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-ZThe average rap life is two or three albums. You’re lucky to get to your second album in rap!
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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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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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I don’t profess to be a political rapper, like groups such as ‘Dead Prez’ or ‘Public Enemy’, but I think social commentary should make its way into your music. Speaking on your neighbourhood is social commentary – what happens, what’s going on.
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As kids, we didn’t complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could.
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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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Everyone’s supposed to stay in their lines and be neat. ‘You’re a rapper. You’re supposed to rap, carry a boom box, wear chains, and go to the club – that’s all you do. What are you doing collecting art?
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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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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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I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam’s fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.
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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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The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value.
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When you have a reputation for making not only good songs but great albums, that in itself creates added artistic pressure. But, at the end of the day, I guess that pressure is something I welcome.
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I feel like with the history of this platform, from vinyl to where we are now, it just seems like the next logical step.
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Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely.
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My dad was such a good dad that when he left, he left a huge scar. He was my superhero.
JAY-Z