Lil Tjay performed in Paris on Sunday (April 16), marking the first time he’d returned to the City of Love since the near-fatal shooting that nearly cost him his life.
In a video shared from the side of the stage, the “Beat the Odds” rapper can be seen sharing the details of his ordeal to a crowd of screaming fans.
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“I got shot right before I got on the plane,” the 21-year-old said in the video. “I got a second chance at life…Better days are coming…”
Take a look at the video from the performance below.
Before he went onstage, Lil Tjay took to his Twitter to post some photos of himself outside of some famous Parisian landmarks, like The Louvre. He also quoted a line from JAY-Z and Kanye West’s “N-ggas in Paris” when he wrote, “If you escaped what I escaped, you’d be in Paris getting fuc** up too!!”
On June 22, the Bronx rapper was shot at a Chipotle Restaurant shortly after midnight in Edgewater, NJ. 27-year-old Mohamed Konate — who was quickly apprehended by the police — also shot two of Tjay’s companions who were with him.
The rapper (real name Tione Jayden Merritt) was shot once in the neck, once in the arm, and five times in the torso. He was very close to death, but emergency surgery ultimately saved his life.
Following his release from the hospital, Lil Tjay shared the advice given to him by 50 Cent, who would know a thing or two about being shot multiple times and surviving.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Tjay opened up about the scary ordeal and recalled a phone call he received from 50 Cent — who also famously survived a hail of bullets early in his career — while he was recovering in hospital.
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“Every artist needs pain or something to feed off of. This right here, you shake this shit off,” Tjay recalled 50 telling him over the phone from a jet. “You got the length for greatness. You going to be bigger than ever.”
The Power mogul remained a big brother figure for Lil Tjay in the months after the shooting, with the two being pictured hanging out backstage at a Motion Picture & Television Fund benefit concert — where 50 Cent performed alongside Snoop Dogg, Tony Yayo and others — in Los Angeles in September.
