Authorities say rapper Beanie Sigel is alert and in critical condition after undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound in his stomach on Friday, reports The Associated Press.

Officials say the 40-year-old rapper was shot in the abdomen outside a home in New Jersey on Friday morning around 9:20 a.m., reports NBC10 Philadelphia.

Sigel, who was named Dwight E. Grant, was shot after a fight apparently broke out outside a Jersey Shore home located at 800 block of Spruce Avenue in Pleasantville, said police. His attorney, Fortunato Perri, Jr., believes that the Philadelphia native was not the intended target.

"From the first appearance, it would appear that there was some sort of altercation next to that property," Pleasantville Police Chief Jose Ruiz said.

Perri, Jr. said Sigel had just returned home from dropping his children to school. That's when he came upon the fight near his house and was hit in the stomach by a bullet, which traveled out of his back.

"The whole thing is a tragedy," a cousin of Sigel's wife said. "It's just very sad and I just ask that everybody keep our family in prayer and that he pulls through."

Another man, identified as Umar Salahuddin, 22, was also injured during the altercation, although he was not shot, police said. He refused medical treatment and is not being cooperative with detectives, according to authorities. His family owns the home where the shooting took place. Ruiz added that there may be "some type of family relationship" between Salahuddin and the rap star.

Officials found a gray car riddled with bullet holes two blocks away from the scene. Police are also questioning a man who jumped out of the a gray Honda in connection with the shooting during a pursuit. The driver, however, fled from the vehicle.

Formerly signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, Sigel was recently released from Pennsylvania's Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill in August after serving a two-year sentence for tax evasion and drug possession.