Beanie Sigel is a busy man. The Roc-A-Fella rapper was recently in New York finishing his third album, The B-Coming. He just completed filming a sequel to his gangsta flick State Property and continues to run a successful clothing and shoe line.

But Sigel is currently in legal limbo involving several cases against him, and he most likely faces jail time. The rapper came to Manhattan under the strict terms of a federal bail agreement, which permits him to leave his home in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, just outside his hometown of Philadelphia, for business between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Part of that agreement includes a black electronic monitoring bracelet on his right ankle.

"The last few months," Sigel says, "have been like preparing a will."

In April, a jury had the opportunity to shut out the light on Sigel's music career but could not reach agreement on whether the rapper shot twenty-seven-year-old Terrance Speller near a West Philadelphia go-go bar on July 1st (Sigel denies the charges). The trial itself was a hip-hop circus: Jay-Z showed up for five days, bringing his girlfriend, Beyonce, toward the end, and Philly rappers Freeway and the Young Gunz attended some of the proceedings, as did Kanye West and Roc-A-Fella CEO Damon Dash.

The hung jury means the rapper could wind up facing the same charges again. In the meantime, Sigel will go to trial on a misdemeanor assault in June, stemming from a January 2003 attack: Sigel says he's innocent. He recently pleaded guilty to a felony gun-possession charge, which will almost definitely earn him prison time when he faces sentencing in July.

Sigel is also under investigation by the Philadelphia police, who claim the rapper used some of his advance money to buy his way into the city's drug-trafficking trade. "He owns a large section of South Philadelphia," claims one high-ranking police official."

Sigel denies this. "I spend four hours per day on the clothing line, four hours working on the music label and eight on my own music," he says. "How could I be running a drug organization?"

The irony is that Sigel, who has been more of a critical than a commercial success, may have created his breakthrough album. The B-Coming has several potential singles -- "Wanted," in particular, which samples heavily from Bon Jovi's mid-Eighties hit "Wanted Dead or Alive." But Sigel reacts most emotionally to his darkest material. On the new "Tales of a Hustler, Pt. 2," Sigel sounds as if he is fighting the near-orchestral backing track -- he paints vivid and cinematic landscapes, littered with "feds lurkin' " and so-called friends whose "smiles don't match their handshakes."

"There's a message in the album, but you'll have to find it," says Sigel. "The shooting and that stuff -- it's metaphorical. If you listen to it like that, the album describes anybody's life."