I was never a worker. And that’s not even being arrogant. I was just never a worker.
JAY-ZI 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.
More Jay-Z Quotes
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Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out.
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That’s why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club.
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As an artist, you make music. And if you see people who don’t know how to market your music, you get involved in it. Otherwise, what you want to accomplish ‘gets lost in translation’ – no pun intended.
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One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal.
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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.
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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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Just strengthening that theme that America is a place of opportunity and hoping to inspire people to fulfill those opportunities, and to want more, and to want better, and to see the places we can go. So many people identify with me because of the place that I come from.
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What people have to understand is ‘Billboard’ is a magazine. They’re like elected officials – they work for us.
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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…
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No, I’m not interested in politics. I have zero interest. I have interest in hope and people.
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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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When you’re accustomed to wealth, you don’t show it, right? That’s why the white kids in school could wear bummy sneakers; it’s almost like, ‘Don’t show wealth – that’s crass.’
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Music is everywhere – you consume it every day, everywhere you go. The content creator should be compensated. It’s only fair.
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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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I don’t think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller – I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, ‘You used to rap; what happened?’
JAY-Z