Fireworks

Featuring Alicia Keys

Fireworks opens Thank Me Later and sets the album's defining tension: a newly minted star confronting how quickly success has changed his relationships, his privacy and his sense of self. Featuring Alicia Keys and produced by Noah "40" Shebib with Boi-1da and co-producer Crada, the track functions as a sober, almost anxious overture rather than a victory lap. Contemporary press, including Billboard and PopMatters, read it as referencing the divorce of Drake's parents and alluding to a brief, widely-discussed romance with Rihanna — making it an early, theme-level template for the autobiographical celebrity material he would build a career on. Its lush, melancholic production established the tone for a debut more interested in the burdens of arrival than its rewards, framing the record from its first minutes as a meditation on isolation at the top rather than a triumphant party album.