Energy

'Energy' is the song where Drake fully commits to the aggrieved, exhausted-superstar persona that carries If You're Reading This It's Too Late. Production is credited to Boi-1da and OB O'Brien, a knocking, sparse beat with metallic percussion and enough negative space to let each syllable land twice. The verses are widely read as a running inventory of the categories of people Drake feels are siphoning his attention, friends, family, label peers, fake fans, without naming names, while the chorus's flat, unbothered cadence became one of the most-quoted Drake refrains on 2015 social media. Released later that year as the project's only formal single, it peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest-charting song from the surprise release, and was certified multi-platinum. The Director X-directed video, in which Drake impersonates figures including Oprah, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West and others, doubles as an early instance of his self-aware comedic mode, and the track is often cited as the song that announced his mid-decade competitive recalibration ahead of the year's wave of public confrontations.