Former Bad Boy rapper Shyne has been appointed the leader of the conservative opposition party in his native country of Belize.
“All that I have been through in my 42 years on earth has prepared me for this historic moment in time to be able to shoulder this responsibility, to deliver on this opportunity to build my Nation,” Shyne Barrow wrote on an Instagram post accompanying a photo of him signing a document.
He added, “This moment in history will forever serve as an inspiration to all people from all backgrounds especially the youth, the disadvantaged the impoverished, that there is nothing beyond their reach.”
Shyne’s ascendance to the role, after holding a seat in the House of Representatives for a year comes after video footage showed former leader of the Opposition Patrick Faber threatening to attack the mother of his two-year-old daughter, a local Belize TV station reported.
Speaking to local Belize news outlets, Shyne said that with the violent context of the Faber video, he wants to restore “trust” with Belize citizens.
“So we as an institution have to make a decision — do we protect Patrick Faber, or do we protect the institution and our credibility and our quest to re-engage the public and to restore their trust and confidence in us so that we can be the alternative to what is happening now,” Shyne said.
Shyne, whose real name is Jamal Michael Barrow, moved to Brooklyn where he signed to Bad Boy Records in 1998 as Sean “P.Diddy” Combs new hip hop protege.
Barrow was known for his involvement in the infamous 1999 Club New York nightclub shooting, Combs got into an argument with a partygoer which ended up in a shootout that injured three people, according to Slate.com.
Witnesses said that the Brooklyn-based rapper had a firearm with him and fired it during the altercation. Barrow was convicted on two counts of assault, reckless endangerment, and gun possession in 2001 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After he was released in 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him “for an immigration law violation” and deported him to Belize as a non–U.S. citizen felon.
The “Bad Boyz” rapper released his self-titled debut album in 2000 and it went platinum in sales during the time of the trial.
Combs also shared his support for Barrow during his campaign for a Belize House of Representatives seat last November.
Barrow has ties to Belize politics. His father, Dean Barrow, served on city council and House of Representatives and was elected the country’s first Black prime minister in 2008, Slate.com noted.