Top 285 Quotes & Sayings by Jay-Z - Page 2

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.

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.

I remember the first time I saw the 'Sugarhill Gang' on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, 'What's going on? How did those guys get on national TV?' And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.

If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying and are going to buy into what I'm doing. Not because it's the new thing of the moment, but because it's genuine emotion. Its how I feel. This is how I articulate the world.

With rap, you go in the studio, you make music, you put the music out, then all of a sudden, you're a star: you have a big record on the radio, and you're on stage, and you've never done it before. Let's say your first show is 'Summer Jam,' and you're in front of 60,000 people, and you've never played an arena, ever. You're gonna suck.

I don't sit around with my friends and talk about money, ever. On a record, that's different.

Music is everywhere - you consume it every day, everywhere you go. The content creator should be compensated. It's only fair.

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. 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.

I'll make a song with Rick Rubin, a song with Beyonce, a song with Lenny Kravitz. I just believe in making good music. I'm not trying to section myself off into just making hard-core rap music.

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.

The experiences that I've had growing up with music, you know, I couldn't trade them for any money in the world. Dancing in the living room to enjoy myself. 'Enjoy Yourself,' Michael Jackson.

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.

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.

Nothing me and Kanye can do musically was gonna match the event of what we were trying to do. So we were trying to deliver an album and experience at one time; that was the idea for 'Watch The Throne'.

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.

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.

I'm just going to make the music I love to make, and I'm going to mature with my music.

People wanted to make products based on our child's name, and you don't want anybody trying to benefit off your baby's name.

I listen to everything - from Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette all the way down to rap like Scarface, UGK and Lauryn Hill.

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.

That was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off, to convince artists that you can't be an artist and make money. I think the people that were making the millions said that. It was almost shameful, especially in rock n' roll.

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.

Everyone knows I'm married; I just don't discuss it. Because it's a part of my life that I'd rather keep private... When your whole life is played out in front of everybody, for your sanity, you need parts that are just yours.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

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.

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.

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

Obama provides hope. Whether he does anything, the hope that he provides for a nation and outside of America is enough. Just being who he is. You're the first black president. If he speaks on any issue or anything, he should be left alone.

If you look at my career and you look at the span of my work and the things I have done, as far as to garner fame, you'll see that I have turned down more interviews than I do. Or I turn down more things than I do.

People really feel like music is free but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it's good water. But they're OK paying for it.

Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King, because his 'I Have A Dream' speech was realized when Obama was elected into office.

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.

No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there's a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I'd've turned on to that.

I learned to ride a ten-speed when I was 4 or 5. My uncle gave me the bike, hand-me-down, and everyone used to stare at me riding up and down this block. I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten-speed.

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.

Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist can't think about money as well. Just so long as you separate the two and you're not making music with business in mind. At some point, it has to be real when they touch it, when they listen to it. Something has to resonate with them that's real.

I've said the election of Obama has made the hustler less relevant. People took it in a way that I was almost dismissing what I am. And I was like, 'No, it's a good thing!'

Growing up where I grew up, we looked to athletes. They were our first heroes. They came from the same places we came from. I mean, you can't watch TV and see someone who is successful that you can really relate to. That person isn't real; he doesn't exist. But athletes traveled the world, had these big houses and gave their families a better life.

Primarily I see myself as so much more than a rapper. I really believe I am the voice for a lot of people who don't have that microphone or who can't rap.

The challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value.

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... I was talking about in slang, and it was something that people in the music business was not really privy to. They didn't understand totally what I was saying or what I was talking about.

I never wanted to just glamorize the playa lifestyle and not touch on the down side. I wanted everyone who's in a desperate situation to know that, if they wanna choose that kinda lifestyle, they gotta be aware of everything that comes with it! It's not just about the cars, the ladies and the money.

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.

I was never a worker. And that's not even being arrogant. I was just never a worker.

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: we wasn't allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.

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.

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.

Companies that pretend to care about music and really care about other things - whether it be hardware, whether it be advertising - and now they look at music as a loss leader. And we know music isn't a loss leader; music is an important part of our lives.

Do 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.

I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I've always had to manage both. I couldn't get a record deal. It wasn't by choice - I couldn't get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.

New York - I'm connected. This is my core. I feel like if I'm not connected to New York, then I don't even know what to do with myself.

My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.

When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated.

I've talked to Bill Clinton - he's the ultimate rock star; no one's more charming than him. People clap in a restaurant when he finishes dinner! I don't get that treatment. I get it when I walk onstage, but not when I have dinner.

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. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.

The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!

My mom had early rap records, like Jimmy Spicer. In the middle of the records was a turntable and a receiver - I used to scratch records on it - and on top was a reel-to-reel. In front of that wall were more stacks of records. It was either Mom's record or Pop's record, and they had their names on each and every one.

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.

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.