Grammy winning rapper Jay-Z arrested for gun possession

Grammy winning rapper Jay-Z was arrested for illegal gun possession near a Manhattan nightclub earlier today, police have said.

The rapper, real name Shawn Carter, was arrested with three other men shortly after 3am (0800 GMT) when a loaded handgun was found in their car, said a police spokeswoman.

Undercover officers said they saw a man armed with a gun getting into the car outside Club Exit in the Hells Kitchen neighbourhood on the West Side. It was not known which man had been carrying the gun.

Police stopped the car less than a block away and found the gun.

The four passengers were charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Along with Carter, aged 31, police arrested Hamzah Hewitt, aged 39, Romero Chambers, aged 43, and Tyran Smith, aged 28. The four were scheduled to be arraigned later today.

This arrest is not Carter’s first run-in with the law. He was indicted last January for allegedly stabbing a record executive during a nightclub brawl.

The rapper’s ‘‘Vol. 2 ... Hard Knock Life’’ won the Grammy for best rap album in 1999.

The arrest comes less than a month after a jury acquitted rap mogul Sean ‘‘Puffy’’ Combs and his bodyguard, Anthony ‘‘Wolf’’ Jones, of gun possession and bribery charges after a shooting inside another New York nightclub on Dec 27, 1999 in which three people were injured.