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Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, was an American musician and DJ best known as a member of the pioneering hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. His innovative turntable techniques and contributions to the group's classic tracks, such as "It's Like That" and "Walk This Way," helped shape the early sound of hip-hop. Jam Master Jay's influence on the genre and his contributions to music are celebrated in the history of hip-hop.
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"With this CD technology, you can just remix a record right there on the spot."

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"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."

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"I was a drummer and I played the guitar."

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

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

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

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"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."

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

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"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."

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

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"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."

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"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."

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

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"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."

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"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."

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