After a botched robbery nearly took his life last June, Lil Tjay has returned to the stage in Paris. The city of love was more than happy to receive him.
Just after midnight on June 22, 2022, 27-year-old Mohamed Konate approached Tjay’s red Dodge Durango in the parking lot of a Chipotle in Edgewater, New Jersey. Konate demanded jewelry before opening fire on the South Bronx rapper, his cousin Bubba Stackz and his friend Jeffrey Valdez.
Tjay survived, but barely — shot once in his neck, once in his arm and five times in his torso, with one of the bullets a mere inch away from his heart. Following a five-day coma, emergency surgery saved his life.
“Seven shots, it was tough, you know?” he told fans in an Instagram video posted 11 weeks after the incident. “Most people don’t survive it, but I’m here. Here for a reason.”
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Tjay, born Tione Jayden Merritt, was scheduled to go to Paris later that fateful night on a flight that never came to be. But this past Sunday, the “Beat the Odds” artist — the comeback single he recorded while doctors were draining blood out of his lungs — performed from his discography for hundreds.
In video footage shared on Instagram by DJ Akademiks, people are shining their phone flashlights as the young lyricist raps.
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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…”
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Since resuming his touring schedule in Europe, the father of three has received rave reviews from his Coachella and Rolling Loud Thailand sets. The rising star is quite accomplished for his age, having secured 14 platinum singles since his SoundCloud days at 16, which led to a deal with Columbia Records in 2018, Rolling Stone reported.
By 2019, the budding rapper dropped his debut, True 2 Myself, which opened at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Hit singles like “Leaked,” “Hold On,” and “Brothers” made the 15-track album go platinum.
Tjay marked his time in France with a tweet taken straight from a bar in Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “N*ggas in Paris.”
“If you escaped what I escaped, you’d be in Paris getting f*cked up too!!” he wrote.
If you escaped what I escaped,
you’d be in Paris getting fuc** up too!!
🤷🏾♂️🍻 pic.twitter.com/qIFM6FKPDg— TJAYYYY 🖤 (@liltjay) April 16, 2023
With his untitled third album set for release later this year, we can’t wait to see what’s next for one of New York’s biggest rappers.
