Metro Boomin has shared the original version of his and 21 Savage’s “Knife Talk,” which eventually fell into Drake’s hands.
Young Metro tweeted out a link to the original file on Tuesday (January 3), which features only 21 Savage and the Project Pat sample. The OG version contains a longer second verse from the Slaughter Gang boss, who fires off a series of snarling threats and supervillain boasts.
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“You sneak dissin’, you gon’ get some teeth missin’ / You weak bitches, we raw strip and kill snitches / Your bitch diggin’, she diggin’ all this damn drip and / I’m chef sinkin’, I pink slip, the ink different,” he raps.
Originally titled “Gang Shit,” the menacing track was meant to land on Metro and 21’s 2020 joint album Savage Mode II.
As 21 Savage explained on DJ Akademiks’ Off the Record podcast, Drake received “Gang Shit” just two days before Certified Lover Boy‘s arrival in September 2021 and turned the Metro Boomin beat into what the world now knows as “Knife Talk.”
Project Pat’s feature came by way of a vocal sample lifted from Juicy J’s 2017 track “Feed the Streets” featuring the Memphis rap pioneer as well as A$AP Rocky.
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“Knife Talk” would go on to reach No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped power Certified Lover Boy to a record-breaking debut on Spotify and Apple Music. The album also topped the Billboard 200 with 613,000 album-equivalent units in a monstrous first week of sales.
As for Metro Boomin, he delivered his highly anticipated Heroes & Villains album in December, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 185,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.
Additionally, all 15 of the album’s songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100, including two in the top 10: “Creepin” featuring The Weeknd (No. 5) and the Future and Chris Brown-assisted “Superhero (Heroes & Villains)” (No. 8).
Drake was noticeably absent from Heroes & Villains, but about a month after the project’s arrival, a 6 God verse appeared on a leaked version of “Trance” featuring Travis Scott and the currently incarcerated Young Thug.
No reason was given publicly for Drake’s removal from the song, but HipHop-N-More reported that Drizzy’s verse was on the album “until the last minute.”
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Metro Boomin also notched a production credit on Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss joint project as the Atlanta beat maestro and DAVID x ELI were responsible for crafting “More M’s.”
