Top 120 Jay-Z Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “I get my by any means on, whenever there’s a drought get your umbrellas out because that’s when I brainstorm.”

— Jay-Z

53. “We change people through conversation, not through censorship.”

— Jay-Z

54. “We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.”

— Jay-Z

55. “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

56. “Cough up a lung where I’m from marcy son, aint nothin nice.”

— Jay-Z

57. “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

58. “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

59. “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

60. “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

61. “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

62. “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

63. “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

64. “If I don’t show the world growth, how are we going to grow?”

— Jay-Z

65. “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

66. “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

67. “Can I hit it in the morning with out giving you have of my dough?”

— Jay-Z

68. “In trouble waters I had to learn how to float.”

— Jay-Z

69. “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.”

— Jay-Z

70. “I’m like a dog. I never speak but I understand.”

— Jay-Z

71. “If you want the old me, go buy my old albums.”

— Jay-Z

72. “No matter where you go, you are what you are playa.”

— Jay-Z

73. “You put the right artist on the right track in the studio and leave the door open to let God in.”

— Jay-Z

74. “I’m gonna fight, and I’m gonna make something out of nothing. That’s pretty much the American dream. So, for me, the realization that I could speak to people like that came first on a small scale. Then it just started happening. I started having this vibration.”

— Jay-Z

75. “I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars.”

— Jay-Z

76. “I spring train in the winter, around early December...”

— Jay-Z

77. “There’s the gift, there’s the spirit, and there’s the work-all three have to come together. If one of those things is off, it can stop you from becoming who you were meant to be.”

— Jay-Z

78. “Got some, dirt on my shoulder, could you brush it off for me?”

— Jay-Z

79. “And now we’re lethal, infected with D’Evils.”

— Jay-Z

80. “The day Obama got elected, the gangsta became less relevant.”

— Jay-Z

81. “I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.”

— Jay-Z

82. “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

83. “Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don’t bother trying to get it. The problem isn’t in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don’t even know how to listen to the music.”

— Jay-Z

84. “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

85. “So many people that I’ve seen can’t get clean water. It’s a crime.”

— Jay-Z

86. “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

87. “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

88. “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

89. “Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn’t require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.”

— Jay-Z

90. “I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.”

— Jay-Z

91. “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.”

— Jay-Z

92. “I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented. I think he’s one of the most talented ones out there.”

— Jay-Z

93. “I had success. I had a number one record. I had a number one album. I have to make this kind of record again or else I’m going to lose it all. That’s how you end up making the same song over and over.”

— Jay-Z

94. “No one’s walking around here perfect. Everyone’s gonna make mistakes. That’s part of how you learn.”

— Jay-Z

95. “You ain’t gotta go to church to find your God.”

— Jay-Z

96. “Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.”

— Jay-Z

97. “Everyone needs a chance to evolve.”

— Jay-Z

98. “Your future is ahead of you. Imagine the notion of the past fifteen years of your life being a blip in your story.”

— Jay-Z

99. “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

100. “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