On August 30, 2013, Drake first revealed he would have a song featured on the album, produced by 40 and titled "Wu-Tang Forever".
[1] On September 12, 2013, Drake released the previously announced "Wu-Tang Forever", as the album's first promotional single along with the pre-order of Nothing Was the Same on iTunes.
[9][10] However, Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck commented on the song after listening to it saying, "[...] It is in no form a tribute to WU and SHOULD NOT wear the title Wutang Forever!
I'm saying that I disagree with the title of that song being 'Wu-Tang Forever' when it has no bearing on Wu-Tang Clan despite the fact that the 'It's Yourz' sample floatin' in the background.
That beat, all spiraling keyboards straight out of an Akira Yamaoka nightmare swallowed whole every few moments by the loneliest 808 note in the world, bellowing to the surface like the reverb of a depth charge.
And in that atmosphere Drake lashes out at the world in complete self-awareness, using this track to stake claim on Toronto the way Wu-Tang Forever claimed Staten Island, to turn the narrowed street attitude of '90s New York rap into broad-stroked, wide-eyed confessionals without dropping the veil of conviction that allowed the Wu-Tang Clan to remain perhaps hip-hop's most iconic entity, something to be celebrated by the genre's "softest" artist on the 20th anniversary of the "hardest" rap album ever made.
"[14] Andrew Barker of Variety said, "while the title "Wu-Tang Forever" might first appear to be a bit of rap-blogger trolling coming from a sweater-clad Canadian often derided for his softness, the song is actually a rather thoughtful rumination on growing up obsessed by gangsta braggadocio while living at a safe remove from the mean streets of Compton, Bed-Stuy or Shaolin.
[18] Jesal 'Jay Soul' Padania of Rapreviews.com called the song an "intelligently balanced tune that leads seamlessly into a future concert anthem for the ladies, "Own It".
'I just love when I'm with you', the Toronto star sighs, in a rueful tone that's hard to imagine coming from Raekwon or ODB, or any other mainstream MC in the past 20 years, for that matter.