Songfacts®:

• This is the first single from Survival Skills, a collaborative album from American rappers KRS-One and Buckshot.
• This song features Mary J. Blige. Buckshot and Blige go back a long way so when so when he and KRS-One came up with this song he decided to call on his old friend.
• Buckshot explained the song to MTV News: "In the chorus, Mary says, 'I'm in the grind every day and that's the way I live.' When she started to sing that chorus, it's like, OK, [the song] became that much brighter. KRS-One said in the song, 'When you lose your job, you find your work.' A job is a job, when you lose it, you feel your work and your worth. The song is about being on the grind, but not accepting the grind - changing the grind."
  
  Buckshot added: "Everybody's got a song: 'I'm out there hustling, putting in work,' but everybody does the same thing. What makes this song different... we're not talking about trapping and hustling. We say we go to the depths of who we are to find our true hustle. And that's why I love Mary J. When she started to go in on the end of the song, she has a name we call her: MC Brook. So we was like, 'Brook is about to go in.' She loves rhyming. Mary loves to flow and she's nasty. That's basically what the song is about - reaching within the depths of yourself to find a grind you created."