Excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over again. You can hit a half-court shot once. That’s just the luck of the draw. If you consistently do it… that’s excellence.
JAY-ZRacism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it’s very hard to teach racism to a teenager who’s listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It’s hard to say, ‘That guy is less than you.’ The kid is like, ‘I like that guy, he’s cool. How is he less than me?
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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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The experiences that I’ve had growing up with music, you know, I couldn’t trade them for any money in the world. Dancing in the living room to enjoy myself. ‘Enjoy Yourself,’ Michael Jackson.
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I’ve talked to Bill Clinton – he’s the ultimate rock star; no one’s more charming than him. People clap in a restaurant when he finishes dinner! I don’t get that treatment. I get it when I walk onstage, but not when I have dinner.
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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 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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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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The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value.
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I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn’t have anything to prove.
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I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about.
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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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I think relationships are broken up because of the media.
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Providing – that’s not love. Being there – that’s more important. I mean, we see that. We see that with all these rich socialites. They’re crying out for attention; they’re hurting for love. I’m not being judgmental.
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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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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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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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