8 Miles and Runnin’ JAY-Z & Freeway

[Intro: Jay Z]
Geah
Renegades is back
Em, the beat is sick
It's Young
Freeway
8 Miles
Let's go!

[Verse 1: Jay Z]
Eight miles and runnin', got my seventh album droppin'
And my eighth album comin', feeding a thousand growling stomachs
But I can rewind the calendar back, back when it was now or nothin'
People said I would amount to nothin', that I had talent for nothin'
Said I would succumb to violence or be silenced by a gunman
I could just hear the folks now: "He got what he had comin'."
Now that my eighth album's comin', everybody's smilin'
Wanting somethin', claiming that they done somethin' for him
Got their Jay Z pompoms and their Hov uniform
Claiming they been runnin' and tellin' everybody, like Martin Lawrence
'Bout how hot my rap performance was before I was who I was
Claiming that they threw it up before I threw it up—you what?
Where was you before I blew this up?
I didn't see you in the courtroom when everybody was suin' us
I didn't see you in all black when everybody was suitin' up
Back on the block, getting it in—it wasn't no you with us