I treat people based on who they really are, not the name. Everyone has to be respectful and be a human being. No one’s above… That’s how I carry it with anybody.
JAY-ZIt was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we’d play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we’d play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.
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I know I’m a different person. But nothing can erase that era, those times, those memories, those fights to get ‘Roc-A-fella’ where it was.
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I’m just making an observation. They’re crying out for the love that maybe they didn’t get at home, and they got everything.
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Companies that pretend to care about music and really care about other things – whether it be hardware, whether it be advertising – and now they look at music as a loss leader. And we know music isn’t a loss leader; music is an important part of our lives.
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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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My brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me. It’s not like running GM, where there’s no emotional attachment.
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If your dad died before you were born, yeah, it hurts – but it’s not like you had a connection with something that was real. Not to say it’s any better – but to have that connection and then have it ripped away was, like, the worst.
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If just the presence of Tidal causes other companies to have better pay structure or to pay more attention to it moving forward, then we’ve been successful in one way. So we don’t really view them as competitors. As the tide rises, all the boats rise.
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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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We wasn’t allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.
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I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, ‘Rap is a young man’s game,’ and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don’t know the slang – it changes every day, and you’re just visiting. So you’re trying to be something you’re not, and the audience doesn’t buy into that.
JAY-Z






