"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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Quote collection
Jay-Z quotes (page 6 of 10)
192 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime."
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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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"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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"Stop screamin', you know the demon said it's best to die, And even if Jehovah witness, bet he'll never testify, D'Evils."
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"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."
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"How could I be out there and not do anything?"
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"That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that."
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"Used to rock a throwback ballin on the corner, now I rock tailored suit lookin' like a owner."
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"My tears is tatted, my rag in my pocket / Im just looking for love, I know somebody got it"
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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 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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"I jack, I rob, I sin. Aw man, I'm Jackie Robinson 'Cept when I run base, I dodge the pen"
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"I get my by any means on, whenever there's a drought get your umbrellas out because that's when I brainstorm."
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"You put the right artist on the right track in the studio and leave the door open to let God in."
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"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."
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"I spring train in the winter, around early December..."
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"And now we're lethal, infected with D'Evils"
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"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."
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"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."
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