Shyne And Diddy Make Peace During A Phone Call

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By Rob Markman

At the height of his career Shyne was signed to a deal under Diddy's label Bad Boy Records, but things went sour when the "Bad Boyz" rapper had to serve an almost nine-year sentence in prison after assault and gun possession charges that stemmed from a club shooting in New York in 1999. Diddy was also charged in the incident but he was later acquitted leaving Shyne to sit still behind bars. Now, Shyne has buried the hatchet with Sean Combs. In a Skype call from Paris with MTV News on Tuesday (January 17), Shyne revealed that he and Diddy recently talked over the phone and plan to meet in the coming weeks.

"As far as Puff is concerned, that's been a long time coming," Shyne exclusively told MTV News of the conversation he and the Bad Boy CEO had earlier this month. "He had reached out to me twice while I was in the pen, but I just wasn't ready for it."

The Shyne we see today is a far cry from the suited-up, oversize-baseball-cap-wearing youth that the world watched strut in and out of court during his 2000 trial. Now Shyne — who legally changed his name to Moses Levi while he was in prison and has practiced Judaism for a number of years — wears a white robe with the Star of David on the chest and the long side curls often associated with Hasidic Jews. The rapper's physical appearance isn't the only difference: Over the years, Po hasn't talked about Puff in the most positive breath, often criticizing the music mogul and calling him a snitch during and after the Club New York trial.

"I felt how I felt, I said what I said. In retrospect, when you looked at the way he handled it, he held it down, he wore it," Shyne said of Diddy. "He ain't had nothing to say; always had good things to say. It was always, 'Yo, whatever Shyne need, we got him.' "

During his incarceration, Shyne wasn't ready to reconcile, but after he had a dream about their mutual friend Anthony "Wolf" Jones, he reached out to Diddy. "Our relationship wasn't just business; it wasn't me just being a rapper on Bad Boy. We had a solid relationship, we had a brotherhood, me, him and Wolf, and I just felt the need to just reach out, because again, he just kept it tall no matter what I said," Shyne explained.

Shyne wouldn't elaborate on the details of his and Combs' conversation, but he did walk away from the call in a much more positive place. "For me, the conversation was a confirmation of what I felt. Son kept it super tall, and that's what it's about. When a man says, 'Listen, as a man, I make mistakes and I own that.' What could you do?"

Well what can they do? Surely the two can get back into the studio, but Shyne didn't dish on any new musical developments. He did reveal that the two plan to have a second conversation, this time in person.

"I just feel real good about moving on with our relationship. Me and son, we gonna get together in Paris — I'm in Paris right now. We gonna get together in a couple of weeks, and we gonna sit at the roundtable."

What do you think of Shyne and Diddy's reconciliation? Let us know in the comments!

[url=http://rapfix.mtv.com/2012/01/17/shyne-diddy-make-peace-during-a-phonecall/]View the full article[/url]