387 Quotes by Jay-Z

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.

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

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.

I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!

The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, nigga, bitch, motherfucker, and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It's all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or a nigga and then they run off yelling "See!" and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about.

I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!

You know the type: loud as a motorbike but wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.

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

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