Moonshine is homemade liquor (whiskey), usually very strong. It usually very clear of color due to the fact that it hasn’t gone through the aging process. The process was famous during the prohibition era of the US where people would produce the whiskey by the light of the moon. This type of alcohol is still illegal to at the time of this song.

Earl uses wordplay to suggest that the alcohol has him feeling drunk, or “loose.” This is also slang for the description of a promiscuous woman’s female sex organ.

This may be a reference to Hip Hop’s influence on young people. He needs “backup” so he can reach more children and increase their knowledge unlike most mainstream hip hop is.

Most people are still asleep at dawn, so that is obviously the time when people are the most vulnerable. This could be Jay talking about other rappers and how he’s coming up on them slyly (as in not many people knowing who he is, not releasing many materials so when he actually drops something everyone will be surprised because it’ll be so good). Additionally, it could also be him saying that to get his word out he needs help from others, like labels.

The other meaning was that, especially in this song, he’s making the listeners aware of what’s happening in the world. But most people are ‘sleeping’ on the real issues.
Dawn is the best time to surmount an attack on enemy forces. Some people dig too deep into jays lyrics.

Clever line right here, he’s saying that all these rappers are saying they’re ill, but when they rap they don’t even show how ill they or they’re rhymes aren’t even ‘sick’

He’s tired of all these fake rappers out there, so he came and did his thing and now everyone is looking at him instead the rappers from before and therefore he left them with nothing, no job, nothing

He came up without no support, no fans or nothing he started from the ground up and made himself what he is today

Or the crowd was still shocked by the performance that they forgot to applaud him.