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.
Comments