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.
JAY-ZNo one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there’s a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I’d’ve turned on to that.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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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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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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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No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there’s a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I’d’ve turned on to that.
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What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you’re getting out of the zone.’ People hate when people cross lines.
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I’ve always believed in good music over bad music. I believe in two sorts of musics. And the lines that separate us, I don’t believe in that. That’s for people who need to easily define what they’re hearing. Me, I’m cool with everything and anything I’m hearing that’s music. It comes under one definition for me.
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I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.
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You don’t have that fear. So why do you think people get stuck in those boxes? It’s that fear of going back down.
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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.
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I don’t know where streaming will go in the future. The analytics that we’re seeing tell us that streaming is the next thing, and downloads are going down.
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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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If 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.
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I think relationships are broken up because of the media.
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I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.
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We were living in a tough situation, but my mother managed; she juggled. Sometimes we’d pay the light bill, sometimes we paid the phone, sometimes the gas went off.
JAY-Z