Songfacts®:

• This song features Big Sean rapping about the people and experiences he's grateful for during his come up. He counts his blessings with both hands.
  
  I gotta give thanks, you know?
  I never really met nobody who was truly successful that wasn't thankful
  For the good and the bad
  It made me who I am
  
  DJ Khaled told XXL magazine he gave Sean "this idea where he thanks everybody that he loves, or the haters."
• Sean references "Thank U, Next," the chart-topping single by his former girlfriend Ariana Grande, where she looks back at some of her past relationships.
  
  Plus I gotta thank my exes on some "thank u, next" s--t
  And all the old times that gave me new perspectives
  
  The pair started dating in August 2014 and broke up in April 2015.
• Sean also thanks Khaled himself for helping him during his early career.
  
  Look, I gotta thank Khaled, who back in 2010
  Convinced Ye, Sean should drop my last s--t
  It's a smash hit, add Chris to it and it's a classic.
  
  Sean's first single was the Chris Brown assisted track "My Last" that was dropped in 2011. It was Khaled who helped him get a feature from the internationally-known Chris Brown and persuaded Kanye West to allow Sean to drop the track on the G.O.O.D. Music label print. It reached #30 on the Hot 100 and gave him the start he needed to blow up in the rap game.
  
  "I told Sean I wanted him to thank everybody that you want to thank, as much as you can fit in," Khaled said in a live CRWN conversation with hip-hop journalist Elliott Wilson. "He really touched me because he remembered. I remember [in 2010] Sean was sitting in the studio and he was looking kind of mad. Me and Kanye were in there and I could tell something was on Sean's mind and I found out they were talking about his single. I worked at Def Jam at that time and I told Kanye, 'Man, the record with Chris Brown, that's going to be the biggest record. That s--- is crazy!' I kept telling him that's the hit. I think at the time, they wanted [Sean] to go another direction. There's a lot of stuff I do behind the scenes that people don't know about."
• The song is titled after the sample it contains: the 1997 Mary J. Blige track "Thank You Lord (Interlude)."