Songfacts®:

• When Drake introduced this song that features T.I. and Swizz Beatz at a listening party held at MSR studios, he commented: "Women like to feel important. I don't want you to feel important because we all lust after you, but because you're individually beautiful."
• Swiss Beatz, who produced the track, did the original version of "Fancy." He admitted to MTV News that the Toronto MC was not the original choice to record the song. "'Fancy' has been well-traveled," he said. "It started off as a Swizz record. Then I got Mary [J. Blige] on it. It was supposed to be on her [Stronger With Each Tear ], but we missed the deadline. Then I pulled it back for my [upcoming] record. Then five o'clock one morning, on the phone speaking with Drake, he's in a different time zone, we're trying to figure out what he needs [for his album]. He's like, 'Yo, I just need a record for the ladies.' I'm on my computer playing him joints over the phone. Then I played him 'Fancy.' I was like, 'You want something like this?' But I was playing it as a reference."
  Drake liked the track so much he convinced the producer to let him have the song. Beatz recalled, "He was like, 'That's the record I need.' I said, 'OK, I'll make you (one like) that.' (Drake replied), 'No. That's the record I need.'"
  Swizz was happy to give up the song. "I'm a producer first," he said. "So he can have the record. I'm still on it, it's still love. He's a heck of an artist, and I feel no ways but honored."
• At least one other MC was on Drake's wish list to be on the track. "Andre 3000 was supposed to be on 'Fancy,'" Swizz revealed to MTV News. "Drake had a group of people he wanted to be on it: Andre, Tip, this one, that one. But the deadline for the album rushed a lot of things. [Drake] can tell you the rest, but Tip just wound up being on it. Which I'm cool with, cause that's the homie."
• Drake told MTV News that this sexy ode to the fairer sex is, "a dedication to the ladies who take pride in being the flyest and finest that there are out there to be noticed."
• The song contains elements and samples of "I Don't Want to Play Around," which appeared on soul act Ace Spectrum's 1974 album, Inner Spectrum.