Lance “Un” Rivera says Jay-Z was not guilty of 1999 stabbing
(Credit: Alamy)

News

Lance “Un” Rivera says Jay-Z was not guilty of 1999 stabbing

Music executive and film director Lance “Un” Rivera has finally admitted that Jay-Z did not stab him in a 1999 incident. Rivera, a former friend and business associate of The Notorious B.I.G. who also worked closely with Cam’ron, Lil Kim and Charli Baltimore in the ’90s, discussed the incident in a recent conversation with VladTV.

In December 1999, Hov was accused of stabbing Rivera during Q-Tip’s Amplified album release party held at New York City’s now-closed Kit Kat Club. The incident was said to have been sparked by allegations that the head of Untertainment Records had leaked Jigga’s highly anticipated fourth album, Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, a few weeks ahead of its official release.

In reaction, the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records turned himself into the police the very next day. He faced the possibility of up to 15 years behind bars on charges of second-degree felony assault if proven guilty during the trial.

Initially maintaining his innocence and denying any involvement, he eventually changed his plea to guilty for third-degree assault in October 2001. As a result, he received a three-year probation sentence, bringing an end to the legal proceedings.

Speaking on VladTV last week, Rivera admitted that Jay-Z did not have a hand in the stabbing. 

“What happened that night… I showed up to [the party] to support [Q-Tip]. Jay, a bunch of us is in there,” he said. “I ended up getting surrounded by a bunch of people. It was probably 10 knives that I knew of, and I ended up getting stabbed at the Kit Kat Club.” 

Asked whether it was Jay-Z who stabbed him, he replied with a chuckle: “No. Jay-Z was not the guy that actually stabbed me that night.”

Rivera explained that Jay had confronted him in the nightclub and told him he “broke [his] heart” before he was hit over the head with a champagne bottle and subsequently stabbed. He didn’t divulge who he believed was behind the attack.

“Me and Jay-Z had a conversation right before I got hit in the head with a champagne bottle,” he recalled. “It was a brief conversation and I was looking at him like, ‘What are you talking about? You know you fucking the money up right now.’

“He just kept saying, ‘You broke my heart. You broke my heart.’ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? You’re buggin’ right now, bro. You getting ready to fuck up everything.'”

“I don’t know where people got Jay-Z stabbed me from because if anybody knows Jay-Z, Jay-Z’s a nice guy,” Un said. “He’s an artist, he’s a poet, he’s gifted, and it’s never been his history. If Jay-Z had stabbed me, y’all wouldn’t have got The Black Album because through my whole history, I’m an eye-for-an-eye type of guy.

“The reality to it is Nas — and I don’t know why didn’t nobody believe him — on ‘Ether’ he talked about the incident. He let people know like, ‘Yo, your man stabbed Un, and you took the blame for it.’

“Unfortunately, [Jay-Z] was caught up in the power struggle. It was all about the power to get rid of Dame Dash and take Jay-Z to the next level without Dame.”