A Quote by Jay-Z

I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn't have anything to prove. — © Jay-Z
I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn't have anything to prove.
I feel like I wasn't making music that meant anything to me until I was 26 years old, so I'm realizing that sometimes it takes three years or five years to understand what the point of even making music together is.
Music is what is going to save me," "On the bad days, when I have to look at the cold, hard facts of life, I see that this is not the music business I came up in and I have to be very, very objective and detached and say, 'what's good about it and what's bad about it?' Mostly, I'm finding it good that it's not the same old music business, because the music business I came up in really didn't advance anything I was doing, and I don't think it was particularly kind to a lot of artists.
At age 26, I was chairman of UB Group but living like a 26-year-old. I lived my age. Which youngster doesn't like a Ferrari? Which youngster doesn't like a good time?... but my contemporaries were R. S. Goenka and Dhirubhai Ambani, captains of the industry but twice my age. You wouldn't necessarily expect them to be driving around in Ferraris.
I came to music and knowing a little bit about life, and I came to music knowing a lot about business - and that's a real advantage. By the time I came to music, I had purchased real estate, opened restaurants, and been in the business world, so the music business didn't blindside me.
I spent 26 years watching my dad, and I didn't know anything about the business until I started myself.
The body is most fully developed from thirty to thirty-five years of age, the mind at about forty-nine.
One of the good elements of old age is that we no longer have to prove anything, to ourselves or to anyone else. We are what we are.
There came a point when I was thinking, 'I'm now 26, 27, working on music every day, but I'm not making, like, a lot of money. What's happening? I guess I'll just start making dog clothes.'
When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity.
My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all.
Of course, anybody's who's 26 years old will probably say, "Of course the old guy would say that." But wait until you're 45 or 46 years old. See how you feel about it then.
I never knew anything other than wanting to be an entrepreneur. I tried my first business when I was 6 years old, and I started another business when I was 8. I don't think I knew anything besides that.
Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I'm an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I've got out there, I can't be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff.
I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
When I was 26, 27 years old I was running a kitchen in New York, and I was a raving lunatic. The older you get, you figure out you don't need to do that. You realize at a certain point, there's a certain gravity to what you say and what you do. If that's not enough, all the yelling in the world is not going to matter.
I didn't fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.
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