Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis stopped by Genius to chat about their song “If You Can Count,” one of the standout tracks from their concept album Warriors. The album reimagines the 1979 cult-classic film The Warriors with an all-female gang taking on New York City. This version features Ms. Lauryn Hill as Cyrus, and her powerful performance takes the track to another level. On today’s episode of Verified, the duo dives into what inspired the song, Lauryn Hill absolutely crushing it, weaving in real NYC history, and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00Can You Dig It is the thing we all quote.
00:02If anyone knows anything from Warriors, even if they haven't seen the movie,
00:05they've seen a clip of Can You Dig It, a mortal line delivery.
00:10But the message of what Cyrus is saying is really in that if.
00:14There's more of us than the people in charge of us.
00:17If you can count.
00:18That was really intentional to not name it Can You Dig It or Can You Count.
00:23If you can count.
00:30I, you know, like many unsupervised 1980s children,
00:35saw this movie at a friend's house on VHS.
00:38I just thought the vision of New York was so cool.
00:41It was such a like mirror image reflection of the New York I was growing up in.
00:45And it wasn't until 2009, an old classmate of mine actually emailed me.
00:50I just had success within the Heights.
00:51It was my Broadway debut.
00:53And he was like, what about Warriors the musical?
00:56When I finally kind of came up for air from the Hamilton phenomenon,
01:00like I wasn't in the show anymore and I wasn't in the day to day in the theater.
01:05I asked myself, what do I want to do next?
01:07And it was like my friend had incepted me.
01:09Like there was a whole section of my brain that was like, Warriors, Warriors, we're ready now.
01:12As soon as I had the rights, I called Issa.
01:16Can you count, suckers?
01:18I say, can you count, suckers?
01:20The future is ours.
01:21The future is yours.
01:23If you can count.
01:25Can you dig it?
01:26The Warriors is everywhere.
01:28It's in our pop culture bloodstream.
01:30You're on the website to cross-reference this.
01:32I think about ODB's Warriors come out to play on that first album.
01:39I think about Common on his first album when he goes, Warriors, I'm a warrior.
01:43It wasn't us.
01:43It was them.
01:44And then also in the new LL record on Spirit of Cyrus is, can you dig it?
01:50Is that in there?
01:51He quotes the one wild line in the crowd going,
01:56Go Cyrus, we're with you, brother.
02:00You got the Moonrunners right by the Van Cortlandt Rangers.
02:04Got the Jones Street Boys by the Turnbull ACs.
02:07And nobody is wasting nobody.
02:12That's a miracle.
02:13A miracle.
02:14And miracles are the way things ought to be.
02:17I think that's the most powerful line of dialogue in the speech in the movie.
02:22In this world, more than ever, like the prospect of peace that we all got up here intact.
02:29The promise of leaving your house and knowing you're going to come home at the end of the night
02:33is a powerful one, but sometimes seems unattainable.
02:38What I love, though, is that nobody is wasting nobody is the truth of the moment.
02:44It's actually something that has already been achieved right here.
02:49Everyone's there means that everyone's holding to the truth.
02:54So far from our turf.
02:57We fought so hard for our turf, our one little corner of turf.
03:01That's another line that actually Cyrus repeats in the movie.
03:04And the way he says it is so disdainful.
03:07For our turf, our one little corner of turf.
03:11I mean, he says it like he's saying shit.
03:13The disdain about, you know, the turf is just that you don't have to think that small.
03:19Right, right.
03:20Exactly.
03:20You can actually have the entire city be your turf if we hold to this truth.
03:26So now can you see how strong we can be if we can agree that it's all our turf?
03:32Where we always belong.
03:34One of the things we wanted to do was she hits turf when she says it,
03:38but she's also like, it's all we have, but it's also something all of us have.
03:43You're 60,000 strong.
03:46We are never backing down.
03:48And there are only 20,000 cops in this whole damn town.
03:53Can you dig it?
03:54We wanted to really kind of cadence towards, we outnumber them.
03:58We outnumber those who would subdue us.
04:01We outnumber them, you know, by two thirds, you know what I'm saying?
04:04Like, so let's remember that and not feel insignificant, not feel small.
04:11I mean, that's the big first cheer line Cyrus gets.
04:13Yeah.
04:15But there ain't 20,000 cops in this town.
04:20Remember what you had to do to earn your block.
04:22Did any and all invaders keep your neighbors on lock?
04:25Miss Lauryn Hill brought total authority, total gravitas,
04:34and just the power of her voice itself.
04:38This is exactly what we wrote.
04:39And she just sang it down exactly as written.
04:43And that's what the whole point was, was let's just make this really clear
04:47what it's like if you are a woman at the head of the gang.
04:51Tag up every nook and cranny,
04:53spray cans nonstop, make a mission of the competition so your click is on top.
04:58It just makes me think about being a kid and like,
05:02like I had a little gang when I was like in sixth grade
05:05and we were like the room one originals.
05:07You know what I mean?
05:08Because like everybody copies us and there's like fun in that.
05:11And it's just like, well, you know,
05:14we don't have to use that as a way to fight each other.
05:17We could actually have like all of us celebrating the fact that we're all dope.
05:20Imagine what I had to do to stay on top.
05:23Baddest bitch in the biggest town.
05:25Shut him down.
05:26Open up shop.
05:27A little DMX.
05:28A little bit.
05:29Just a touch.
05:29A sous-sant of DMX.
05:31Rest in power.
05:32I mean, you know, DMX passed, I think, while we were working on this.
05:35So that was, that's, yeah, that was pretty much like running mix.
05:40Like I was listening to a lot of DMX, so it kind of snuck in there.
05:43It's just in the water.
05:44You know what I mean?
05:45It's just like, this is naturally where you're going to go lyrically
05:48because like we've been drinking hip hop, you know, since we were kids or born really.
05:54Now imagine what we could do if
05:56you and your crew got with me and my crew.
05:59If we, we only knew.
06:01To me, it's just a one, two, three, because it's like,
06:03remember what you had to do.
06:05It's like y'all.
06:06And then imagine what I had to do.
06:09And then imagine what we could all do together because we all have that strength.
06:14We are bigger than the mob.
06:16We are bigger than the cops.
06:18We are where it all begins.
06:20We are where it all stops.
06:21Can you dig it?
06:22Those are sort of the quote unquote higher power centers in New York in the 70s.
06:28There's organized crime.
06:30There's the police.
06:32That's who these folks are up against every day,
06:34day to day on their quarters, trying to make their neighborhood safe.
06:37Those are the mob and the cops are the other gangs.
06:41Now we keep up the truce, stand together against dangers.
06:45One borough at a time as our numbers clock.
06:49And nobody is wasting nobody.
06:53New York City is made up of five boroughs.
06:56The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island.
07:00But hip hop claims all of it.
07:03And that's sort of one of the things I love about hip hop and juxtaposing
07:09the culture of hip hop into this story is that when we were thinking about
07:14emcees to represent the boroughs, it was easy because they rep their boroughs.
07:18Like we rep our boroughs.
07:20I mean, I wrote a whole show about Washington Heights.
07:22So like that's what we do.
07:24You are brothers and sisters now.
07:25And anywhere you go, you are home free.
07:29Can you dig it?
07:30Our brothers and sisters have died on our turf and our soldiers.
07:34It's, you know, it's multigender.
07:37That was really important to us.
07:38And that's part of the history of gangs in New York is that they weren't just all dudes.
07:45Because it's all our turf.
07:47We're only divided by turf.
07:49Our soldiers have died on our turf.
07:51Our soldiers have died on our turf.
07:52Like the cost of this, the cost of continuing to fight each other
07:57until we decide that it's all our turf.
07:59And then the other thing that I think we really wanted to hit,
08:02because I think it was really important to us as writers,
08:04is the promise of peace and the promise of safety.
08:08We fall on our pride, pulled away by the tide until we decide that it's all our turf.
08:14And we know our worth.
08:17Now imagine feeling safe from the top of the boogie down,
08:22from Manhattan down to Staten, all through Coney Island town.
08:26Can you dig it?
08:28Do you count?
08:30Can you dig it?
08:31Can you?
08:32Flip the question of can you count to do you count?
08:35Yes.
08:35Which is sort of this message of self-empowerment.
08:38Your life is worthy.
08:40Our lives are worthy.
08:41And that's sort of the last thing she gets to say.
08:44Right.
08:45I am somebody.
08:47At the end of the song, Cyrus is assassinated by a guy named Luther.
08:54And both in the movie and on our album,
08:56Luther shoots Cyrus, turns to the warriors and goes,
09:00it was the warriors, the warriors shot Cyrus.
09:03It really ruins their night.
09:06We wanted Miss Hill to sing the song.
09:09And we wanted to utilize all of, you know,
09:13she's such an incredible musician and artist.
09:15And when you got your copy of Miseducation,
09:19when I got my copy of Miseducation,
09:21the fights we had were I wanted her to rap more.
09:23I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:27And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:30And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:32And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:35And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:38And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:41And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:44And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:47And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:50And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.
09:53And I wanted her to sing more because she does them both brilliantly.