Songfacts®:

• T.I. wrote this at the beginning of 2008 at a time when he was still under house arrest due to federal weapons charges. He told MTV News: "I would say I recorded it probably around the holidays or January, when the hate was real fresh and I was counted out by most. I see things, hear things, observe things. When I sat down to write it, all those things, the things that seemed most important, just came out. I didn't intentionally write about one thing or another; I just wrote from the heart [about] the things that stuck with me throughout the ordeal, what I had seen on the news. It just came out at the time."
• The song references his fellow Atlanta rapper Shawty-Lo, who prior to this record had made several subliminal jabs at the King of the South. There were a number of accusations that this was a diss track to Shawty Lo. However T.I. insisted to MTV News that the only direct reference was in the first verse when he quotes one of Shawty Lo's catchphrases, "Let's get, get, get it" from "Dey Know."
  
  He insisted that his other references to 'Shawty' were not directed at his fellow Atlanta rapper. Said T.I., "Just because I say 'shawty' - anybody who holds a conversation with me knows that 'shawty' is just in my vocabulary. I wasn't speaking to him throughout the record. I was speaking on people who took shots at me when I was down. He wasn't the only one; he was among the most consistent. But I'm focused on a greater goal. I'm not trippin' on that. Dude, that's not what's on my mind. I said what I had to say, and that's it."