Noah “40” Shebib Looks Back At Drake’s ‘So Far Gone’ Five Years Later

“Little Bit” (featuring Lykke Li)
Producers: Björn Yttling, Lasse Mårtén
40: That came from Oliver. Oliver brought us that record and said this shit is crazy. And I just flipped it, same shit. The flipping stage is that they give it to me and leave. I just spend like a couple hours with it and just hit them up like, “Yo, got it, done.”

“Best I Ever Had”
Producer: Boi-1da
40: I didn’t know it was going to be big. I thought it was kind of corny. I thought it stuck out on the tape and I was a little nervous whether or not it should be on there. Oliver was a little nervous about it. That being said, I kind of asked for it. And I was like, “Yo, we need a record on here that might work at radio. We have nothing on here that might work at radio. Okay, please give me one song.” It gotta be feel-good, it got to be major chord progression. and give it to me 3 and a half minutes. Please just something. I got 10-minute minor chord progressions on here. Give me a three and a half minute song that at least feels good. So he cut “Best I Ever Had” in one night. One of the biggest songs in his whole career. Then I knew, because my sister is the one who hit me up and said, “Oh my God, that ‘Best I Ever Had’ song is amazing.” I was like, “Wait a second, I didn’t even think you would like the mixtape, and that’s the song you like?”

“Unstoppable” (Remix) (featuring Santigold and Lil Wayne)
Producers: Diplo, John Hill
40: I’m a very capable person inside of a studio. So if I hear a song and wanted to pull it apart and dissect it and rebuild it, I pretty much can. I was making feature space from gaps; drops for Drake that never existed. None of those features or collaborations on So Far Gone were real. They were all fabricated. Even the beat in “Unstoppable,” I remade that. I had to remake it basically from scratch, taking little chunks from samples. I mean the first time people actually heard those records is when they heard them. They never knew. That goes for everything. The Peter Bjorn and John record, the Lykke Li record, everything on So Far Gone was just hijacked.

“Uptown” (featuring Bun B and Lil Wayne)
Producers: Boi-1da, Arthur McArthur
40: That was another record  that we did at the very end. To be honest, we thought “Uptown” was the big record. Me and Drake thought “Uptown” was the smasher. That was going to be the big joint, not “Best I Ever Had.”

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