In a recent interview with Weekend magazine, Jay Z talks for the first time about when he shot his brother at the age of 12.
His childhood was dark and he was raised in a Brooklyn housing project, now the rapper and business man is worth an estimated $450m. The reason for shooting his brother, he had stolen his ring. He explains to the magazine his feelings afterwards, “I thought my life was over. I thought I’d go to jail for ever.” His brother who was addicted to crack did not press charges and apologised to Jay Z when he visited him in hospital.
Jay Z describes the episode in the song You Must Love Me. “Saw the devil in your eyes, high off more than weed, confused, I just closed my young eyes and squeezed.”
He went on to describe the area he was brought up in. “Guns were everywhere. You didn’t have to go far to get one. Just everywhere,” he said. In a housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, shootouts were commonplace: “[Guns] were around every day. There were shootouts, but I never shot anyone else. Most people in shootouts don’t get shot.”
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