In early January, the Rugged Child returned home. Rapper Shyheim began his career in the music industry when he was just 14-years-old and it didn’t take long for the Staten Island native to pick up steam in the industry. The Wu-Tang affiliated emcee reached a moderate level of success, but he found himself on the wrong side of the law.

In 2013, authorities search his home and found heroin and firearms. The following year, he was involved in a car accident that took the life of another driver. Shyheim ended up pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter along with weapons and drug charges, and for the last five years, the rapper has been behind bars. 

Now that he’s been welcomed home, Shyheim is enjoying life as a free man. He recently sat down with VladTV to speak at length about his career and upbringing, and the rapper shared that he was an only child with a father in prison and a mother with a drug addiction. Shyheim shared that his neighborhood, including the Wu-Tang Clan, became his family. He also said that he inked a deal before Wu ever signed theirs.

“I signed to Virgin Records—it actually was a big bidding war because Virgin had lost Tevin Campbell to Warner Bros and they wasn’t trying to lose me to Benny Medina as well,” he said. “It was a pretty intense bidding war and back then to have the type of record deal that I had back then as a new artist was pretty much unheard of.” He reportedly signed for $350K at 13-years-old. Check out the clip of his interview below.

Jeezy dropped a birthday bomb on his girlfriend, Jeannie Mai, on Wednesday night, and it’s safe to say she was pretty shocked. The Snowman surprised Jeannie by bringing out R&B singer, Tevin Campbell who, by the looks of it, might just be her all-time favourite artist.

In the clip posted by The Shade Room, Jeezy prefaces the Tevin’s entrance with a little tribute to his boo by singing a bit of the “Happy Birthday” song before hilariously giving up: “F*ck all this sh*t, I do trap music, I can’t sing.” He then proceeds to set up the surprise guest by saying, “But listen, happy birthday baby. I can’t say but, um, I got somebody who came to sing you ‘Happy Birthday.'” While he doesn’t sing her “Happy Birthday,” exactly, the music to his 1993 hit, “Can We Talk” starts playing and Tevin begins warbling away, not yet in sight. He comes into Jeannie’s view, which prompts her to immediately drop to the floor, blown away by just who exactly her sweetie tapped to serenade her. As Tevin belts the R&B ballad, Jeannie puts her arms around Jeezy to show her gratitude for his special birthday gift. The Shade Room also included a video of Jeannie and Jeezy singing along to “Can We Talk” in the car prior to the birthday celebrations, showing just how true of fans they are of the singer.

Jeannie posted a video of the surprise on Instagram with the caption, “@Jeezy baby. Thank you for the bestest birthday gift….of you in my life ❤??.” The couple recently spent Christmas together with her family, which included an intense game of White Elephant. Jeezy and Jeannie’s mom, Oli, who can be seen in the clips from the surprise birthday performance, went head-to-head for a pink blanket, resulting in Oli having to take four shots of tequila and do 20 push-ups. There were also rumours flying around recently that Jeannie was pregnant with Jeezy’s child, after cameramen from her talk show, The Real, revealed that they’d been informed to shoot Jeannie at angles that would make her appear slimmer.