Songfacts®:

• During his performance in Detroit on July 9, 2023 for the It's All a Blur Tour, Drake told the crowd that Nicki Minaj would appear on For All The Dogs. But when he dropped the album, she was nowhere to be found.
  
  Nicki and Drake didn't leave us hanging too long. A couple of months later, Minaj dropped Pink Friday 2 and among the 22 tracks is a song with Drake titled "Needle."
  
  "Well, he told the fans at his tour that I was going to be on his album.," Minaj told Apple Music's Ebro Darden. "And actually the song he was talking about was 'Needle'. But he ended up feeling like sonically it didn't match For All The Dogs. And I, from day one felt like it matched Pink Friday 2."
• In this melodic jam, Drake spits truth over a smooth Afrobeats beat. He addresses his foes, telling them if these diamonds in his head can't bring him down, what makes them think anything else could?
  
  Then Nicki steps up, following Drake's lead. She adds a powerful counterpoint, emphasizing self-sufficiency and assertive choices.
• The title comes from the hook where Drake and Minaj paint their love interest as something special, like finding "a needle in a haystack."
• Drake and Nicki Minaj's history of collaborations goes back to the early days of Young Money Entertainment. They first joined forces on the remix of Drake's breakthrough hit, "Best I Ever Had," which catapulted Nicki into the spotlight. Their last joint effort prior to "Needle" was in 2021 on "Seeing Green," a track recorded with Lil Wayne for the reissue of Minaj's 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty.
• The song starts off with a voice memo by a tipsy Nana Fofie. Dutch-Ghanian singer-songwriter Nana Fofie was one of the opening acts on Nicki Minaj's tour stop in Amsterdam for the Nicki Wrld Tour in March 2019. On March 3, 2023, Minaj announced Fofie as one of the first signees to her new record label.
• Drake's go-to producers Boi-1da and 40 created the beat with YogiTheProducer. Drenched in island vibes, the wavy tune could've seamlessly found its place on Drake's dance-based Honestly, Nevermind album.
• Minaj first heard "Needle" in February 2023 when she was in Trinidad for Carnival. "Everybody loved it, and I wanted it for my album," she told Ebro Darden. "So it was just God's timing. He (Drake) said, he asked me did I want it for my album. I was like, absolutely."
• In the middle of her April 30, 2024, set at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena, Nicki Minaj hyped up the crowd for a special guest. "Make some noise for the king of Toronto!" she declared. "Make some noise for this icon, this legend!" The crowd erupted as Drake emerged on the stage. The duo then delivered the first-ever live performance of "Needle."