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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.

Jay-Z

I was a really good student. In the sixth grade, I was reading at a twelfth grade reading level. But I got bored.
JAY-Z

Bore Good Grade Raed Really Six Student Twentieth
I feel like with the history of this platform, from vinyl to where we are now, it just seems like the next logical step.
JAY-Z

Feel History Like Logical Next Now Platform Step Vinyl
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.
JAY-Z

Artist Believe Celebrity Country Heart Listen Music Other People Person Soul
I’m just saying the producers and people who work on music are getting left out – that’s when it starts getting criminal. It’s like you’re working hard, and you’re not receiving. In any other business, people would be standing before Congress. They have antitrust laws against this kind of behavior.
JAY-Z

Accomplish Criminal Get Left Lost Out People Produce Say Start Transition When Work
Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all.
JAY-Z

Anything Bigger Done Failure Fear never People Success Successful
One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal.
JAY-Z

Country Deep Everyone Get Ideal Inequality One Reason Rich Want
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.
JAY-Z

Alternative Away Country Every Go Important Kid Office President
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.
JAY-Z

Come Country Cream Fire Hydrant Ice Intense Man Open People Play Pump Situation Stressful Very
I’ve always believed in good music over bad music. I believe in two sorts of musics. And the lines that separate us, I don’t believe in that. That’s for people who need to easily define what they’re hearing. Me, I’m cool with everything and anything I’m hearing that’s music. It comes under one definition for me.
JAY-Z

Always Bad Believe Good Music Over
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.
JAY-Z

Basquait Celebrity Collide Country Hand Out People Person Those Word
My first album didn’t come out until I was 26.
JAY-Z

Album Come First Out Six Twenty Until
Some people are attracted to vulnerability. From my very first album, I’ve been vulnerable. I’ve always given parts of me, parts of my life – good, bad, ugly. I’ve never put up this image as a super-thug. Also, some people just like the music.
JAY-Z

Album Always Part Attract First Life People Some Vulnerability
The average rap life is two or three albums. You’re lucky to get to your second album in rap!
JAY-Z

Album Average Life Luck Rap Second Thre Two
Poor people don’t like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank they don’t like to think of themselves as poor.
JAY-Z

might People Poor Project Surround Talk Themselves Think
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

Always Being Burden Day Embarrassment Every Feeling Life Need Poverty Thing
I’m a mirror. If you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don’t like what you see, then you’ve done something. If I’m standoffish, that’s because you are.
JAY-Z

Cool exchange Mirror Reflect See Sometimes Start

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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