Wrote My Way Out - Nas&Aloe Blacc&Lin-Manuel Miranda&Dave East
I wrote my way out
When the world turned it's back on me
I was up against the wall
I had no foundation
No friends and no family to catch my fall
Running on empty with nothing left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen
And wrote my way out
I picked up the pen like Hamilton
Street analyst now I write words that try to channel them
No political power just lyrical power
Sitting on a crate on a corner sipping for hours
Scheming on a come up from evening to sun up
My man awaiting trial misdemeanors we younger
Courtroom prejudice insufficient evidence
Jailhouse lawyers these images still relevant
Flickering lights inside my project hall
Sickening the mice crawl all night long
And '87 Reaganism many pages I've written on
Writing songs about rights and wrongs and bails bonds
Master bedroom bigger than the crib that I was raised at
I'm the architect like I wrote the code to Waze app
I'm driven black Elohim from the streets of queens
The definition of what it was written means
Know what I mean
I wrote my way out
When the world turned it's back on me
I was up against the wall
I had no foundation
No friends and no family to catch my fall
Running on empty there was nothing left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen
And I wrote my way out
I really wrote my way up out of 6E
Develop relationships with fiends I know they miss me
Before the metro cards it was tokens I did the ten speed
Never had wrote a rhyme in my life what was a sixteen
At sixteen arrested in housing trip to the mountains
Came right back trapping off couches watching for mouses
Only tools we was posed with had to spot smoke lit
The haters just confusion pay attention how them jokes switch
Theodora was my favorite of my
Mama couldn't afford them I learnt everything on the border
That's a big 8 coke parties with private dancers with no mixtape
Bumble bee tuna now we could get steak
I persevered composition I kept it close
Competition near I'm a spartan without the spear
Three hundred rhymes it was written before I wrote it
Opportunity knocking might miss it that window closing
This poetry in motion I'm a poet
I wrote my way out
When the world turned it's back on me
I was up against the wall
I had no foundation
No friends and no family to catch my fall
Running on empty there was nothing left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen
And wrote my way out
High speed dubbing these rhymes in my dual cassette deck
Running out of time like I'm Jonathan Larson's rent check
My mind is where the wild things are Maurice Sendak
In withdrawal I want it all please give me that pen back
Y'all I caught my first beating from the other kids when I was caught reading
Oh you think you smart blah start bleeding
My pops tried in vain to get me to fight back
Sister tapped my brains said pssh you'll get 'em right back
Oversensitive defenseless I made sense of it I pencil in
The lengths to which I'd go to learn my strengths and knock 'em senseless
These sentences are endless so what if they leave me friendless
Damn you got no chill f**king right I'm relentless
I know Abuela's never really gonna win the lottery
So it's up to me to draw blood with this pen hit an artery
This Puerto Rican's brains are leakin' through the speakers
And if he can be the shining beacon this side of the G.W.B. and
Shine a light when it's gray out
I wrote my way out
Oh I was born in the eye of a storm
No lovin' arms to keep me warm
This hurricane in my brain is the burden I bear
I can do without I'm here I'm here
Cause I wrote my way out
I picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the projects
Wrote wrote my way out of the projects
Picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the
Wrote wrote my way out of the projects
I wrote my way out
Picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the
I wrote my way out
Really I saw like a hole in the rap game
So if I wanted to put my little two cents in the game
Then it would be from a different perspective
I wrote my way out
I thought that I would represent for my neighborhood
And tell their story be their voice
In a way that nobody has done it
Tell the real story