Remember When Noah "40" Shebib Said, "In Hip-Hop, You Must Write Your Own Raps"?
In March 2012, U.K.-based music website Sound on Sound
published a profile ofNoah "40" Shebib, the OVO Sound guru who has produced most of Drake's music since
So Far Gone in 2009. Among several questions about 40's favored equipment and production techniques,
the journalist Paul Tingen asked 40 to break down something that, three years later, would become a flashpoint of discussion within hip-hop—Drake's songwriting process.
"In hip-hop," 40 explained, "you must write your own raps. If someone else were to write them for you, you'd have no credibility whatsoever, and you'd be out of the window immediately."
"But when it comes to the music," 40 continued, "there's not really the same pride in writing it yourself. People don't care who wrote it, or where it comes from or what the sample is, they just want the hottest beat. They just want that and then put it out in their own song. Having said that, Drake and I do take pride in writing songs together, just the two of us."
Given Meek Mill's recent accusation that Drake employs ghostwriters—
and given 40's having vehemently countered those accusations—the values and outlook that 40 shared in that 2012 profile are now more interesting than ever.
In his interview with 40, Tingen is specifically concerned with the construction of Drake's 2011 hit single "Headlines," a song produced by Boi-1da and 40 with uncredited assistance from Hush. Before the success of "Headlines" and
Take Care, Drake had sold a more than a million copies of
Thank Me Later. And since "Headlines," Drake has sold additional millions of records as a genre-bending hit factory that's churned out four best-selling albums and a couple dozen hit solo records, never mind his many successful guest verses. In the past three years, Drake's pop cultural appeal has expanded, and 40 has amended his respect for hip-hop accordingly.
Commercial performance aside, "Headlines" also marked the controversial ratcheting up of the sanitized, so-called soft mafioso persona that persists in Drake's latest music. "Headlines" is when Drake, now an avowed boss and body-snatcher, stressed the bounds of his previously suburban reality.
We've examined this controversy’s implications for hip-hop authenticity elsewhere. What I mean to focus on here, however, is the defensive rationalization that seems to have Noah “40” Shebib at odds with his only slightly younger self. Last week, in response to Meek Mill and the general controversy that he provoked, 40 defended Drake in the following terms, via Twitter:
I guarantee you most of the folks on this forum that are against Drake in this Beef ARE NOT Meek fans.
