SHYNE SPEAKS ON DIDDY IN SEPTEMBER'S ISSUE OF XXL!

For the September issue, which also marks the magazine’s 13th anniversary, Editor-in-Chief, Vanessa Satten traveled to Belize for an exclusive one-on-one interview with Shyne Po. Shyne is a rapper who took the fall for Diddy in 2001.

It is alleged that on December 27, 1999, Shyne, along with Combs and then girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, was involved in a shooting at a Manhattan club which left three people injured. As a result the 21-year-old rapper, whose debut album was pending release, was charged with attempted murder, assault, and reckless endangerment.

On prison: “I looked at bein’ in the pen for 10 joints as my opportunity to concentrate, to get things in perspective. And I never let it devastate me, although it was devastating, because I never thought I was gonna be in jail for 10 years. I thought I was gon’ make a bail. I thought I was gon’ get my shit reversed. I’m terribly optimistic.”

On Diddy: “I don’t know whether he was nervous, afraid,” Shyne says of Puffy. “When you’re afraid and you’re emotional, that’s a different survival tactic. Those are the people that do anything, regardless of character and integrity, to preserve and protect themselves, regardless of who they hurt.

I guess maybe that was the situation. Never been in a situation like that, where he facing years, and he got hundreds of millions and all that shit at stake. But where I’m from, doesn’t matter. You lose everything for your comrade. Again, if you’re in battle, I’ll catch a bullet, too. It ain’t like, Yo, he’s dead. Don’t make no sense for me to die, too. Nah, I’ma die, too! So you hope or you take for granted that all men are the same. But I know all men are not.”