[Intro]
(Beat: low boom, tape crackle)
3AM under a sodium streetlamp — flicker, breathin' slow (yeah)
City hum like a heartbeat, concrete choir in stereo (uh)
(Ad-libs: whoo, rise, yeah)
[Verse 1]
I walk past the bodega with the cold neon sign,
Pocket lint, two-dollar hopes, ambition on layaway time.
Subway screech, platform preaching — trains whisper dreams in rhyme,
I learned to count my losses like blessings in a line.
Ink-stained palms, cassette tape scars, mama's voicemail saved,
Broken clock, rent due, nights I felt my spirit cave.
But every corner held a lesson wrapped in a subway wave,
Light hits the puddles, gold on asphalt where the brave pave.
(Production cue: add sparse piano under last two bars)
[Pre-Chorus]
Feel the pulse, feel the scrape — heartbeat syncopated (drop 1 bar)
From the cold stoop to the rooftop where the sky's underrated.
I keep the notes, keep the scars — every verse calibrated,
My voice cuts like glass, my story's unassimilated. (yeah)
[Chorus] (Hook - keep it tight)
Rise above the noise — we make it loud, we make it ours. (rise)
Rise above the noise — light the dark with city stars. (rise)
(Call-and-response: Lead: "Rise above" / Crowd: "We rise!")
(Production cue: 2-bar instrumental drop before repeat)
[Verse 2]
Receipt from last night — coffee cup and a cold receipt,
3AM ambitions scribbled on the back of a dispatch sheet.
Sidewalk chess, dodging rain that writes a beat,
Smoke from late-night grills, aroma like a memory sweet.
I spit metaphors like change — coins in a fountain,
Every setback a chapter, every scar a mountain.
Met at the corner where the kids trade mixtapes and fountain pens,
We swap survival tactics, trading losses for dividends.
(Ad-libs under end: uh-huh, uh)
[Bridge — 16-bar Rap]
(Flow: switch to staccato, then stretch lines at bar 9-12)
Bar 1: They handed me an eviction paper with a polite smile,
Bar 2: Said "Find another corner," like hope's expired by a mile.
Bar 3: I slept on a bench, watch stolen dreams compile,
Bar 4: Counted constellations through the grate — prayed in juvenile style.
Bar 5: Lost a show, studio booked — my name on a no-call list,
Bar 6: Every door a grammar test and I failed most of the list.
Bar 7: Phone full of drafts, beat drafts, and missed hits,
Bar 8: But I learned to stitch my hunger into something that persists.
Bar 9: Flipped the script — those same hands that folded laundry now fold paper money,
Bar 10: Turned weathered words to weatherproof armor for the body and the belly.
Bar 11: Punchlines like paychecks, metaphors become the medley,
Bar 12: I traded pity for a blueprint, then I made the blueprint heavy.
Bar 13: Now I walk through rain, umbrella heavy with my swagger,
Bar 14: Where they saw a caution sign, I painted lanes for my dagger.
Bar 15: From a one-room echo to the chorus on a stage,
Bar 16: I rose, I wrote, I owned the pain — now watch me turn the page. (ha)
(Production cue: big beat drop on bar 15-16, crowd shout)
[Breakdown]
(Beat switches to 808 pulse + filtered piano)
Call: "Who we?
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