Songfacts®:

• The title track of Canadian recording artist Drake's second album finds him linking up with Rihanna. It finds the two superstars promising to "take care" of each other after being wounded by their lovers. Rihanna and Drake's previous collaborations include the Bajan singer's hit single "What's My Name." The Canadian rapper also referenced their alleged short-lived affair on his track "Fireworks."
• The song samples Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx's "I'll Take Care of You" from their 2011 album, We're New Here. The record was a reworking of Scott-Heron's final studio album I'm New Here. "I was definitely honoured," Jamie xx said to Q magazine, "but I didn't really have much say in the final product. I would've preferred to be in the studio, but in that world there's a lot of people involved."
• Drake told MTV that an inspiration for the Take Care album was his track "Houstonaltantavegas." The song from the Canadian MC's 2009 breakout mixtape So Far Gone created a fictional world, in which he had an affair with a stripper who couldn't escape the seedy world that she found herself in.
• Speaking with BBC Radio 1Xtra's DJ Semtex, Drake explained how his childhood favorite Winnie the Pooh was a key inspiration while conceptualizing Take Care. He said that even though "Winnie the Pooh is like super not hip-hop," the A. A. Milne authored children's books have always been a part of his life. "They were a huge part of my childhood," he said. "That's my influence, man. Winnie the Pooh on this next album."
  
  Another unexpected act to express a fondness for the Winnie The Pooh children's books is the masked heavy metal band Slipknot. "Eeyore," a hidden track on their self-titled debut album, was titled after the miserable donkey in the stories.
• The album cover finds Drake draped in gold jewelry but looking troubled, as if he's at odds with his fame and success. "That's who's sitting on that album cover, that kid that's just somehow gone from his mom's basement in Toronto to becoming a king," he explained to MTV News. "That's what that album cover is about and there is a lot of deep thought involved in that 'cause you can go crazy doing this."
• Those outside of America might not know that "Take care" is an expression used when signing off or parting, usually at the end of correspondence or a telephone call. Rather than being a warning to be particularly careful, it's more of a declaration of goodwill meaning "look after yourself." The phrase became current around 1970.
• Drake' s right-hand man Noah "40" Shebib, who produced the track with Jamie xx, told MTV News why they sampled "I'll Take Care Of You." "We've always been a fan of Jamie as well as the xx," he said, "and we had been to their studio and sat with them prior to this when we were in London last year. We had loved that Gil-Scott [Heron] record, and the remix Jamie had done, and I guess between Oliver and Drake and myself, but specifically Oliver and Drake felt that song never got its shine. 'Man, what a great record. It never was as big as it should've or could've been.'"
• The song's music video was filmed in February 2012 and directed by Yoann Lemoine (Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry). It depicts Drake and Rihanna locked in an embrace and the Young Money rapper said about the concept of the clip: "It's all basically the ups and downs of a relationship but represented in icebergs and fire and animals and just pulsating movement and then you've got me and Rihanna very intimate – kissing, hugging."
  
  "It's very artistic very abstract video – something that I wasn't used to," he added. "I'm usually used to a very straight forward concept so I'm really excited for people to see it because it's actually just something beautiful to look at. There's actually for once no story necessarily as far as there being a narrative like 'What's My Name?' or 'We Found Love' where there's stories. This is just beautiful imagery."
• Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX's "I'll Take Care of You" was a cover of a song written by Brook Benton. The original version performed by Bobby Bland reached #89 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1960. Needless to say, Drake's reworking of the track is radically different to the original.
• It took a village to write this song: there are 10 credited songwriters on the track.
• Take Care won Best Rap Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards. Although Drake wasn't on hand to receive the statue, he was spotted in the audience later.