Beanie Sigel: Doing Time While Making Rhymes

Beanie Sigel is a product of the tough streets of Philadelphia, and if you don't think those streets are tough enough, check out the City of Brotherly Love's recent murder statistics. But as with a lot of other young, black talents, Beanie Sigel saw his way out of the streets with his hip hop skills, sort of. What do I mean by sort of? We can get into that later, but let's first recognize the man's skills, can't we?

He got his start in the big business in 1998, when Jay-Z and Damon Dash signed him to Roc-A-Fella Records. It was on this label that the first full Beanie Sigel album came out, called "The Turth." Out in early 2000, the record shot straight to gold, with Beanie Sigel songs like "Remember Them Days" and "The Truth." Jay-Z helped out to this success by including his own single on the album, called "Anything." Eve also guest starred on a song. Listen to Beanie Sigel on this first album, and you can hear the hard knocks of South Philadelphia and the police sirens in the background.

Beanie Sigel didn't sit back on his success, and the following year put out the second Beanie Sigel record, titled "The Reason." The artist took the opportunity to showcase his own hip hop group, called State Property, which was made up of local Philadelphia musicians, all of which go signed to Jay-Z's label.

Now Onto the Sort of

What did I mean by sort of before, when talking about how Beanie Sigel got off the streets of Philly? Well, I mean that he did not entirely escape from the drama and the crime. And it's about this time in his history-right around when he started enjoying some real success-that he had problems.

The first problem came about with New York's Jadakiss, who claimed that some Philadelphia rappers were copying his style. Being from Philly, Beanie Sigel wasn't about to take this insult sitting down. DMX even got into the mix against Beanie Sigel. The situation got so bad that Russell Simmons, owner of Def Jam, the head label of Roc-A-Fella, had to step in and force a truce.

Then came the jail times. Times? Yes, times. After a 2002 traffic stop when cops found weapons on Beanie Sigel, the artist was sent to federal prison for almost an entire year. Soon after getting out of there in 2005, he almost went to jail again, this time for supposedly shooting a man. But the jury in the case let Beanie Sigel go. He got into hot water with the long arm of the law a third time over a failure to pay his child support payments. For this, he sat in jail until he forked over nearly $30,000.

In 2006, he was sentenced to two years and three months of jail time for an assault charge coming from a fight. And just in March 2008, he got another three months for a probation violation stemming from positive drug tests. Just one? Isn't that tough penalties? No, he failed five times in one month. And all this after being involved in a suspicious shooting in 2006 (when Beanie Sigel got shoot twice).

And these, my friends, are just Beanie Sigel's recent arrests. Growing up in Philly on the streets, he has quite the rap sheet, supposedly. And not the rap sheet full of Beanie Sigel lyrics. The rap sheets that contain all of his arrests and violations.

Moving Forward

Yet according to Beanie Sigel's lawyer, Beanie Sigel has learned his lesson and just wants to be a peaceful, religious hip hop star. Let's hope he can continue on the success of the last two Beanie Sigel records, "The B. Coming" from 2005 and "The Solution" from 2007.

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