Jay-Z’s former friend and mentor Jaz-O played a pivotal role in Jay's early. Jay made his debut on Jaz-O's "Hawaiian Sophie" and the two Brooklyn rappers formed a group called The Originators. Jaz recently sat down with Vlad of Vlad TV in a new interview and spoke about Jay-Z shooting his brother Eric when he was 12 years old.

"Yeah I can’t remember - it was a shot, not to fatally wound," Jaz recalls. "But, to be honest, I don’t think that Jay was aiming to hit him. in his defense, he was just letting him know to cut the shit. It was my gun, but he didn’t have the gun so that he could go shoot his brother, it was a thing back then. If you had some arms it was a sign of brotherhood in the streets.”

The shooting is detailed on “You Must Love Me” from Jay-Z’s 1997 release In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. Jay recalls the events on the verse: “We used to fight every night but I never would suffer/just smile my big brother's tryna make me tougher/as we grew, fussing and fighting continued/as I plundered through ya’ stuff and snuck your clothes to school/got intense, real intense as we got older/never believed it would lead to me poppin' one in your shoulder.” 

In a 2010 interview with The Guardian Jay detailed what led to the assault and says that his older brother was addicted to crack cocaine and had stolen Jays jewelry on more than one occasion.

“I thought my life was over. I thought I’d go to jail forever. It was terrible. I was a boy, a child. I was terrified,” Jay explained further. His brother did not press charges and apologized for the theft and his addiction when Jay -Z visited him later in the hospital. “Runnin around in a circle thinkin’ I’m assed out/hot gun burnin’ my waist I ran straight to Jaz’ house.” Jaz-O confirms that lyric from “You Must Love Me."

“I don’t care who you are, if you bust a gun and you get nervous you need somewhere to run to, so I guess he came to my house to drop it off for the worst-case scenario.”