It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult?
JAY-ZOne of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to… because I was looking for a deal. I didn’t have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.
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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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When you’re accustomed to wealth, you don’t show it, right? That’s why the white kids in school could wear bummy sneakers; it’s almost like, ‘Don’t show wealth – that’s crass.’
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I think relationships are broken up because of the media.
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I think that’s what happened to the record business when ‘Napster’ came around. The industry rejected what was happening instead of accepting it as change.
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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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I’ve got a nice collection of paintings – a Basquiat, a black-and-white Warhol that’s like a Rorschach test, and I commissioned Takashi Murakami to do a ten-foot joint for me. It’s almost like the explosion in Hiroshima with his famous skeleton head. There’s a wall above my fireplace reserved for it.
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Rap for me is like making movies, telling stories, and getting the emotions of the songs through in just as deep a way.
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The average rap life is two or three albums. You’re lucky to get to your second album in rap!
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People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It’s worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.
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I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity.
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It wasn’t until sixth grade, at P.S. 168, when my teacher took us on a field trip to her house that I realized we were poor.
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Poor people don’t like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank they don’t like to think of themselves as poor.
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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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Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.
JAY-Z