Knife Talk
Featuring 21 Savage, Project Pat
"Knife Talk" anchors Certified Lover Boy's harder, Memphis-and-Atlanta-leaning side. Per the album's credits it is produced by Metro Boomin and Peter Lee Johnson and built on a sample of Juicy J's "Feed the Streets," running a Three 6 Mafia lineage through a sparse, menacing trap beat. 21 Savage opens in his signature deadpan threat mode and Drake follows in a comparable cold register, with an outro feature from Project Pat making the Memphis lineage explicit. The track's music video premiered November 4, 2021, and it impacted rhythmic radio as the album's third single on November 16, 2021; it peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. It is frequently cited as the song that re-anchored the Drake-21 Savage partnership ahead of their 2022 collaborative album Her Loss, and as a moment that re-spotlighted Project Pat for a younger audience.
Sources & verification
Citations below were matched specifically to "Knife Talk" and Certified Lover Boy. Drake Universe catalogs songs by album placement, verified collaborators, producers, samples, and themes, and avoids unsupported lyric-level claims.
- Pitchfork: Kanye West 'Donda' album reviewPitchfork · 2021-09-09 — Dated album review covering Donda's release-week proximity to Certified Lover Boy.
- Pitchfork: Drake 'Certified Lover Boy' album reviewPitchfork · 2021-09-07 — Dated album review covering Certified Lover Boy and the Donda release-week framing.
- The New York Times: Drake's Certified Lover BoyThe New York Times · 2021-09-03 — NYT Joe Coscarelli CLB feature.
- Wikipedia: Certified Lover BoyWikipedia · 2026-05-18 — Primary reference for CLB release, rollout, billboard campaign, Damien Hirst artwork controversy, full track listing, sample/producer credits, critical reception (Metacritic 60), commercial performance (613,000 first-week units; tenth #1; nine top-ten singles), Grammy withdrawal and certifications.
- Pitchfork: Certified Lover Boy Unseats Donda, Debuts at No. 1 With Biggest Week of 2021Pitchfork · 2021-09-12 — Chart-context source for CLB's 613,000-unit debut overtaking Kanye West's Donda (309,000) atop the Billboard 200, the biggest US week of 2021 at the time.
