Jay-Z Quotes
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Without the work, the magic won’t come.
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I thought I would be more inspired to have all these new feelings to talk about, but I really just want to hang out with my daughter.
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I came, I saw, I conquered From record sales to sold out concerts.
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No matter where you go you are what you are player and you can try to change but that's just the top layer man you was who you was before you got here
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I smoked some weed, and that's how I finished 'Izzo.'
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You can put a new shirt on your back, slide a fresh chain around your neck, and accumulate all the money and power in the world, but at the end of the day those are just layers. Money and power don't change you, they just further expose your true self.
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I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.
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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. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor.
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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.
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And through our travels we get separated, never forget: In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.
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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.
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Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it
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Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?
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May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's
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Be fluid. Treat each project differently. Be water, man. The best style is no style. Because styles can be figured out. And when you have no style they can't figure you out.
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The Nets' a stone throw from where I used to throw bricks ...So it's only right I'm still tossing 'round Knicks.
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Whoever said that artists shouldn't pay attention to their business was probably someone w/their hand in some artist's pocket.
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You not feeling me, fine. It costs you nothing, pay me no mind.
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I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.
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Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it's attainable. I didn't do it any other way than through hip-hop.
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I don't even like the word politics. It implies something underhanded and I think we need less government.
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When people say stuff like, "Oh, that's soft rock. I don't listen to that," I find that elitist. It's music-racist.
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For me, the challenge is just making great albums, because talent - and writing in general - is not tangible. There's no expiration date on it. At the same time, you might wake up tomorrow and be unable to write music.
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People who don't know you, you don't know their motives. They smile at you all day, "Oh, that's great. You've done it again! You're the greatest!" And that's not good for an artist.