387 Quotes by Jay-Z

I've said the election of Obama has made the hustler less relevant. People took it in a way that I was almost dismissing what I am. And I was like, 'No, it's a good thing!'

Excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over again. You can hit a half-court shot once. That's just the luck of the draw. If you consistently do it... that's excellence.

I came into this music business at 26 years old. I was a fully developed man at that point. At that age, I didn't have anything to prove.

Primarily I see myself as so much more than a rapper. I really believe I am the voice for a lot of people who don't have that microphone or who can't rap.

My passion is music, you know, and music influences culture, influences lifestyle, which leads me to 'Roc-A-Wear'. I was forced to be an entrepreneur, so that led me to be CEO of 'Roc-A-Fella' records, which lead to Def Jam.

My mom always taught me - you know, little boys listen to their moms too much - that whatever you put into something is what you're going to get out of it.

If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying and are going to buy into what I'm doing. Not because it's the new thing of the moment, but because it's genuine emotion. Its how I feel. This is how I articulate the world.

I didn't go to many movies. My mom would make a family outing and bring chicken in the theater. Smell up the whole place. The most impactful movies were 'Godfather II' and 'Scarface'. I loved the human complexity, and those movies are so well shot. Cinematic greatness. I really stopped going in my early twenties.

I don't know where streaming will go in the future. The analytics that we're seeing tell us that streaming is the next thing, and downloads are going down. I feel like with the history of this platform, from vinyl to where we are now, it just seems like the next logical step.