They say prison changes a man and plays games with his mind. But even before Shyne was sent to prison for 8 years for shooting up a NYC nightclub, he already had his mind right.
As soon as he was released and deported to Belize, the rapper changed his rhyme style, changed his name to Moses Levi (from Jamaal Barrow) signed with Def Jam and then wrote a poison pen letter blasting LA Reid who quite frankly didn’t know what to do with him.
Shyne, who began embracing Judaism at the time of his arrest, completed his journey to Orthodox Judaism by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem recently. “My entire life screams that I have a Jewish neshama,” he told a writer for the NY Times, using the Hebrew word for soul.
Orthodox Jews follow a strict adherence to Jewish customs such as wearing black clothing with their pants legs tucked into their socks. And not cutting their sideburns while allowing their hair to grow long.
Although he’s an Orthodox Jew, Shyne has no intentions of giving up the Hip Hop lifestyle that draws so many confused young brothas like moths to a flame.
“There’s nothing in the Chumash that says I can’t drive a Lamborghini,” and “nothing in the Halacha about driving the cars I like, about the lifestyle I live,” he says.
