WARRING PREPPY SHIRTS – has East Coast hip-hop come to this? Any viewer of MTV's recent Direct Effect special on Shyne couldn't be blamed for asking the question. There was the channel's John Norris, outfitted in (what else?) Izod for his trip to New York's Clinton Correctional Facility. Across the interview table from him sat Shyne: in place of the government-name prison uniform he's pictured wearing on the cover of the new Vibe, he sported a short-sleeved number by Ralph Lauren. The oddity of the polite baseline exchanges and occasional volleys traded by fey-not-Sway Norris and Shyne was only heightened by the similarities in their styles of dress. Trendsetting (and Christ-fearing with a military backbeat) Kanye West has plenty to answer for these days, when Maria Sharapova is more likely to roll gangsta than the MCs of the moment.

P. Diddy's white parties in the Hamptons may be interpreted as a subversion of country club elitist aesthetics, but there's no escaping the fact that Izod and Polo are also shorthand for staid tradition and uptight conservatism. To be fair, Shyne's shirt was just one element of a televised image that also included a pair of intellectual-looking gold-framed glasses, similar to those worn by Tupac when Vibe's Kevin Powell paid him a visit at Clinton – a visit that fanned the flames of a dispute that left both him and another of the greatest lyrical talents of all time dead. Shyne started out as a Puffy protégé, but he isn't fit to shine Biggie's shoes – then again, who is?

That said, as the highest-profile hip-hop release since a shattered-glass image of 50 Cent hit stores, Godfather Buried Alive (Gangland Record Corp.) has more on its mind than getting rich or dying trying. Halfway through its first song, "Quasi O.G.," Shyne fires off his first threat – and it isn't directed at 50 or estranged mentor Puffy. As producer Buckwild strips all the warmth and sun from the familial chanted chorus of Bob Marley and the Wailers' "No More Trouble," Shyne rises from crack(s) in the ghetto to declare, "Hopin' the young future soldier hear me / G.W. Bush fear me." If Chuck D's maxim about hip-hop being the "black CNN" still holds any weight, "Quasi O.G." 's references to Central Intelligence Agency drug conspiracies hardly qualify as breaking news. Still, the double meaning in Shyne's use of "soldier" – discarding military obedience in favor of militant rebellion – has an up-to-the-minute edge.

Arriving in the wake between Sept. 11, 2001, and March 15, 2003, 50 Cent's first major-label release presented him as a hulking Schwarzenegger-like hip-hop action figure of wounded survival. As its clunky title hints, Godfather Buried Alive has little time for Get Rich or Die Tryin' 's pop-friendly melodicism. More concerned with verse than with chorus, its cold, minimal, electro-tinged sound is closer to I Am-era Nas – or, similarly, pre-pop crossover Jay-Z – a likeness that makes additional sense considering that Shyne is rolling with Foxy Brown and contemplating a Firm-style supergroup enterprise.

Thus the track with the rep isn't a potential single but the decidedly lo-fi 50 dis "For the Record," built around a vocal Shyne obviously recorded over the phone while in lockdown; lean and mean-spirited, it strings together a circle of threats before reaching a menacing lights-off climax, giving Curtis Jackson the same type of treatment he famously gave Jeffrey Atkins. Godfather's real drama is between the lines, though, and a bit more ambiguous. Twice, Shyne teams up with Foxy, whose own relationship with the man Shyne holds partly responsible for his incarceration – Diddy – has soured. Her problems are small in comparison: after numerous disagreements, Diddy abandoned executive production duties on her long-delayed fourth album, leaving it in future-release purgatory. Factor in that the album in question was slated to be released on Def Jam, the same Island subsidiary that houses Shyne's vanity imprint, and things get sticky.

Who's mad at whom, and are they raging all the way to the bank? Only Russell Simmons knows for sure: MTV and Norris certainly aren't investigating, they're reporting, and on the record, neither Shyne nor Foxy takes aim at their Bad Boy-gone-goodie former business associate, who's had more than a few profit-driven associations with Simmons. Instead, celebrity gossips will find a couple references to Princess Di on Godfather, fashion victims will discover an anthem to Jimmy Choo, and hip-hop trainspotters will notice quotes lifted from Dr. Dre, whose gruff tone is detectable in Shyne's delivery. As Shyne (on "Martyr") strains to claim his foes are "expirin' like milk," one can only recall that when Biggie said his enemies were made of "milkbox material," he tossed off that bit of brilliance like he was taking out the trash.

Corleone or just corny? Godfather's title hints at delusions of grandeur – Shyne's 2001 trial and perhaps even his current trials stem at least partly from underling rather than kingpin status. A vainglorious mythos constructed on a 10-year prison sentence may be nearly as chart-ready as one built on nine gunshot wounds, but it'll leave him none the wiser. The best moments on his second album occur when he looks beyond ego and braggadocio and toward injustices, such as what happened to Amadou Diallo. With media and record execs banging on his cell door the minute he was stripped of power by the state, the man at the top of the charts doubtless knows or thing or two million about sick U.S. paradoxes. Yet what it all means to him remains to be seen and heard: most of the songs here were written and recorded before he wound up where he is today.

E-mail Johnny Ray Huston