into power in politics, his friends such as rabbi Jeff Seidel say in the documentary that Shyne has a natural charisma that attracts people.

After Shyne got out of prison, Shyne’s on-again/off-again relationship with Combs included sometimes cordial reunions (such as performing together on stage at the 2022 BET Awards), but their friendship was never the same again after the shooting scandal. Most of the documentary interviews of Shyne were done in 2021 and 2022. However, toward the end of the documentary, there’s a newer interview where Shyne comments on Combs’ 2024 federal indictment and arrest on various criminal charges (including sex trafficking) and the various civil lawsuits filed against Combs by numerous people claiming he committed rape and other forms of assault and sex crimes.

In an interview done after these criminal charges and lawsuits were filed, Shyne is now the one publicly distancing himself from Combs. In May 2024, CNN made public a 2016 hotel security video of Combs viciously assaulting then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura (one of the people who filed a quickly settled lawsuit in 2023) in a hotel hallway. Combs made a public apology for the assault (after he had denied months earlier that he ever assaulted Ventura), but the damage was done. In September 2024, Combs was arrested on various sex crimes and was held in jail without bail.

In the documentary, Shyne says that seeing the video of Combs beating and kicking Ventura made him decide to never associate himself with Combs again. Shyne also says he’s put the music business behind him and has other priorities. “I’m completely focused on my charity to transform Belize,” he comments. Shyne expresses a certain amount of pride when he says that even though he went to prison for crimes he didn’t commit, he never ratted out anyone. It’s debatable whether or not this type of “loyalty” was worth all the years he spent locked up in prison.

Still, “The Honorable Shyne” doesn’t really answer lingering questions. Combs’ history of violence and intimidation have been well-documented since he became a celebrity in the 1990s. How much did Shyne really know about this corruption behind the scenes when he was signed to Bad Boy Records? Even if Shyne won’t answer those types of questions, viewers are left with the impression that the documentary filmmakers didn’t really want to probe or investigate.

The documentary also has very little information about Shyne’s love life before and after prison. Shyne briefly mentions that he had a rivalry with Bad Boy Records rapper Mase because they were both dating singer/actress Brandy at the same time. Shyne is now a married father (he’s shown frolicking on the beach with his wife and daughter in the documentary’s last scenes), but “The Honorable Shyne” provides no details and doesn’t have commentary from Shyne about his life as a husband or father. His wife is not interviewed, most likely to maintain her privacy.

The documentary’s most insightful (but somewhat lightweight) stories about Combs are told by Combs’ former bodyguard Gene Deal, who was at Club New York on the night of the shooting. Deal obviously knows more than he is saying, but doesn’t give any further information about what happened during the shooting incident that isn’t already in court testimony and news reports. His comments are mostly quips and anecdotes that don’t reveal anything that would change any legal cases.

In the documentary, Deal says that Combs used religion to rehabilitate Combs’ public image while Combs was waiting to go on trial for the nightclub shooting. Deal says half-jokingly that he and Combs spent more time in churches than at Bad Boy headquarters during this period of time. Other people in the documentary also mention that Combs’ celebrity status made it easier for people to believe that he was not guilty of the charges.

Deal also tells a bizarre but amusing story about going with Combs to Central Park on the day that the trial began. Before going to the courthouse, Combs was in the park and met with an unidentified man who appeared to bless Combs with sage smoke. Combs then climbed into an animal cage and then took out a dove and released it into the air. But the dove died and plopped on the ground. Deal said this dead bird was an omen, and he somewhat hints that this looked like some kind of pagan ritual.

Other people interviewed in the documentary are Shyne’s former manager Don Pooh, former Def Jam executive Kevin Liles, Shyne’s aunt Diane Finnegan, barber Mark Topper, former Bad Boy executive Cheryl Fox, Shyne’s friend Jackie Rowe, radio personality Charlamagne Tha God, rapper N.O.R.E., music executive Steven Victor, singer Faith Evans, minister/activist Conrad Tillard, artist/producer DJ Khaled, business executive Shawn “Pecas” Costner, reggae artist Barrington Levy, Shyne’s billionaire friend Jeffrey Schottenstein, Belize politician Tony Herrera, professor Lewis Gordon of the University of Connecticut, and former St. Lucia prime minister Allen Chastenet.

“The Honorable Shyne” is a very watchable documentary, but it doesn’t take enough risks to go beyond the surface to give revealing insights into the relationship between Shyne and Combs that altered the course of Shyne’s life. Evans—who was married to the Notorious B.I.G. and who was a longtime associate of Combs because she was signed to Bad Boy—is only quoted in the documentary with this generic comment: “Bad Boy was very much like a family for a very long time.”

The documentary works on a nostalgia level for fans of early 2000s hip-hop. It also works as a “where are they now” biography. But don’t expect the documentary to have Shyne talking about what really went on behind the scenes when he was close to Combs. “The Honorable Shyne” tells an inspiring redemption story but ultimately looks like a promotion for Shyne’s next career ambition to become prime minister of Belize.

Hulu will premiere “The Honorable Shyne” on November 18, 2024.