EARLY LIFE

Jay-Z struggled early in life. His father, and role model, left him at the age of 10 and from then on he struggled to let anyone become close to him so he was never hurt like that again. At the age of 17, Jay-Z shot his older brother while under the influence of drugs for stealing a ring. Jay-Z put the incident in music in his second album with the verses, “Saw the devil in your eyes, high off more than weed/ Confused, I just closed my young eyes and squeezed.” His brother never pressed charges and reconciled the next day. More than a decade later, Jay-Z finally made the decision to quit drugs and stop running away from the cops on the streets of Brooklyn. Jay-Z elaborates this process in verse by saying, “I sold kilos of coke, I’m guessing I could sell CDs.”