It’s October 6, 2009 and today is the day JAMAL BARROW (aka Shyne) has been waiting eight years for.

After serving eight years upstate for the now infamous nightclub incident that saw Puff (he was still Puffy then) stand trial and Jennifer Lopez put down her do-rag forever, Shyne is being released today. But this might not be such an easy adjustment.

A lot has changed since 2001. The biggest difference of course being that we have a Black President (don’t come home pumped about this, the euphoria is over, we’re waiting on healthcare). But there are some other changes as well that perhaps Shyne should be made aware of. So allow us…

Top 5 Things Shyne Needs To Know Now That He’s Home…

5. Jennifer Lopez Is Latino Now – I know the first thing you might want to do is hook up with the old crew but think twice before calling JLo. Three engagements, three weddings, two marriages, 3 box-office bombs and a set of twins later, Jennifer (don’t call her JLo homie) now lives in Miami, owns the Dolphins and probably has one of those phones that you have to press ‘6 for English‘ when calling.

4. Biggie Is Still Making Music – He’s got a new track out with Dirty Money called ‘Angels’. It’s pretty hot. It’s dope that a dead man can stay so current with trends.

3. Skip The Auto-tuned Comeback Single – You might not have heard but it’s dead. And actually Jay-Z’s mercy killing of it has hurt some feelings….In fact, if a guy named T Pain/Teddy P/Teddy Penderassdown calls, send him to voicemail. This is RocNation. Quickly pledge your allegiance.

2. 140 Character Shout-Outs – As soon as you hit your girls spot in Brooklyn (yeah, sorta found out yesterday where you were heading), be sure to sign up for a twitter account. Trust me it’s doing a lot to help irrelevant rappers think they’re still relevant again (see @noreaga). They post about the ‘good ole days’, share behind-the-scenes musings and even get inspired and record songs about social networking tools. It’s great…For me any way. Oh which leads me to this, Bloggers are your new best friends. We’re really the only ones that will make people care about you again.

1. You Might Be Out Of A Job - I regret to inform you that your two biggest supporters – Russell Simmons and Kevin Liles – Aren’t at labels right now. In fact Simmons is playing EIC of a website while doing lots of stretching with skinny women in exotic locales while tweeting (see above for explanation) about worldly causes.  Meanwhile Kevin…Well we don’t really know what Kevin’s next move is. All we know for sure is that he’s getting married to a PYT and that he’ll probably continue to make lots of money. Your IDJ nemesis LA Reid is still around though. You might wanna look up Julie & Lyor over at Atlantic. They seem to be running things. (Btw – be on the lookout for a tweet from @unclerush asking for an exclusive blog for GG – Ask Xilla to explain ‘blog’ to you.)

So there you have it, those are our picks as the top changes. Do you agree? Got some of your own? Or just simply want to weigh in? Leave everything below!