Songfacts®:

• "We Go Up" finds Nicki Minaj showcasing her drill skills with Brooklyn drill rapper Fivio Foreign. The pair start off the fiery track by taking their places as New York City royalty.
  
  It's only one king, it's only one queen, there's two crowns
  
  Fivio has form for proclaiming his sovereignty. On his Kanye West collaboration "City Of Gods," the rapper flexed about taking over Pop Smoke's mantle of "The King of New York."
• Minaj aims her two verses at female rivals who call her out. The rap queen doesn't name names, but there are plenty of competitors (Lil Kim, cough) who she has a history of beefing with.
• Fivio Foreign adds his own aggressive verse, where he warns others of his and Minaj's violent behavior.
• The song title does not appear in the lyric. There are plenty of boasts by the two rappers about their wealth and place in the game, so "We Go Up" likely refers to their ascension in the rap hierarchy.
• The drill beat incorporates eerie vocal samples and frantic drums. It comes courtesy of Haitian-American producer Papi Yerr and Polish producers Szamz and Swizzy. Minaj fans will recognize Pai Yerr as the beatmaker of her hit single "Do We Have A Problem?"
• Minaj released "We Go Up" on March 25, 2022 alongside an instrumental and an extended version. The Queen Barbz dropped it as a standalone single; Minaj tweeted that when she told her former manager, Big Fendi, she'd scrapped it from the album, they had an hour-long argument.