Jadakiss Quotes

My mom had wild records, like Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson and the Whispers. But the first record I bought was ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ It had a sky-blue cover with a rainbow. My aunt gave me money to get it, and I played it over and over on the record player.

Your fans grow as you grow, it’s best you grow together.

It’s a beautiful thing when the young guys grew up off you, or they embrace you and respect your craft. They always call for me like ‘Kiss, this is going to solidify me to get a joint with you.’ That makes you feel proud as an artist.

Being able to blend with the new kids and the youth will give you longevity and will put legs on your career.

Better believe that, whenever I see y’all I’ma test ya
Only cause I know that faggots respect pressure

I don’t follow trends. I just do what I like and what I can.

And y’all scared I can tell
That I’mma get Bucks like Milwaukee, cause like Sam, I ca’ sell.

I got a lot of fans, like core fans, that love me. I ain’t one of the dudes that sell five or 10 million brackets, but my followers are stern. They’re there. My fans – Jadakiss fans, LOX fans, D-Block fans – they loyal.

My mom and pop took me to the Apollo Theater on my thirteenth birthday to see Heavy D and Keith Sweat. It was late at night, up on 125th Street, and it was crazy!

I’m Kiss the artist, and Jason the father. It’s my job.

I really like South Beach.

A father figure is providing for you, as well as showing you things. A big brother is giving you the game and showing you things too – but a father figure is providing for you while he’s showing you things, and raising you.

Politics runs music more than talent runs music.

I think every artist, producer, believe’s that it’s going to happen at some point and time. You never want to just hear that you not gonna make it.

I try to make my schedule around parent-teacher conferences, school plays, and school trips.

When we did the whole ‘Let The Lox Go’ campaign we was teenagers or in our early 20s.

It’s all about the fans at the end of the day, because when they don’t want you here, you ain’t going to be here.

The music I do is for the streets.

It’s a lot of things that play into having a good sneaker store. That’s why I never jumped into that field. If I open one, it’s going to be a lot of expectations.

There’s nothing wrong with working with no artist from any type of demographic, but you’ve still got to maintain what you do on whatever track it is.

Learn the business as much as you can before you sign anything.

I reap benefits outside of work, as well as hardships because of work. You deal with it. It’s no different than your favorite actor or your favorite ballplayer. You pinch us, we still gotta go ‘ouch.’ Some people think your life is so vainglorious that you’re unpinchable.

You can be a video vixen and be snobby, or you can be a college girl and be snobby, or you can be vice versa and down-to-earth. It depends really on the personality of the individual. I don’t judge.

Diddy was trying to squeeze the life out of me. I felt like I don’t wanna keep giving him my bars. Cause he’s taking from my tank. I need all of these bars.

Some dudes get stubborn and get characterized as, you know, you getting a couple of dollars, selling a couple records, your flow is alright and the people got you gassed, and then you start putting yourself in a bubble and you don’t want to blend in with the new and what’s going on.

Things die down when you let them die down.

I’m not cocky, I’m confident. So when you tell me I’m the best it’s a compliment

If you’ve got the power of the streets and the people, anything can happen and good music will always come to the top.

I always wanted to make a song like ‘Why’ even before my second album. It was just something I always had in my mind. But when I got the beat from Havoc, it was like the perfect beat, I felt… I wanted to get some questions I thought everybody… felt like ‘why?’ to.

When I create lyrics, I just go off of energy. Sometimes I write down my lyrics on my phone and most times I remember the lyrics in my head.

Yeah, I’m a basketball fan in general.

I would tell a young Jadakiss, learn the game as much as you learn how to rap, as seriously you take a 16-bar verse, take every contract and every meeting and every opportunity to listen and learn, you know what I’m saying. Keep that at a parallel.

There’s a lot of one-hit wonders and a lot of come-and-go artists and even the labels give up on you after a couple years.

What if Manhattan was hit by Hurricane Katrina?

I’ll kiss the game goodbye when I no longer have the passion and love for it.

Kids give you their most honest opinion and that’s a beautiful thing. They don’t care about hurting your feelings, they’re just getting their point across whether they like it or not and sometimes you need that.

With me having this raspy voice, people always asked when I was going to sing on a song. When I was going at it with 50, people were saying I don’t sing on my own hooks. That always stuck in my head and people always told me I had to use my own voice not just to rap.

I need to do something with Cordae. His mannerism is so cool but his bars… he got them bars that puts him in an elite thing.

Records should come from feelings. You shouldn’t try to do nothing; it should just come out how you feel.

Before you drop an album, you need some momentum.

There’s some discographies out there that are therapeutic to listen to before you write.

I had one of those tape players with a strap on it and the orange button – the old-school recorder – and I’d record songs by Roxanne Shante, Run-D.M.C. and Biz, Markie. I’d try and learn the words. I’ve been rhyming since I was a young fella. I used to win talent shows by break dancing and rapping.

You gotta keep working, baby. You gotta work. I got kids, I got bills, I like nice things – always buying cars and watches. I’m a sneaker-head.

It’s a business, when you understand what’s going on in America, you’ll know that the way they portrayed 9/11 to happen, is definitely not what happened. Do I know what happened? Definitely not.

The top five producers that I have a creative chemistry with are Swizz Beatz, The Alchemist, Vinny Idol, Pharrell and Timbaland.

I ain’t a new artist, I’m good in the studio, I don’t need somebody to hold my hand in the studio. I don’t even really want them all over my album or anything like that.

You should do what we do, stack chips like *Hebrews*
Don’t let the melody intrigue you (uh-uh)
Cause I leave you, I’m only here
For that green paper which lead you

I’m raspy, and if I wasn’t a smoker, I’d still be raspy. My pops has a raspy voice, and my grandfather.

One of the catches with being a dope artist is saying the same exact thing a trillion different ways, and being able to get across somehow differently every time. The way to express maturity and growth and evolution is to do that throughout the music.

Videos is the worst. Let me make it clear: Videos suck. It sucks making a video. It’s happy when it’s over and edited and online, but making it, it ain’t really too much fun.

It’s definitely a beautiful thing to have a little trademark or something that sets you out from everybody else.

You can’t let nobody step on your ego, dismantle your whole image for no reason.

Satan is around y’all. Devil on your shoulder.

Life is short, tomorrow’s not promised, so to be there with my kids, and do things with them, and go on family vacations – this is more valuable than anything.

It’s bigger than the music. You have to have a personality, you have to have a character you have to have a good rapport with people. Those are things that also give you longevity.

No security guard can stop a refrigerator falling off a skyscraper.

I don’t think people educate themselves enough.

If you make good music, people believe in you, but you have to have your websites poppin’, you got to be on these blogs, you got to be at all these types of events. You got to be everywhere, and doing everything, and the more they see and hear you, the more chance you have at success.

Never say can’t, its better to try

A lot of dudes have success, overnight success or one-year success but not many have ten, fifteen, twenty in this game so when you can do that is when I look up to you.

The art of remaining consistent is keeping your ear to the street and the new music. Embracing the culture for what it is. You can’t get a nice heat wave and then forget about the people. The more you put out music, the more strength and power you possess.

Having Styles and Sheek as my brothers and my partners makes it easier to work with anybody ’cause that’s the bar of bars right there. Being in the sandwich of them two, you can throw me in the cage with lions and I’ll feel comfortable because everyday I’m at bloodsport with them.

I think Damian Lillard is the best lyricist to be in the NBA or play basketball.

Some people can only freestyle, some people can only make certain types of songs. I can do it all.

You know, hip hop is a big ferris wheel that goes around and you’ve just gotta be able to maintain yourself while it’s going around.

For ‘We Are the Streets,’ we’d just gotten off Bad Boy. So we were just back in our element and were going up to Powerhouse every night just creating.

I’m a perfect driver.

People have no discrepancy for me or my lyrics or the song.

Timing is important with music.

I think praying is very important. I’m not going to say that I’m very religious and I don’t go to church as much as I should probably, but I definitely pray more than the average person. I’m a man of the Lord.

Music just ain’t what it used to;
We used to have songs that you could shoplift or boost to.

Streetball ain’t dead.

Nothing is promised for long or forever, so you have to put something away for rainy days. Especially when you got kids.

Battling is therapeutic for Hip Hop, but you can’t take it serious. I mean, you got to take it because when you’re preparing your material for your opponent but when it affects your heart or when you let it get too personal… you got to have fun with it.