On the lead single to Nothing Was the Same, Drake delivers a come-up piece about how he “Started from the Bottom.“

Thematically, this track embodies the famed underdog narrative, but it was subject to a lot of discussion upon its release—there were debates about how low the “bottom“ had been for Drake. He responded to the criticism the song received in a June 2013 interview with GQ:

I think a lot of people wish that their favorite rapper wrote it—as if a song like that should be gangster. But I was the one who wrote it, and everyone has their bottom.

Drake had originally planned to debut the track on the same day as the 2012 Grammy Awards, but instead chose to release it a week earlier via his website, along with the following message:

I feel sometimes that people don’t have enough information about my beginnings and therefore they make up a life story for me that isn’t consistent with actual events.

The music video dropped on February 13, 2013, and features Drake as a drugstore worker before being promoted to night manager—the video also sees him partying, flying in jets, and dancing next to a Bentley in a blizzard, underlining his journey from the bottom to the top.

Following its release, the song received massive acclaim, both critically and commercially, and has gone on to be recognized as one of Drake’s best songs.