JAY-Z has been criticized by former Roc-A-Fella rapper Oschino for turning his back on Beanie Sigel in his attempted murder case in the mid 2000s.
In an interview with Say Cheese, the State Property alum aired his grievances with his former label boss for refusing to vouch for Beans during the trial.
AD LOADING...
“I came to court for Beanie when he allegedly shot somebody,” Oschino recalled. “JAY-Z got on the stand and they said, ‘Are you gonna be responsible for him if we let him go?’ JAY-Z said, ‘No.’ I was there. This ain’t hearsay; this was me in the courtroom.”
He added: “I was just thinking, ‘What did he come to court for then?’ If I got a homie and all I gotta say is, ‘I’m responsible for him for him to get out,’ I’m saying it every time […] The judge was trying to give him an out. He said, ‘No.’
AD LOADING...
“And nobody didn’t say nothing, nobody flinched. Mind you, I’m a jail n-gga so I’m looking around like, ‘Nobody not saying nothing?!’ Like it was normal […] Maybe I’m too street in my thinking and maybe he was being more responsible, but I was thinking, ‘Man, these boys is different.'”
Watch his comments at the 13:15 mark below.
Beanie Sigel was charged with attempted murder in July 2003 for allegedly firing six shots at a man during an argument outside of a Philadelphia bar. One of the bullets struck the victim in the foot and another in the stomach.
The first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury were deadlocked after five days of deliberating. It was during this trial that JAY-Z appeared on the witness stand.
AD LOADING...
The “Feel it in the Air” rapper was retried in 2005 and walked free after being acquitted of all charges.
“I think the jury flat-out didn’t believe the victim and the eyewitness,” Sigel’s lawyer Fortunato N. Perri Jr. said of the verdict. “They thought they were lying, that they put a story together, to ultimately end up in a payday for themselves.”
Beans himself addressed Hov’s actions during the trial on Drink Champs in 2021, admitting it fractured their relationship and left him feeling hurt.
“I’ve never been crushed like that ever in my life,” he said. “‘Cause I’m like, ‘Damn, this is my man’ […] That fucked me up. That took away a lot of shit that I thought we had. Like, that’s big bro.”
AD LOADING...
He also acknowledged that, in hindsight, Hov had his reasons: “I believe at that time, Jay was thinking that I was unpredictable. I was bugging. I know I was out of pocket. I was uncontrollable.”
