We wasn’t allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.
JAY-ZI was a really good student. In the sixth grade, I was reading at a twelfth grade reading level. But I got bored.
More Jay-Z Quotes
-
-
Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don’t even have to like your music. If you’re big enough, people are drawn to you.
JAY-Z -
My brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me. It’s not like running GM, where there’s no emotional attachment.
JAY-Z -
I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.
JAY-Z -
You can feel when something’s authentic, and you can feel when it’s not: you know when someone’s trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It’s none of that. It’s just my emotions.
JAY-Z -
When you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.
JAY-Z -
I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.
JAY-Z -
When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated.
JAY-Z -
When I listen to Amy Winehouse, I believe that her heart and soul is in the music, or if I listen to other British artists like Duffy or Estelle. The aesthetic of it is different, and it’s my point of view. It’s not anything formulaic.
JAY-Z -
Everyone knows I’m married; I just don’t discuss it. Because it’s a part of my life that I’d rather keep private… When your whole life is played out in front of everybody, for your sanity, you need parts that are just yours.
JAY-Z -
We have to stretch out the audience. It can’t be this narrow – we have to stretch out the point of view.
JAY-Z -
I’m just making an observation. They’re crying out for the love that maybe they didn’t get at home, and they got everything.
JAY-Z -
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice – anything just to get a paper bag. And I’d write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
JAY-Z -
Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all.
JAY-Z -
My first album was mainly dealing with street issues, and it was ‘coded’: it was called ‘Reasonable Doubt.’ So the things I was talking about…
JAY-Z -
My first album didn’t come out until I was 26.
JAY-Z






