Jay-Z Quotes

Music is way stronger than politics.

I know that it's my queer perspective that's helping people make songs that the world is listening to.

Burmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook, and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there.

Wouldn't it be grand if we thought that theater could have that impact on the political life of a country?

I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money.

I think the audience know which films are aimed at their pocket, and which films are aimed at their soul. There are a lot of films out there made by people who are genuinely trying to make a change.

I wanted to make films that were culturally relevant in my own country, that challenged people, and that people talked about.

I'm drawn to making films that in some way move the social conversation.

I never hated hip-hop. It became the new rock and roll. It became the biggest thing that Africans have ever done in the history of the Americas. Hip-hop put more black Americans on than anything before it. It fed more people. It allowed them to diversify into clothing lines and billion-dollar headphone companies.

I try to make music that's relevant to my life and relatable to the culture I live in.

Film can be a tool for change; it can start a debate.

Cinema is not only about making people dream. It's about changing things and making people think.

The great thing about 'Hamilton,' for me, is so many people have been exposed to and are more open to hip-hop and certain artists, despite the stigma that had before been attached to it.

Rap has always been about using your talents for doing more.

This is more in regards to celebrities. What we've got to understand is that we are the influencers of the hip-hop culture, the black culture. We are the way out, you feel what I'm sayin'? As far as who we look to and where we get stuff from - hip-hop culture is influencing the world, really, but especially the black communities.

Until black culture as a whole is effectively disentangled from the python-grip of hip-hop, and by extension the street, we are not going to see any real progress.

Fashion and music are two great artistic forms that can be molded by the youth culture - our taste and our passion for evolving things in our limited time on earth allows us to look at things with fresh eyes.

I love that theatre can be political. You can go watch a play; it sends out messages, and you can go away thinking differently to the way you thought about it before.

Music helps shape the way people think about the world and act in the world.

When I'm in the studio with other rappers, we talk about social issues.

If Hip Hop has the ability to corrupt young minds, it also has the ability to Uplift them.

I know that I'm freer as a hip-hopper than as an executive. Even as a black man, I enjoy more freedom as a hip-hopper than as a black man. That, s controversial to say, but it's the truth.

I don't think hip-hop is a dying art form. I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.

What I'm aiming to do within hip-hop is to point out that the music itself is powerful; it reaches so many people.

I think hip-hop has definitely brought the black experience to white kids more than the civil rights movement did and more than any teacher's well-intentioned lecture on Martin Luther King did.