Jay-Z Quotes
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If I don't show the world growth, how are we going to grow?
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The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!
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The fans get to see you, and you can do great by your record if you have a great performance or a great night there. That's all part of the business. But at their core, awards shows are not really a sincere thing. For a lot of years, the artists had to pay to play their own set.
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Everybody look at you strange, say you changed Like you work that hard to stay the same.
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If skills sold truth be told I'd probably be lyrically Talib Kweli Truthfully I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did five Mil) I ain't been rhyming like Common since.
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As fate would have it, Jay's status appears To be at an all-time high, perfect time to say goodbye When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5.
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May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's
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If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.
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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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You can't turn a bad girl good, but once a good girls' gone bad, she's gone forever.
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I think the consumption of music is at an all-time high. But I think the ways that record companies are trying to monetize it is just all over the place. At the end of the day, music is in the clouds. Before, you could hold it, look at it, turn it around. Now, it's just in the air.
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I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter.
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Cough up a lung where I'm from marcy son, aint nothin nice
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Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.
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As sure as this Earth is turnin, souls burnin / In search of higher learnin, turnin in every direction seeking direction / My moms cryin cause her insides are dyin / Her son tryin her patience, keep her heart racin / A million beats a minute, I know I push you to your limit / But it's this game, love—I'm caught up all in it / They make it so you can't prevent it, never give it / You gotta take it, can't fake it, I keep it authentic
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But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.
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I gave you prophecy on my first joint, and y'all lamed out Didn't really appreciate it, 'til the second one came out
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I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented. I think he's one of the most talented ones out there.
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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.
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The genius thing that we did was, we didn't give up.
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The most amazing feeling I feel Words can't describe what I'm feeling for real Maybe I paint the sky blue My greatest creation was you.
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Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.
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Put me anywhere on God's green earth, I'll triple my worth. Motherf--. I, will, not, lose.
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Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it's very hard to teach racism to a teenager who's listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It's hard to say, 'That guy is less than you.' The kid is like, 'I like that guy, he's cool. How is he less than me?