Early life Jay-Z (top) with a friend (bottom) in Trenton, New Jersey, circa 1988 Shawn Carter is originally from Marcy Houses, a housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He and his three siblings were raised by their mother, Gloria Carter, after their father abandoned the family.
He claims in his lyrics that in 1982, at the age of 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewelry. Carter attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn, along with future rapper AZ, until it was closed down. After that he attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Downtown Brooklyn, with fellow future rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, and Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, but did not graduate. In his music he refers to having been involved in selling crack cocaine. He has also said he had been shot at three times during this time in his life. ( You can follow us by : iPhone , Android , Samsung , Windows )