You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like ‘I still go to the projects.’ I’m like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it’s so cool?
JAY-ZPeople really feel like music is free but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it’s good water. But they’re OK paying for it.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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My dad was such a good dad that when he left, he left a huge scar. He was my superhero.
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I 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?’
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Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out.
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I was a really good student. In the sixth grade, I was reading at a twelfth grade reading level. But I got bored.
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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.
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As an artist, you make music. And if you see people who don’t know how to market your music, you get involved in it. Otherwise, what you want to accomplish ‘gets lost in translation’ – no pun intended.
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People really feel like music is free but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it’s good water. But they’re OK paying for it.
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Just strengthening that theme that America is a place of opportunity and hoping to inspire people to fulfill those opportunities, and to want more, and to want better, and to see the places we can go. So many people identify with me because of the place that I come from.
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For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton… it’s crazy. It’s mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians – by America in general.
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Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it’s attainable. I didn’t do it any other way than through hip-hop.
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I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn’t have anything to prove.
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I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity.
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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.
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The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.
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Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can’t.
JAY-Z