Shawn Corey Carter, known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and record executive. He is not only one of the most successful rappers but also a successful entrepreneur. Famous Jay-Z quotes will encourage you to achieve your dreams, be yourself and make you mentally stronger on your way to success and happiness.
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Let’s dive into my favorite Jay-Z quotes about hustling, life, love, family, money and much more.
Best Jay-Z Quotes
I’m not a ‘Business-Man’! I’m a Business… man! Let me handle my business, damn! – Jay-Z
Remind yourself, nobody’s built like you. You design yourself. – Jay-Z
I’m far from being god, but I work god damn hard. – Jay-Z
I’d rather die enormous than live dormant. – Jay-Z
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
All I got is dreams. Nobody else believes. Nobody else can see. Nobody else but me. – Jay-Z
We change people through conversation, not through censorship. – Jay-Z
Jealousy is a weak emotion. – Jay-Z
Only God can judge me, so I’m gone, either love me or leave me alone. – Jay-Z
I’m a mirror. If you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don’t like what you see, then you’ve done something. If I’m standoffish, that’s because you are. – Jay-Z
I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of not trying. – Jay-Z
I believe that the energy you put out in the world; you get back. – Jay-Z
Life is all there is. And if that’s true, then we have to really live it — we have to take it for everything it has and “die enormous” instead of “living dormant. – Jay-Z
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
I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me. – Jay-Z
Those who are successful overcome their fears and take action. Those who aren’t submit to their fears and live with regrets. – Jay-Z
I believe everyone in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at, and you can do anything in the world. – Jay-Z
You can pay for school, but you can’t buy class. – Jay-Z
I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me. – Jay-Z
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
Some said, ‘how’d you fly?’ I said from not being afraid of trying to fly. – Jay-Z
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. – Jay-Z
They talk. We live. Who cares what they say? – Jay-Z
I believe you can speak things into existence. – Jay-Z
May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows. – Jay-Z
We all have the same fear, the fear of failure. We all have the fear of failure…as someone successful the weight of all that you’ve done is on you. – Jay-Z
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
Everyone needs a chance to evolve. – Jay-Z
The responsibility is to keep pushing it forward, and not relying on the same old gimmicks. You have to push it forward. – Jay-Z
I think relationships are broken up because of the media. – Jay-Z
Do things that are true to you. Most things that I’m involved with is being creative and things that I like. Get involved with things that you love and be sure to have a standard and integrity with what you’re doing. – Jay-Z
Next time you see the homie and his rims spinnin’, just know my mind is workin’ just like them…the rims that is. – Jay-Z
Told me don’t wait on nobody, go get your own, so it’s me, myself, and my Microphone. – Jay-Z
Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all. – Jay-Z
Only thing that’s on my mind, is who’s gonna run this town tonight. – Jay-Z
Truth is you don’t need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you. – Jay-Z
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Inspirational Jay-Z Quotes about Life, Hustle and Success
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
I’m a hustler baby; I sell water to a well. – Jay-Z
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
Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow. – Jay-Z
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. – Jay-Z
I’m feeling like the worlds against me Lord, call me crazy, cuz strangely I love the odds – they gunning for me, they want to see me fall, they know my story, I been through it all, nights I felt like dying, but I ain’t crying, what didn’t kill me, made me strong as I am. I am. I am. – Jay-Z
You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like ‘I still go to the projects.’ I’m like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it’s so cool? – Jay-Z
I collect art, and I drink wine… things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, ‘I’m going to buy art to impress this crowd.’ That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself? – Jay-Z
When you’re growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you’ve let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again. – Jay-Z
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
I went through hell, I’m expecting heaven. – Jay-Z
One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That’s the American ideal. Poor people don’t like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don’t like to think of themselves as poor. – Jay-Z
You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip, you can’t sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever. – Jay-Z
There are 2 possibilities: 1 is that there’s more to life than the physical life, that our souls ‘will find and even higher place to dwell’ when this life is over. It that’s true, there’s no reason to fear failure or death. The other possibility is that this life is all there is. And if that’s true, then we have to really live it- we have to take it for everything it has and ‘die enormous’ instead of ‘living dormant’, as I said way back on ‘can I live’. Either way, fear is a waste of time. – Jay-Z
Life is for living, not living uptight. See ya somewhere up in the sky. – Jay-Z
Don’t tell me what was said about me… Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you. – Jay-Z
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
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Famous Jay-Z Quotes on Happiness, Love and Hope
A wise man told me don’t argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can’t tell who is who. – Jay-Z
I try to work with brands that have some sort of partnerships there. I don’t do one off deals but try to work on partnerships as opposed to one off endorsement deals. – Jay-Z
I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over. – Jay-Z
Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week. – Jay-Z
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
If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow. – Jay-Z
A wise man once told me luck isn’t some mystical energy that dances around the universe randomly bestowing people with satisfaction and joy, you create your own luck. – Jay-Z
When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in this environment and how her life changed. It immediately resonated. – Jay-Z
The more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make ’relieving’ the suffering of the addicts. – Jay-Z
The truth about talent is first, that it’s G-d Given. When you want to unleash that talent, your mind lets it go. Because it’s there. You have to have that belief that when you draw from that well of talent that it’s going to be there. – Jay-Z
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
People look at you strange, say you changed. Like you worked that hard to stay the same. – Jay-Z
Rap for me is like making movies, telling stories, and getting the emotions of the songs through in just as deep a way. And I grew up in rap and movies the same way. – Jay-Z
Money and power don’t change you; they just further expose your true self. – Jay-Z
I’m like a dog. I never speak, but I understand. – Jay-Z
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
You learn more in failure than you ever do in success. – Jay-Z
Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama’s camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We’ve sat and had dinner, and we’ve spoken on the phone. He’s a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool. – Jay-Z
The record company would be my bridge to those people I could connect with, but they didn’t give me that bridge, so it was very important part of my career that we didn’t give up right there. That belief in myself, and belief that I had something to offer, so we built our own bridge, and I started my own record company. – Jay-Z
If people don’t hate you, you’re probably not doing very big things. – Jay-Z
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Motivational Jay-Z Quotes on Business, Faith & Loyalty
It’s hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he’s like, ‘You speak so well!’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Do you understand that’s an insult? – Jay-Z
Only two things can get you through this: that’s patience and persistence. – Jay-Z
I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house. – Jay-Z
They say you put the right artist with the right track in the studio, leave the door cracked, and let G-d in. – Jay-Z
You have to find your genius level talent, and then to apply it in a way that supports that genius level talent. – Jay-Z
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
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. I collect art, and I drink wine… Things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said ‘I’m going to buy art to impress this crowd’. That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t like my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself? – Jay-Z
When you’re truly in love. You will never have anything to hide. – Jay-Z
Always be inspired. – Jay-Z
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
Do me a favor. Don’t do me no favors. I handle mine. – Jay-Z
Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I’m going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations. – Jay-Z
By far for me the most important thing is inspiration. – Jay-Z
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
Leave a mark they can’t erase, neither space nor time. – Jay-Z
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
Whenever inspiration won’t find you, you have to find it. – Jay-Z
The average rap life is two or three albums. You’re lucky to get to your second album in rap! – Jay-Z
You have to realize what’s behind it (criticism), because I don’t know these guys (critics), but I know it’s more of a competitive thing, and it just comes with the job. – Jay-Z
It’s the discipline to not get caught up in the moment (fads), people tend to get caught up in emotions and jump on the next hot thing. So for me just to have the discipline and the confidence in who I am, and if I go into a studio and I find my truth for the moment, there are a number of people who can relate to what I’m saying, and what I’m doing. Not because it’s the new thing, but because it’s my genuine emotion, and how I articulate the world. – Jay-Z
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Powerful Jay Z Quotes To Inspire Growth In Life
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
I’m inspired by life, and all sorts of things. You could say something right now and it would inspire me to write a song. – Jay-Z
I have a lot of happiness, but that doesn’t mean that the two (money and happiness) equate to each other…they’re not tied to each other… – Jay-Z
Life is about balance, you have to have time for work, and time for play. If you don’t allow these two things to co-exist, you have an imbalance. – Jay-Z
The genius thing that we did, was we didn’t give up, we didn’t say ‘Because these guys…’ we used that ‘What do they know’ approach and didn’t give up. – Jay-Z
Instincts are really important in business. I didn’t go to any business school 101 or anything like that, I pretty much just followed my instincts. – Jay-Z
Everything evens up, you just wait. Even a garage can get a steak. You are not even a garbage can, you have faith! – Jay-Z
Most people that were successful growing up where I was from never came back. So there was never a dialogue on ‘how did you do it’ ‘what happened’ there was no mentoring program…no going back teaching a person a trade or what you do…so that’s why I figured I’d started the school, because education is the answer. – Jay-Z
We hustle out of a sense of hopelessness. Sort of a desperation. Through that desperation, we become addicted. But we feel we have nothing to list. So, we offer you, well, we offer our lives. What do you bring to the table? – Jay-Z
I see I said, jealousy I said, got the whole world mad at me, I said to my one of a kind self. – Jay-Z
It just got to a point where it was, like, ‘Make this decision, because this is something you really love, and you love to do. It’s time to really focus on and then get serious about it, give it your all.’ And once I did that, it was no looking back from there. – Jay-Z
The thing that distinguished (Michael) Jordan wasn’t his talent, but his discipline, his laser-like commitment to excellence. That’s something I always respect, especially in people who have great natural talents already. – Jay-Z
There are a lot of things that I lived in the street that helped me in the music business… I knew what characters not to have around me. – Jay-Z
It’s a brand-new world. Let me show you. – Jay-Z
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
What you see is what you reflect. If you don’t like what you see, then you’ve done something. – Jay-Z
If ya’ll can’t already see, I ain’t worried about ya’ll, ‘cause I’m already me. – 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 artists, I think. – Jay-Z
When you step outside of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I’ve never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it in my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around, restless, making connections, mixing and matching ideas, rather than marching in a straight line. That’s why I’m always stressing focus. – Jay-Z
If it’s you and me against the world, then so be it. – Jay-Z
I come from a place where you had to keep your word, where people would stick with you no matter what…I just tried to be a man of my word. – Jay-Z
Photoshoot fresh looking like wealth, I’m about to call the paparazzi on myself. – Jay-Z
Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great. – Jay-Z
I sell ice in winter; I sell fire in hell. – Jay-Z
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Jay-Z Lyrics For Instagram Caption
What do you bring to the table? – Jay-Z, “Can I Live”
How can you fairly assess something from the outside looking in?– Jay-Z, “Lucky Me”
My dreams is big, reality set in. – Jay-Z, “Welcome to the Jungle”
Come experience life as we know it. – Jay-Z, “Coming of Age”
We in a whole different mode. – Jay-Z, “Family Feud”
If you don’t like my lyrics, you can press fast forward. – Jay-Z, “99 Problems”
You don’t even know what I’ve been through. – Jay-Z, “H.A.M”
A world with amnesia won’t forget your name. – Jay-Z, “The City Is Mine”
Life’s short, don’t miss a day. – Jay-Z, “If I Should Die”
You really wanna test my name? And test my game? – Jay-Z, “Reservoir Dogs”
I got more at stake than Philly. – Jay-Z, “Can’t Knock the Hustle”
I’m from the school of the hard knocks. – Jay-Z, “Hard Knock Life
First time they fuss, I’m breezin’. – Jay-Z, “Big Pimpin'”
Happily in love, haters please forgive me. – Jay-Z, “Lovehappy”
No matter how you slice it, I’m your guy. – Jay-Z, “Blue Magic”
Let us die young or let us live forever. – Jay-Z, “Young Forever”
I wanna thank you for the fuel. – Jay-Z, “So Ambitious”
I love you so. – Jay-Z, “Why I Love You”
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Deniz Yalım is the founder and visionary behind BayArt, a platform renowned for its deeply resonant and inspirational content focusing on love, relationship, happiness, success and motivation.
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Their writings not only reflect a deep understanding of human emotions and relationships but also aim to ignite change and encourage positive thinking. Through BayArt, Deniz Yalım continues to touch lives, offering solace, motivation, and a sense of connectedness to a global community.