[Intro] Brooklyn. Sixty-nine. Shawn Carter. They call him Jay. (Half the bottle...) Count what the name moves. [Verse 1] Late nineties, every deal had the same design: The label kept the paper, the artist kept the shine. Young Shawn Carter watching what the crowd would do, Name a thing in a verse and the city came through. Say it on a record, it became the standard, Set it on the table, now the whole room answered. Somebody else's bottle, somebody else's brand, Somebody else's equity growing off his hand. He could move a shelf with nothing but a sentence, And somebody else was banking the difference. So he sat with the math the fans never saw: The co-sign was capital he'd been handing out raw. They say the music made the billion. Check the record. Music made the name. The name was the down payment. The stakes are where the billion came. [Hook] (Half the bottle) Trade the co-sign, take half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Jay wrote the verse and kept half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Every time they pour, that's half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Brooklyn in the glass, his half of the bottle. [Verse 2] Here's the trade, slow it down for the ones in the back: Twenty-twelve, the partner had the barrels and the racks, Had the cellar, had the trucks, had the whole supply, Shawn had the one thing no barrel could supply. So they split it down the middle, fifty on each side, He carried it in verses, they carried it worldwide. Nobody paid him a fee to rap the name, Every bar he spent on it went back into the same. A fee's gone by Friday, spent before the weekend ends, The stake sits on the books while the whole world pours again. He made it look like the standard in every room he stood, The room did the marketing, the way he knew it would. Culture moved first, then the value caught the wave, Every toast in every club was a deposit he saved. That's the co-sign turned to capital, written in the deal, Half the bottle on the paper, and the paper's real. [Hook] (Half the bottle) Trade the co-sign, take half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Jay wrote the verse and kept half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Every time they pour, that's half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Brooklyn in the glass, his half of the bottle. [Verse 3] Twenty-one, a French luxury house bought half the champagne. Same year, the streaming service went to the payment game. Twenty-three, the partner bought most of his half. He kept a piece. Same game. Now be honest with it, 'cause the card gon' say it plain: It takes a name that moves a city to move that kind of change. Even his half of the cognac spent a year in a fight Over what half was worth, so get the terms in writing tonight. And half of what don't sell is half of nothing on the shelf. But scale it to your corner and the trade still pays for itself: The barber with the chair where the whole block gets the news, The coach with the parents, the pastor with the pews, The one with two thousand people who move when you move. You been sending them customers for thank-yous and a plate, That's a co-sign on the table with nobody pricing the weight. So come in with the numbers, what you sent and what it made, And ask for your piece of what your name already paid. [Final Hook] (Half the bottle) Trade the co-sign, take half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Jay wrote the verse and kept half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Every time they pour, that's half the bottle. (Half the bottle) Your name moves something. Where's your half? [Outro] Brooklyn. Sixty-nine. Shawn Carter did the math. Count what your name moves. Then put it on paper.
