Know Yourself
Song Meaning

Know Yourself is Drake’s love letter to Toronto, built around the “Runnin’ through the 6 with my woes” refrain that celebrates his crew and his city. Drake has said he deliberately set out to write a song that belonged strictly to Toronto but that the world would still embrace, modeling it on how Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” became a global hit despite being about Pittsburgh 1. The verses double as autobiography, name-checking old jobs, old friends, and the neighborhood brands that marked his coming-up, while the outro hands the mic to Popcaan and OVO/Unruly affiliates to cement the song as a statement of crew and city loyalty 2.

The meaning

At its core, “Know Yourself” is Drake fulfilling a specific songwriting goal: to make a record that was unmistakably about Toronto but still resonated worldwide. He’s explained that he envied Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” for turning hometown pride into a global hit, and he wanted his own version of that for Toronto: “I told myself, over the duration of my career, I would definitely have a song that strictly belonged to Toronto but that the world embraced. So, ‘Know Yourself’ was a big thing off my checklist” 1. That intention explains why the song leans so hard on local signifiers, from “runnin’ through the 6” (his now-iconic nickname for Toronto) to shoutouts of specific neighborhood figures.

The song functions as much as memoir as anthem. Drake walks through his own backstory in the verses, from selling Girbaud jeans and wearing a “yellow TechnoMarine” to watching Kanye West’s influence shift streetwear trends, before landing on the money and fame he has now. Reviewers have noted the track fills in pieces of that backstory “through the lens of his friends and family in Toronto” 2, grounding the come-up narrative in the specific people around him rather than abstract success.

That sense of place is inseparable from the song’s emotional pull. It’s been called one of Drake’s best songs about loving his city, “which has plenty of competition” in his catalog 2, underscoring how central Toronto is to his artistic identity across his whole body of work, not just this one track. Lines about his crew (P Reign, Chubby, Baka, and others) and the constant refrain “you know how that shit go” reinforce a loyalty to a specific circle rather than a generic celebration of fame.

The outro, featuring Jamaican dancehall artist Popcaan, extends that loyalty theme outward from Toronto to OVO’s broader affiliations, with lines defending the crew (“OVO” and “Chromatic”) against detractors. It reframes the song’s final moments as less about introspection and more about collective pride and defiance, a natural extension of the “know yourself, know your worth” ethos that gives the song its title and hook.

Last updated 2026-07-21