Songfacts®:

• When male and female wolves mate they usually stay together for life and maintain devoted family ties. Big Sean's schoolteacher mother and army veteran grandmother Mildred Leonard raised him and his brother in Detroit, Michigan. Here, he recounts how his family stayed close and loyal like a pack of wolves.
  
  I was raised by the wolves, ate 'til they full
  Runnin' through the night, playin' with your life
  Go against the pack, that's risking your life
  Better play it right, better play it right
  
  Sean explained to Entertainment Weekly that the song is about "my family growing up. Everybody's in there, my grandma, my mom, my brother - it's like they were a pack of wolves and they were the sweetest and strongest."
• Post Malone joins Big Sean on the track for their first collaboration. The hookup occurred after Sean ran into Malone at a restaurant and they had "a mutual-respect-type of exchange." The Detroit rapper asked if he could send him "Wolves," which he'd just completed to see if he wanted to jump on it. As soon he played the track, Malone knew he had to do it.
• That's A$AP Rocky at the beginning of the song doing some ad-libs. The Harlem rapper originally recorded a verse but his guest appearance was later repurposed to another Detroit 2 track that he and Sean felt fit better with the album.
  
  Sean and Rocky had collaborated once previously, on A$AP Mob's 2017 track "Frat Rules."
• Take a Daytrip, a New York production and songwriting duo composed of David Biral and Denzel Baptist, supplied the beat. Their other credits include Sheck Wes' "Mo Bamba" and Lil Nas X's "Panini."