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…
JAY-ZDo you know how many athletes go broke three years after they stop playing? I want to help them hold on to their money. I mean, I know about budgets.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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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.
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It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult?
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When Basquiat was hanging out with Madonna and Fab Five Freddy, and all those worlds were colliding, people have to realize hip-hop and the arts were like this ’cause we both were outcasts.
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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’m going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.
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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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The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.
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I was never a worker. And that’s not even being arrogant. I was just never a worker.
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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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Racism 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?
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Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I’m a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?
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For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton… it’s crazy. It’s mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians – by America in general.
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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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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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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.
JAY-Z