The NMC’s first lady is reporting that Shyne Po – yes, the same Shyne Po that sounds like a mixture of Gravy circa Notorious and No Limit’s Fiend nowadays – is signing to the house the Rush Card built…
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that Shyne Po has signed a 7-figure deal with Def Jam.
This ends a bidding war that had industry bigwigs vying for Shyne’s attention, flying to Belize, calling and courting, ever since the Brooklyn emcee was released from prison and deported to Belize back in October.
For Shyne to turn down hard-court pressure from Jimmy Iovine/Dr.Dre and others and instead join LA Reid back at his last known recording-residence actually seems like an inevitable move….because I’ve been hearing that Shyne has been pow-wowing with veteran manager Kyambo “HipHop” Joshua for a while now. Joshua and his HipHopSince1978 partners, Gee Roberson, also manage Lil Wayne, Drake, Young Jeezy and more. Meanwhile, my old friend Al Branch is both a partner in HipHopSince1978 and a high-level exec at Def Jam…see how that works? Synergy! Now there have been recent reports of new label-wide pressures, but with this team in place, Shyne is in good hands.
Interesting. I don’t know how to feel about this whole thing. On one hand it’s a nice come up for Po. On the other hand we’re still signing people to multi-million dollar deals? I mean, Shyne hasn’t dropped an album since 2004’s Godfather Buried Alive, and if that song that was/wasn’t going to be on DJ Khaled’s Failure is any indication of ol’ boy now, then I don’t think too many people will be gassed for a Shyne album, especially the all-too-important 18-24 demographic.
Maybe he can do boat tours with Slick Rick. Just saying.
