Nas, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Megaski, Dave East - Wrote My Way Out lyrics

("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
Runnin' on empty
Th'was nothin' left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen and "I wrote my way " out

I picked up the pen like Hamilton
Street analyst
Now I write words that try to channel 'em
No political power just lyrical power
Sittin' on a crate on a corner
Sippin' for hours
Schemin' on a come up, from evening to sun up
My man awaitin' trial
Misdemeanors we younger
Courtroom prejudice, insufficient evidence
Jailhouse lawyers
These images still relevant
Flickerin' lights inside my project hall
Sickenin', the mice crawl all night long
And '87 Reaganism, many pages I've written on
Writin' 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
Runnin' on empty
There was nothin' 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 metrocards, it was tokens
I did the ten speed
Never had wrote a rhyme in my life
What was a sixteen?
At sixteen, arrested in housin'
Trip to the mountains
Came right back, trappin' off couches
Watchin' for mouses
Only tools we was posed with, had a spot
Smoke lit the hate is just confusion
Pay attention how them jokes switch
Diadora was my favorite, the Mark Buchanans
Mama couldn't afford them
I learned everythin' on the border
That's a big 8
Clicquot 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 knockin', might miss it
That window closin'
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
Runnin' on empty
There was nothin' left in me but doubt
I picked up a pen and I wrote my way out!

High speed
Dubbin' these rhymes in my dual cassette deck
Runnin' 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 beatin' from the
Other kids when I was caught readin'
"Oh, you think you smart?"
Blaow! start bleedin'
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
" fuckin' 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 shinin' beacon
This side of the GWB 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!

Picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the pro " " wrote
Wrote my way out of the projects" " pick
Picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the " " wrote
Wrote my way out of the ("I wrote my way ")
Picked up the pen like Hamilton
I wrote my way out of the pro " " wrote
Wrote my way out of the projects
("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"