Intro
Old world had a gate where the traveler had to sing
Couldn't cross the bridge without a verse to offer the king
My people carried that debt in a different tongue
Same toll, different coin, same song unsung
Verse
Grandfather sang at doors when the harvest went dry
Traded couplets for bread, made the landlord's wife cry
Said a hungry man with rhythm eats better than one with a plow
Word was currency then, word is currency now
I learned the trade off his tape, hiss and static and all
Recited his lines back to a crack in the wall
Every gate that I've hit since has asked for the same toll
Prove it in sixteen bars or don't cross the road
Booth was my bridge, mic was my gatekeeper's ear
Paid every session in ash and a fifth of fear
Landlord don't take metaphors, he takes it in rent
But the corner remembers the verse that I spent
Buying my mother a coat with a sixteen I sold
Cousin got jumped for the tape 'fore the story was told
So I write with a limp now, favor the leg that still stands
Every scar on this arm is a toll paid by hand
Chorus
The gate don't open free, it opens for a rhyme
Every scar I got's a toll I paid on time
Some men pay in silver, I paid in the truth
Same road, same weight, different kind of proof
Verse
Uncle kept a ledger, wrote the debts in a code
Half of it in numbers, half in verses he owed
Said the toll compounds if you swallow it whole
Better to spend the pain than to let it turn cold
I watched him spend it Sunday, pulpit made of a crate
Preaching to the block like the block was a gate
Collection plate came back with more lint than a dime
But the words he gave out lasted longer than the time
I took his cadence, sharpened it into a blade
Cut through every silence that the city had made
Every booth's a bridge, every sixteen's a toll
Every plaque on the wall is a debt that got sold
They call it a come-up, I call it a trade
Same coin my grandfather used when the rent wasn't paid
Different century, same gate standing tall
I'm still handing verses to the men at the wall
Chorus
The gate don't open free, it opens for a rhyme
Every scar I got's a toll I paid on time
Some men pay in silver, I paid in the truth
Same road, same weight, different kind of proof
Bridge
Now the young ones come asking how the gate finally broke
I tell 'em it didn't, I just learned to pay in smoke
Every hardship's a toll booth wearing a different face
Pay it clean with your craft or pay it twice in disgrace
I chose the first, kept the second in check
Wear my tolls like a chain, not a weight round my neck
Outro
So when the gate comes for you, don't beg, don't run
Bring your sixteen sharp as the day is done
Pay it once with the truth and you're paid for good
The toll only breaks you if you thought it wouldn't
