Songfacts®:

• This ambition ballad is a song from the hip-hop musical Hamilton, which tells the story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The soliloquy, which is sung by the show's villain Aaron Burr midway through the first act of the show, explores his unyielding determination in the face of Hamilton's rise to power. Burr believes his time to shine will come soon.
• The show's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, had the idea for the song's "Wait For It" chorus while taking the subway to a friend's party. He recalled to The New Yorker:
  
  "I sang the melody into the iPhone, then I went to the guy's party for 15 minutes, and wrote the rest of the song on the train back home."
• Leslie Odom, Jr. played Aaron Barr in the original Broadway production of Hamilton. He won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
• A total of 20,520 words are crammed into Hamilton's two hour and 23 minute cast album. That's an average of 144 words per minute.
• The Hamilton soundtrack album debuted on the Billboard 200 at #12. It was the highest debut for a cast recording since the chart combined its mono and stereo tallies in 1963.
• Usher performs the song on the 2016 Hamilton Mixtape. Lin-Manuel Miranda recalled to iHeartRadio:
  
  "I've been a fan of Usher since My Way, which was incredible. To watch him grow and evolve as an artist, and is just one of our greats, he's one of our R&B greats. I was thrilled he wanted to tackle 'Wait For It.' His vocals are so unique and so uniquely his, and that's been the fun of the mixtape is seeing someone ... It's almost like fantasy football, I don't know how else to describe it."
• Lin-Manuel Miranda revealed on Netflix's Song Exploder show that he very fond of this song. In fact, he loves it so much, it almost induced him to play Burr instead of Hamilton in the Broadway production.