I’ll make a song with Rick Rubin, a song with Beyonce, a song with Lenny Kravitz. I just believe in making good music. I’m not trying to section myself off into just making hard-core rap music.
JAY-ZWhat people have to understand is ‘Billboard’ is a magazine. They’re like elected officials – they work for us.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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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I’ve said the election of Obama has made the hustler less relevant. People took it in a way that I was almost dismissing what I am. And I was like, ‘No, it’s a good thing!’
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When you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.
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No, I’m not interested in politics. I have zero interest. I have interest in hope and people.
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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 far from being god, but I work god damn hard.
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I am against discrimination of any kind, but if I make snap judgments, no matter who it’s towards, aren’t I committing the same sin as someone who profiles?
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Music is the soundtrack to your life. It’s not going to go anywhere. But the way people are purchasing music has changed. It’s not the same anymore. It will never be the same.
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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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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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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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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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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 try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity.
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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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They say a midget standing on a giant’s shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.
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Biggie was the King Of New York as a rapper. There’s a lot more dangerous guys than Biggie Smalls out there, you know what I’m saying? John Gotti was way closer to King Of New York than him.
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My first album was mainly dealing with street issues, and it was ‘coded’: it was called ‘Reasonable Doubt.’ So the things I was talking about…
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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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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.
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The burden of poverty isn’t just that you don’t always have the things you need, it’s the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you’d do anything to lift that burden.
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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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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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Everyone knows I’m married; I just don’t discuss it. Because it’s a part of my life that I’d rather keep private… When your whole life is played out in front of everybody, for your sanity, you need parts that are just yours.
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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.
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The burden of poverty isn’t just that you don’t always have the things you need: it’s the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you’d do anything to lift that burden.
JAY-Z