You Only Live Twice
Featuring Lil Wayne, Rick Ross
"You Only Live Twice" plays on the worn 'you only live once' adage by doubling it, the title widely read as a statement about reinvention, second chances and a legacy large enough to constitute more than one life. It features Lil Wayne and Rick Ross — Drake billed Wayne as the "best rapper alive" and Ross as "the biggest boss" in the rollout's billboard captions — and is produced by Bink, with B-Nasty as additional producer. The song is read as Drake reflecting on longevity and the rarefied position of an artist whose career has effectively had multiple eras, the veteran guest verses reinforcing the theme. The Los Angeles Times notably highlighted Drake's understated boast here of merely predicting the album would go platinum. It functions as a late-sequence consolidation of the album's dominance-and-survival themes, the title's twist serving as a compact thesis on a career able to renew itself more than once.
Sources & verification
Citations below were matched specifically to "You Only Live Twice" 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.
