Jay Z Music Quotes

#1. 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.

Jay-Z

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

Jay-Z

#5. 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

#6. I have periods where I listen to regular rap, Jay-Z, Eminem and Lil Wayne. The next day I might have some Christian alternative music. The next day I have on some dance music. It all varies what I listen to.

Steve Blake

#7. If I was to stop making music tomorrow doesn't mean suddenly there is this gap. You don't get elected. The people decide where you are. Whether I'm here or not, if they want you to be at the top then the people will move me out the way.

Jay-Z

#8. As I've gotten old I've really listened to a wide spectrum of music, whether it's The Carpenters, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z or Lauryn Hill. I've kinda' run the gamut, and in listening to so many different styles, you come to take bits and pieces from all of it.

Brooklyn Sudano

#9. Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

Jay-Z

#10. 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

#11. On the radio there's only a certain amount of artists: Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, T.I., Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys. Other artists are achieving things that are really special, they have a hard time getting people's attention. Music has been just a little bit lacklustre.

Q-Tip

#12. 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.

Jay-Z

#13. Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s.

Chuck D

#14. 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

#15. People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap and it's good water. But they're okay paying for it. It's just the mindset right now.

Jay-Z

#16. This game wears on you. It tears you down. It's perpetual motion for some people who've achieved a level of independence, like Madonna and Jay-Z - they don't need to do music anymore. But there's people who need it. And in that need, that's when it's tough and it tears you to pieces.

Lupe Fiasco

#17. 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

#18. I don't know if I have a 'Greatest Album Ever.' I really liked 'The Blueprint' by Jay-Z. The production on that album was really great. 'All I Need' was the first song I used for walk-on music in 2002 for my second time ever on stage, so that means a lot to me.

Hannibal Buress

#19. Speaking out against rap music is useless, and it's futile. The reality is there's criticism for everything, but Jay-Z is one of the most remarkable artists of our time of any genre, and as a hip-hop artist he carries the weight of that art form with such splendor and grace and genius.

Michael Eric Dyson

#20. I grew up listening to Jay-Z, and I think the first time I really became obsessed with learning and thinking about lyrics was when I started listening to rap; I was 11, 12, and started becoming aware of music beyond the familiar.

Ezra Koenig

#21. I remember listening to an interview with Beyonce and she talked about how she and her husband, Jay-Z, have always made it a point to have the conversation about them be about their music, not about their business, not about their personal business.

Jennifer Lopez

#22. 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

#23. Jay Z in many ways is a rock artist. In the sense that they've used hard rock, punk rock, psychedelic rock aesthetics and influences in their music. When you see Kanye West, he has a full band playing. Jay Z has a full band playing with Marshalls.

Ian Astbury

#24. In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music.

Jay-Z

#25. 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

#26. This is black superhero music right here, baby!

Jay-Z

#27. Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.

Jay-Z

#28. 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.

Jay-Z

#29. 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.

Jay-Z

#30. 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

#31. I'm a person that works off of music. I let the music dictate the direction.

Jay-Z