Top 100 Jay-Z Quotes
#1. Don't tell me what was said about me. Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.
Jay-Z
#2. I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam's fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.
Jay-Z
#3. I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!
Jay-Z
#4. We create music to express ourselves and when the world relates, that's a beautiful thing. We're all trading off each other's culture, so no matter what lines you put-country indie rock, rap, we're all somehow gonna find a way to come together.
Jay-Z
#5. I'm a person that works off of music. I let the music dictate the direction.
Jay-Z
#6. We'll have a baby who stutters repeatedly We'll name him history
Jay-Z
#7. I'm trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way, taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.
Jay-Z
#8. Cough up a lung where I'm from marcy son, aint nothin nice
Jay-Z
#9. I love that because that's what I'm supposed to be doing - whether it's accepted b everybody or not. I'm supposed to be pushing that envelope and trying new things. And people are supposed to say, Hov, you might have went too far.
Jay-Z
#10. Electing a black man named Barack Obama President in the same country that elected George W. Bush - twice! - is as far-fetched as a hustler from Marcy performing at that President's inauguration. But it happened.
Jay-Z
#11. I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!
Jay-Z
#12. Niggas pray and pray on my downfall, But every time I hit the ground I bounce up like round ball
Jay-Z
#13. You ain't gotta go to church to find your God.
Jay-Z
#14. The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!
Jay-Z
#15. When you listen to an album, it shouldn't feel like, "That's the girl song," "That's the club song." I shouldn't know what you're thinking while you're making the song. I don't want to know what the artist is thinking.
Jay-Z
#16. 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.
Jay-Z
#17. We give violent movies a pass but come down hard on a rapper like Scarface, who is ultimately a storyteller just like Brian de Palma. And neither of them is responsible for the poverty and violence that really do shape people's lives
not to mention their individual choices.
Jay-Z
#18. I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.
Jay-Z
#19. All these ways we classify things as R&B and hip-hop and rock ... It's bullshit. It's all music. If you put yourself in that box, then you won't be able to hear that it's all music at its soul.
Jay-Z
#20. I believe you can speak things into existence.
Jay-Z
#21. You not feeling me, fine. It costs you nothing, pay me no mind..
Jay-Z
#22. They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.
Jay-Z
#23. On the night he died - he was twenty-seven - Basquiat had been planning to see a Run-DMC show. When people asked him what his art was about, he'd hit them with the same three words: Royalty, heroism, and the streets.
Jay-Z
#24. The genius thing that we did was, we didn't give up.
Jay-Z
#25. I got this black chick, she don't know how to act
Always talkin' out her neck, makin' her fingers snap
She like, Listen Jigga Man, I don't care if you rap
You better - R-E-S-P-E-C-T me
Jay-Z
#26. I'm not afraid of dying I'm afraid of not trying
Jay-Z
#27. Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.
Jay-Z
#28. Everything evens up, you just wait, Even a garbage can gets a steak, You ain't even a garbage can, you have faith!
Jay-Z
#29. This is black superhero music right here, baby!
Jay-Z
#30. Treat my first like my last and the last like my first and my thirst is the same as- when I came.
Jay-Z
#31. Put me anywhere on God's green earth, I'll triple my worth.
Motherf
. I, will, not, lose.
Jay-Z
#32. I'm not saying I'm God. But as far as lyrics, I'm God MC.
Jay-Z
#33. What people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love. That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination, plain and simple
Jay-Z
#34. I never ask for nothin' I don't demand of myself. Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
Jay-Z
#35. I collect art, and I drink wine ... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?
Jay-Z
#36. Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.
Jay-Z
#37. May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's
Jay-Z
#38. 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.
Jay-Z
#39. Can I hit it in the morning with out giving you have of my dough?
Jay-Z
#40. 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.
Jay-Z
#41. It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.
Jay-Z
#42. You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can't falter. You can't slip. You can't sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.
Jay-Z
#43. I use a lot of double meanings. I hide 'em like Easter eggs.
Jay-Z
#44. Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.
Jay-Z
#45. I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.
Jay-Z
#46. 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.
Jay-Z
#47. You can pay for school, but you can't buy class
Jay-Z
#48. I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
Jay-Z
#49. Their gunnin' for me, want to see me fall, you know my story, been through it all, times I felt like dyin', but I ain't cryin', what didn't kill me, makes me strong as iron.
Jay-Z
#50. Remind your self. Nobody constructed like you, you style your self.
Jay-Z
#51. As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.
Jay-Z
#52. I ain't lookin' at you dudes -I'm lookin' past you.
Jay-Z
#53. When I listen to great music, the first thing I wonder is what people were saying when this came out of the speakers in the studio. I want to know what happened when they played it and said, "This is the one!"
Jay-Z
#54. My brands are an extension of me. They're close to me. It's not like running GM, where there's no emotional attachment.
Jay-Z
#55. Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky.
Jay-Z
#56. Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.
Jay-Z
#57. If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be
Lyrically, Talib Kweli
Truthfully, I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did 5 mill' - I ain't been rhyming like Common since.
Jay-Z
#58. Either love me or leave me alone.
- jay-z
Jay-Z
#59. Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?
Jay-Z
#60. Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.
Jay-Z
#61. My tears is tatted, my rag in my pocket / Im just looking for love, I know somebody got it
Jay-Z
#62. When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated.
Jay-Z
#63. The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden.
Jay-Z
#64. Hip-hop is a perfect mix between poetry and boxing.
Jay-Z
#65. 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.
Jay-Z
#66. When people say stuff like, "Oh, that's soft rock. I don't listen to that," I find that elitist. It's music-racist.
Jay-Z
#67. Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
Jay-Z
#68. Is to have had and lost/Better than not having at all?
Jay-Z
#69. 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.
Jay-Z
#70. I think relationships are broken up because of the media.
Jay-Z
#71. I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are.
Jay-Z
#72. By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn't need pen or paper - my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.
Jay-Z
#73. You know the type: loud as a motorbike but wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.
Jay-Z
#74. Driving Benzes with no benefits, not bad huh, for some immigrants
Jay-Z
#75. I'd rather die enormous than live dormant.
Jay-Z
#76. I keep my enemies close/ I give 'em enough rope/ They put themselves in the air/ I just kick away the chair.
Jay-Z
#77. Everybody can tell you how to do it but they never done it
Jay-Z
#78. Stop screamin', you know the demon said it's best to die,
And even if Jehovah witness, bet he'll never testify, D'Evils ...
Jay-Z
#79. I pimp hard on a trick, look / Fuck if ya leg broke, bitch - hop up on ya good foot
Jay-Z
#80. 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.
Jay-Z
#81. 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.
Jay-Z
#82. The day Obama got elected, the gangsta became less relevant.
Jay-Z
#83. And through our travels we get separated, never forget:
In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.
Jay-Z
#84. I really just like breaking down the barriers, whether it means doing an album with Linkin Park, an album with R. Kelly, or playing at the Brandenburg Gate with Bono.
Jay-Z
#85. You learn more in failure than you ever do in success
Jay-Z
#86. I smoked some weed, and that's how I finished 'Izzo.'
Jay-Z
#87. Don't make decisions based on the fear.
Jay-Z
#88. It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.
Jay-Z
#89. Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because if you haven't been successful, then you don't know how it feels to lose it all.
Jay-Z
#90. Now success was like lust, she's good to the touch,
She's good for the moment, but she's never enough
Jay-Z
#91. We change people through conversation, not through censorship.
Jay-Z
#92. 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?
Jay-Z
#93. You can't turn a bad girl good, but once a good girls' gone bad, she's gone forever.
Jay-Z
#94. You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.
Jay-Z
#95. A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
Jay-Z
#96. It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself
and that's essential for any artist, I think.
Jay-Z
#97. I've never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort of people. I've always wanted to stay true to myself, and I've managed to do that. People have to accept that.
Jay-Z
#98. 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.
Jay-Z
#99. Used to rock a throwback ballin on the corner, now I rock tailored suit lookin' like a owner.
Jay-Z
#100. I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars
Jay-Z
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