A Quote by Jay-Z

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'.
There is so much good music from our scene in the U.K., and I'm happy I'm part of that movement. For a long time, we were trying to do what the Americans were doing, we were trying to do what the pop stars from England were doing, and we just didn't understand.
When you watch TV, I didn't know black people were that happy. I had no idea they were that happy. I'm trying to find them.
If you look at the other singers of Billie Holiday's time, they were really trying to entertain. They were trying to make people feel good. They were singing fast - and she was singing the blues.
It's not difficult to move forward when you have nothing to lose. Right? At the time, I had nothing to lose. So, even when people were trying to degrade me, I couldn't let them take the only thing I had, which was my dream. I had to move forward and, thank God, I kept trying.
When we were doing noisier shows, they were fun, but we were trying to be really obnoxious and it wasn't like we were trying to make good music. I mean, I'm happier when we have smoothed out a little bit. I think that the spirit of the noise and experimental stuff is still there, but it's easier to do when you're a freshman in college.
I never liked the atmosphere of Washington . I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in.
I saw. I wanted to start my own store so people would know that what they were buying was real. There were bootlegs around at the time that had my name on the cover, but the music had nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to compare myself to [Jimmie] Hendrix, but back in the '70s, there were some Hendrix bootlegs.
I remember, one time my friend and I were trying to get back on the tender of a boat we were staying on, but there were so many paparazzi we couldn't find it. So now there are all these pictures of me going, 'Where are you?' and just a billion paparazzi not letting me on.
The most trying moments in human experience were those in which there was nothing to be done except to wait.
Because of the dynamics on the picket line all my life, I had these expectations of people. It was all the things that I had learned about outsiders from the time I was tiny, that they were evil, that if they were being nice to me they were trying to seduce me away from the truth.
It was really tough back then in Croatia to watch the NBA games because we were not that powerful of a country. They didn't even show the games on TV. So we were always trying to find someway to watch the games, especially the Finals.
I work with a bunch of producers on every album, but the difference for 'Evolver' was that I couldn't get any time with Kanye. I forget what he was doing at the time, but he was all over the place. We were never at the same city at the same time.
Long before Donald Trump came down the escalator, Kanye West was public enemy No. 1 for simply trying to tell the truth to people about things that were going on, so I'm unsurprised that he supports me and my ideas and me just thinking freely.
A band's first album's usually not great. When you made the first album, you had a day job and you were still trying to be serious about it.
People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.
I love 'Watch the Throne,' because Kanye was acting so ratchet.
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