Philadelphia emcee and former Roc-a-Fella lyricist Beanie Sigel was a big name in the early 2000s. He was at Jay-Z’s while Roc-a-Fella was at its peak and achieved commercial success while on the label. With his 2001 sophomore project, The Reason, featuring East Coast titans such as Memphis Bleek, Jay-Z and Freeway, Sigel wasn’t irrelevant.
Although Sigel never managed to reach the same heights as his Roc-a-Fella counterparts Jay-Z and Kanye West, following his departure from the now-defunct label, there was still some interest surrounding the rapper, who found himself in some near-death situations.
In 2012, Sigel (real name Dwight Grant) was sentenced to two years in prison after getting arrested for possession of drugs and firearms. However, following his release in 2014, Grant found himself in an altercation that resulted in him getting shot.
While he was incarcerated, Sigel put out his project This Time via Ruffhouse Records. However, upon his release, the Philadelphia rapper was shot twice in the back and, as a result, was left in a coma by a still-unknown gunman.
During an interview on Shade45’s Sway In The Morning radio show, Sigel was asked if he could ever forgive the gunman who shot him ten years ago. However, his answer was surprising. Disclosing to the host, Sway Calloway, that he is happy to forgive the person behind the trigger, Grant stated, “You have to. When you understand, you have to. How can you not forgive if you want forgiveness? ‘Cause there’s gonna be a time where everybody gon’ need forgiveness.”
Speaking about his faith and spirituality, Grant continues, “When you cross all the way over and you ain’t here no more, you gon’ need forgiveness from [God] or can’t nobody gon’ forgive you.”
Calloway questioned whether or not he felt an overwhelming sense of freedom after getting shot. In response, the former Roc-a-Fella rhymer stated he didn’t. However, it allowed him to become more introspective, unveiling, “I’m not gonna say that feeling goes away, but it just makes you more conscious of certain decisions. For me, what it did was it lifted the burden off of me from knowing things that I’ve done in my life. It lifted a little bit of that off of me.”
In an interview with DJ Vlad for Vlad TV, Grant unveiled that the bullet entered his back and went through his torso. Furthermore, he graphically detailed how, when he woke up in hospital, he attempted to remove a tube from his mouth and, in the process, “busted all the staples” in his stomach. There was also a partial collapse of his left lung.
Police didn’t manage to identify the shooter, but Pleasantville Police Chief Jose Ruiz stated after the incident, “Apparently, there was a struggle of some type, which led to Mr. Grant [Beanie Sigel] being shot, and that is all we have at this point.”
You can listen to Beanie Sigel speaking to Sway Calloway in the video below.
