Songfacts®:

• Macklemore recalls here his dreams of making it during the golden era of hip-hop. He recounts his early days working at Subway by day (where he made $7 an hour), writing rhymes during his lunch break and tagging buildings with graffiti by night.
• Legendary boom-bap rapper KRS-One spits a verse near the end, where he reiterates the opening lines from his KRS-ONE track "Out for Fame," which detail his early years as a graffiti artist.
• KRS-One isn't the first legendary hip-hop artist to join Macklemore and Ryan Lewis on a track. The old-school banger "Downtown" features rap godfathers Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, and Kool Moe Dee.
• The song's title alludes to famed East Coast rapper Buckshot of Black Moon. Macklemore tells us that he preferred to listen to Buckshot rather than the grunge music, which was popular at the time in his hometown.