Under Ground Kings

Album: Take Care (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Drake recorded the majority of Take Care at home in Toronto, which made him realize how far he had come on his journey from wannabe performer artist to Hip-Hop star. "I thought about how I got there, what happened," he told Reuters. "Why did I drop out of school? And how did I ever dig my mother out of this hole of debt we were in? I just address it all on the album. I tell every story I can remember leading up to this moment right now and tried to vividly capture this rise."

    This track finds Drake recounting the story of his rise from the Toronto underground to rap superstar. "It's been two years since someone asked me who I was," he spits.
  • The track starts off with a reference to a "Simon & Garfunkel" hit when Drake raps, "Bridge over troubled water, ice in my muddy water."
  • Co-producer Noah "40" Shebib told MTV News that in this instance, Drake came up with the lyrical idea before he'd been the beat. He explained: "Sometimes, Drake will have a song title in his head or an idea of what the record is and what he wants it to be and then he'll search for the beat, and I think he found that beat from T-Minus. It was just a matter of finding a place for the chorus. We got the mix right and the bass sort of eating up any speaker that gets in the way of it."
  • The song features several samples including Birdman's "Neck of the Woods," Playaz Circle's "Duffle Bag Boy" and Jah Care's "Farmer's Pleasure."

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