Headlines

Headlines is the song that translated the Thank Me Later anxiety hangover into Take Care's signature mood. Produced by Boi-1da and Noah '40' Shebib, the track moves on a sparse, slightly off-kilter synth line and a half-speed drum pattern that became the album's connective tissue. Drake is widely read as positioning himself, mid-song, as someone who has stopped trying to outrun the headlines about him and started to enjoy outscoring everyone in his class quietly. The chorus, with its now-iconic refrain about being known for what he does, functions as a thesis statement for the album: success without celebration, focus without triumph. Released in the summer of 2011 as Take Care's lead single, the song debuted in the top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100 and signaled that Drake's second album would lean inward rather than outward. The Anthony Mandler-directed video, shot largely in Toronto, planted the city-mythology that would become central to Drake's brand on later projects like Nothing Was The Same and IYRTITL.