Jay-Z Explains Why He Shot His Own Brother At 12

Jay-Z violently confronted his brother when he was young. He said he thought the incident would change his life

Emma McKee

Jay-Z’s early life was markedly different from the way the rapper lives now. He said violence and drugs were common during his adolescence. When he was just 12 years old, he shot his brother in the shoulder. Years afterward, it was still difficult for him to discuss the incident.

When Jay-Z was 12, he shot his brother, Eric, in the shoulder for stealing his ring. At the time, his brother was using drugs, and Jay-Z said he felt a responsibility to protect his family.

“[My brother was] about 16,” he told Oprah Winfrey. “He was doing a lot of drugs. He was taking stuff from our family. I was the youngest, but I felt like I needed to protect everybody.”

Though he was young, he said finding a gun was not much of an obstacle for him.

“I went to someone’s crib, someone’s house, and got it,” he told The Guardian in 2010. “Guns were everywhere. You didn’t have to go far to get one. Just everywhere.”

Jay-Z | Nitro/Getty Images

He believed the incident would completely alter the course of his life.

“I thought my life was over,” he said. “I thought I’d go to jail forever.”

Ultimately, though, Eric did not press charges against his younger brother. When Jay-Z visited him in the hospital, Eric even apologized for the way drugs had changed him. Decades afterward, Jay-Z struggled to talk about the incident.

“It was terrible,” he said. “I was a boy, a child. I was terrified.”

Jay-Z was no stranger to violence in his early life

This early experience was by no means the last time Jay-Z witnessed gun violence.

“[G]uns were around every day,” he said. “There were shoot-outs, but I never shot anyone else. Most people in shoot-outs don’t get shot.”

He said he saw a neighbor he liked get shot when he was a child.

“I saw a guy get shot when I was 9,” he said. “And he wasn’t even a bad guy. His name was Benny. He was the guy who would take us to play baseball. We always believed he could have made it to the majors. He was that good. Some guy was chasing him — and then I heard a shot and saw him on the floor.”

He explained that the violence became an expected and, at some point, exhilarating part of his life.

“It was normal,” he said. “And at some point, you become addicted to the feeling. The uncertainty and adrenaline and danger of that lifestyle.”

He narrowly avoided gun violence as well

When he was a teenager, someone shot at Jay-Z at close range. He said he was lucky to have survived the experience.

“That was divine intervention,” he said. “Divine intervention, and nobody knowing how to shoot.”

This only happened on one occasion, but the other person, who was a friend, fired at him three times.

“Well, no one really practices shooting a TEC-9 machine gun, right? And when you’re a kid, with little bony arms — no wonder nobody could aim.”

He said he did not retaliate, though he was angry enough to want to