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.
JAY-ZOne of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal.
More Jay-Z Quotes
-
-
I think that’s what happened to the record business when ‘Napster’ came around. The industry rejected what was happening instead of accepting it as change.
JAY-Z -
You can feel when something’s authentic, and you can feel when it’s not: you know when someone’s trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It’s none of that. It’s just my emotions.
JAY-Z -
I don’t know where streaming will go in the future. The analytics that we’re seeing tell us that streaming is the next thing, and downloads are going down.
JAY-Z -
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice – anything just to get a paper bag. And I’d write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
JAY-Z -
You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
JAY-Z -
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 -
I collect art, and I drink wine… things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, ‘I’m going to buy art to impress this crowd.’ That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?
JAY-Z -
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 -
My brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me. It’s not like running GM, where there’s no emotional attachment.
JAY-Z -
I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.
JAY-Z -
My first album didn’t come out until I was 26.
JAY-Z -
Blueprint 3′ is made up of songs, but it’s also a commentary on the idea that in order for rap to survive, we have to stretch out the drama.
JAY-Z -
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.
JAY-Z -
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’m just going to make the music I love to make, and I’m going to mature with my music.
JAY-Z