A Quote by Jay-Z
I noticed that difference early on, like if you were successful in rock 'n' roll, that was a really bad thing, you almost had to hide it. You had these guys selling 200 million records with dirty T-shirts on. I was like, 'Come on, man. Come on. We know you're successful.' Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
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Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
For us, selling a million records in 2005 is the equivalent of selling 2 to 3 million records (five years ago). Rock records aren't flying off the shelves like they used to. Hip-hop and pop are so huge. (But) everything's on the upswing for us.
In this time, we incorporate money and media, and it's split up like apartheid, where when you say "hip-hop," you think just rap records. People might have forgot about all the other elements in hip-hop. Now we're back out there again, trying to get people back to the fifth element, the knowledge. To know to respect the whole culture, especially to you radio stations that claim to be hip-hop and you're not, because if you was a hip-hop radio station, why do you just play one aspect of hip-hop and rap, which is gangsta rap?
I do hip-hop music, and I've gotten famous off of hip-hop music, and I know that I'm successful, and I've created my own definition of success, what success means to me. So the hip-hop world is all just really fake to me.
When hip-hop was new and raw, it was all about being an MC. You wanted to be respected as a lyricist. But as the years passed and hip-hop became big business, hip-hop became like country, rock and pop. And so you now have people who write the songs for rappers.
You have a lot of educating to do hip-hop wise in Europe. When you tour, when you go out there, most of the people that come see you at the venue listen to a lot of different kinds of music, not only hip-hop; they're not heads. From time to time you're going to do a little concert in front of three or four hundred people that are only hip-hop heads and they're going to understand and know all about the gimmicks and the swagger but the rest of the people are just regular European people that listen to pop [or] rock & roll.
I obviously appreciate all the fans I gained from my band, but there weren't enough of them to make me a very successful artist. To me, being successful is selling a lot of records and selling out big venues on tour, and it's not up to anyone else to decide what success is for me.
There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?
I think one of the reasons I've had success in hip-hop is that I can bring out vulnerability in people who are generally seen as tough guys. To me, when a hip-hop musician always plays tough, I find it annoying because I know they're not really like that - there's something deeper and vulnerable. There has to be, because they're human beings.
I've sold a lot of records. I've sold, like, 150 million records, and I don't think I've had that many good reviews. It's one of those things that when you're really successful, critics hate you just because you're successful.
No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star.
Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.
My mother's records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn't hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n' roll - so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.
Man, I feel like hip-hop is - first of all, not even only with just GOOD Music, I gotta say - I think hip-hop is still alive in a strong way, man. I feel really enthused about hip-hop.
I love hip-hop music, ... It's rebel music is how I like to speak about it. Hip-hop and reggae come from the same community as far as class...they both come from the bottom of society.
Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.
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