Former Bad Boy rapper Moses “Shyne” Barrow is reflecting on his time in prison.
Speaking to PEOPLE at the premiere of his upcoming Hulu documentary, The Honorable Shyne, Barrow — who spent eight years in prison after he was involved in a New York City club shooting with Sean “Diddy” Combs — opened up about the lessons he learned while he was incarcerated.
“I learned that the universe does not pick on people, and perseverance is the pathway to power,” Barrow, 46, says candidly.
“So power hurts. World champions sacrifice, world champions bleed. They go through tremendous pain,” he adds. “People that operate on the top-tier go through so much that you don’t see.”
He also learned “the art of time” — as well as “resilience,” “patience” and “strategy and calculating.”
“I understood that 10 years was an investment in the next 20, 30 years. I didn’t stand still, hoping time would just pass by and then I’d wake up and everything would be better,” Barrow elaborates. “I was present and I used everything I was going through as an investment in everything that I have now.”
He concludes, “That’s why where I’m at, you have some people say, ‘How is he an Opposition Leader of the House of Representatives? How did he pivot from this to that?’ I’ve been working on this for the last 26 years.”
Barrow, who serves as the Leader of the Opposition in the Belize House of Representatives, was convicted of first-degree assault in 1999 for a shooting inside a New York City nightclub that left three people injured.
At the time, Combs, 55, was also accused of shooting but during his trial he said he fired the gun in self-defense and was acquitted of all charges.
Barrow, who was once Combs’ protégé, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2001 and released in 2009. He was subsequently deported back to Belize.
At a September press conference that followed Combs’ arrest in New York City, Barrow shared his thoughts on the matter and accused the music mogul of having “destroyed” his life.
“When I was an 18-year-old kid, just wanting to do nothing other than make my mother proud and make Belize proud and be recognized for my talent and take over the world. I was defending him and he turned around and called witnesses to testify against me. He pretty much sent me to prison,” Barrow alleged, without providing details to back up his charges.
“Let’s not lose sight of what the cold hard facts are. This is not someone who I vacationed with and someone who I enjoyed this great, intimate relationship of brotherhood. This is someone who destroyed my life, and who I forgave, and who I moved on, and for the better interest of Belize because he was in the position at that time to give scholarships and maybe to invest,” he continued. “I would not deny attempting to bring the investment to Belize and bring the contributions to education.”
In the Hulu documentary, Barrow recounts the night of the shooting, the trial and life after prison where was able to move on.
The Honorable Shyne premieres Nov. 18 on Hulu.
