Jam Master Jay's Quotes

Back in the day, if someone said that hip hop and rap was a fad, that was a joke to me because they just didn't know what they were talking about. In reality, there were so many people who didn't know what they were talking about it.

I remember when I was coming up, the music stores where you could get guitar strings was where I got my records from. Now the place where you get your records from is where you can get your DJ mats and your mixers.

Then I just moved into being a DJ when that turned into the hottest thing.

At the beginning, it was me, Run and D, but D's voice is messed up.

Believing in something and being a part of something you believe in and watching it work and coming from it.

How I dressed in high school is the way we dressed.

I just wanted to be a part of the band. Actually, that's what inspired me.

I was a drummer and I played the guitar.

There's no way that if you get participation out of a person can they say you didn't rock it.

With this CD technology, you can just remix a record right there on the spot.

You really need to be on the edge and you have to keep your eyes open.

And I know how many DJ pools have grown and I know how DJing has grown in the overall, but that was the technical side of it to me. DJs were rolling around, looking for stuff to buy and looking to see what was in the store when they get there.

Going to your set with the headphones on in the middle of the night so that your parents don't know what you're doing when you're supposed to be asleep is great. I was rocking the bedroom. That was so much more fun when I got the 1200s.

If I started at 13, by the time I was 14 I was already good enough to play in front of people. I started off playing drums when I was 5, so playing in front of people didn't matter - not a problem.

Profile has half the publishing and they control and administer the publishing and distribute and own the records, so our group is a 10-point crew. But we got a lot of money off of the shows.

The technology is just so far gone. It's just like back in the day you needed a suitcase just to have a cell phone. The battery was so heavy, it was like carrying a gallon of soda around with you all day.

Then I got a gig with an older friend who had the equipment and he played in this bar. They would bring me in the bar through the backdoor and I would DJ in the back room most of the night. Then they'd take me out the backdoor, so I was never really in the bar.