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.
JAY-ZIf you look at my career and you look at the span of my work and the things I have done, as far as to garner fame, you’ll see that I have turned down more interviews than I do. Or I turn down more things than I do.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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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What people have to understand is ‘Billboard’ is a magazine. They’re like elected officials – they work for us.
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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.
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Primarily I see myself as so much more than a rapper. I really believe I am the voice for a lot of people who don’t have that microphone or who can’t rap.
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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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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.
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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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We wasn’t allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.
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My mom always taught me – you know, little boys listen to their moms too much – that whatever you put into something is what you’re going to get out of it.
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I’ve never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort of people.
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Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama’s running so we all can fly.
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I listen to everything – from Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette all the way down to rap like Scarface, UGK and Lauryn Hill.
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People wanted to make products based on our child’s name, and you don’t want anybody trying to benefit off your baby’s name.
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I’m going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.
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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.
JAY-Z