Do you know how many athletes go broke three years after they stop playing? I want to help them hold on to their money. I mean, I know about budgets.
JAY-ZI don’t think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller – I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, ‘You used to rap; what happened?’
More Jay-Z Quotes
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I think relationships are broken up because of the media.
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I learned to ride a ten-speed when I was 4 or 5. My uncle gave me the bike, hand-me-down, and everyone used to stare at me riding up and down this block. I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten-speed.
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Nothing me and Kanye can do musically was gonna match the event of what we were trying to do. So we were trying to deliver an album and experience at one time; that was the idea for ‘Watch The Throne’.
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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.
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My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to ‘Roc-A-Wear’. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of ‘Roc-A-Fella’ records, which lead to Def Jam.
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Music is the soundtrack to your life. It’s not going to go anywhere. But the way people are purchasing music has changed. It’s not the same anymore. It will never be the same.
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I collect art, and I drink wine… things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, ‘I’m going to buy art to impress this crowd.’ That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?
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I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I’ve always had to manage both. I couldn’t get a record deal. It wasn’t by choice – I couldn’t get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.
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I think reviews have lost a lot of their importance now because of the Internet; everyone is experiencing things at the same time.
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My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I’m feeling at the time, whatever direction I’m heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.
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The burden of poverty isn’t just that you don’t always have the things you need, it’s the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you’d do anything to lift that burden.
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New York – I’m connected. This is my core. I feel like if I’m not connected to New York, then I don’t even know what to do with myself.
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Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely.
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Religion is like a personal computer. You let people in if you want to… We’re all gods.
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By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn’t need pen or paper – my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.
JAY-Z