Four or five records were recorded there. GQ: It just seemed like a modern innovation on the sound. You can hear it. What about " The Calm "? Noah "40" Shebib: He rapped that story out a couple times. He explained the story a couple times, briefly about this album. It was a crazy, crazy night. That was when we were living in an apartment building in Toronto, downtown, Apartment 15 Fort York Boulevard. He says , two couches and paintings, and he goes on to talk about that apartment where we did all that music, on the new album.
He just came back in the room and said, I need to rap. Make me something. In 45 minutes, I made "The Calm" and he wrote those bars as I made the beat. Over the next five or six hours, that record unfolded in its entirety. What was interesting and unique about that record is I saw how upset he was and I made it as a palette for how he could express himself.
Noah "40" Shebib: It came a little bit later when we were figuring out the direction of the album. When it started to take shape, this song just slipped into the mold. Kanye had put out that record at the time, anyway, he sampled "Tears for Fears" in it and there was this melody and Drake became crazily obsessed with this melody.
That pushed me to pay attention to Tears for Fears and this idea of an opiate song and the drum loop and so I grabbed the drum loop. And went to work on it in the vein of all the other things I created. I was just going fucking haywire with it, you know? I got this! It was like finding a pot of gold.
The record I did for Trey Songz was a Drake song. The record I did for Wayne was for Drake at first but Wayne hijacked it. When it comes to this project, one ended and the other started. This is my responsibility and I take a lot of pride in that. Noah "40" Shebib: Never. All creativity is lent and borrowed from somewhere. We grew up in society and hear things and are predetermined to like or dislike chord structures or scales.
We were on tour, traveling together, sharing hotel rooms. We went on that So Far Gone [tour] and I was production manager, stage manager, stage tech, keyboard tech, I was everything. Trucks driving across America. We did that for three months and started working on Thank Me Later after that. I feel like that was one of the biggest gaps we took ever. That was just us keeping up with him exploding—"Best I Ever Had" was 1 for 14 weeks.
Omen was in town and we were working on records together, and he gave me a look before anyone else. Start some drums! Drop some pads! It just started like that. The stuff I did with Omen, nobody else other than T-Minus, is like that. Noah "40" Shebib: Swizz was great, he just sent over the beat and it was pretty much as is, but I added the bass to the beginning section.
Other than that, the sample was all there. We sent it over and I hit him back and asked if I could add bass and he just said, "Yo, family, I love what you do. Do what you do. I was like, are you sure? He just let me go in on it and I did what I did. I beefed up the beginning and put the mix on it and just made sure it was what we wanted to be. A lot of the time with the Boi-1da stuff, we work closely together. Drake knows what to do a lot of the time. Me and T have worked together and had a great time on the record.
GQ: Will you know when he has to get something off the chest? Or will he just go in the booth and do what he does? It was a cool, different sound and had a different edge to it production-wise and pushed him musically and the writing was phenomenal and the concept and the feel of the conversation. I enjoy creating a moment and treating it like a film does, you want to say "Fuck you," but yeah, you want it to take you somewhere.
That type of fury and emotion, there was something about that record that captivated me. GQ: Do you see yourself ever trying to step forward and work more visibly with other artists? Noah "40" Shebib: No. Noah "40" Shebib: Developing software and plug-ins. Trying to do everything from processing to creation of music. It was the perfect style for Drake. And then when the chorus comes, you take it off again, and everything gets bigger. I understand everything that was thrown at him.
I was there. At every step, 40 was there, producing, mixing, mastering, and hitting record at the beginning of every studio session. Twenty-eight billion Spotify streams later, 40 can claim a place as one of the most successful producers of his or any generation.
Despite his decade-plus creative collaboration with the man responsible for dethroning multiple records set by The Beatles, 40 is careful describing their working relationship. Later, driving a sleek Tesla through the mud and slush of a Toronto winter, 40 points across the narrow streets of Roncesvalles, the neighborhood where he grew up. His family, which has Lebanese, Irish, Swiss, and Scottish roots, is also something like Canadian artistic nobility. His great-great grandfather, the economist James Mavor, arrived from Europe in the lates and started the political science department at the University of Toronto.
The Dora Mavor Moore Awards, which honor productions across theater, dance, and opera, according to the Toronto Alliance For the Performing Arts — are named after his great-grandmother and her accomplishments in theater. As a child, he fell asleep to the sound of his father banging away at a typewriter on scripts.
Even then, the pattern of his father going years between jobs was evident. They were in the next trailer with a bunch of coke and whores… People in these situations of fame and success can still struggle with their own personal issues. Initially, 40 turned down the part, but he eventually buckled when Sofia called his house directly.
They went to film school together. Literally, they know each other. Are you Lebanese? What the hell? This is crazy. After high school, the two became roommates. He beams with pride. I was in every hood doing every fucking hood shit. I want some chords. Everyone just wants me to make the hardest beats ever. Fuck off. I want to make the softest beats ever. His bottom end was the heaviest, and it still is. You never stop.
A couple of years ago, both Payback and Illy were murdered. Walking down the steps of SOTA studios, the airbrushed face of Payback, emblazoned on a framed shirt, stares at you. It was a gift from Drake. Random, always. One night around , 40 turned on the radio and heard a song by Drake, another former child actor, still best known for his role on Degrassi: The Next Generation.
He tried to get in touch. He never heard back. Put your ego to the fucking side. After Oliver forced him to make that call, 40 engineered four recording sessions for Drake. They would be the only sessions 40 would ever charge him for.
From then on, if Drake was recording, 40 was behind the boards. As the engineer and producer, 40 was responsible for the music, and Oliver was responsible for making sure Drake became the Drake we all know and recognize. I give a fuck about the cover. The child soap opera star-turned-rapper was still navigating foreign terrain, but 40 had already experienced many of his upcoming challenges through his years in the Canadian hip-hop scene.
It was counsel, guidance, help. Even at the beginning of their partnership, he knew they were onto something special, and began to invest more and more in betting they could all make it big, together. I was paying for lots of stuff and racking up big debts on the street, but I had resources on the street, so it was okay. I could pull 50 grand, grand.
Fuck October. Oliver is born in October. Oliver, the branding expert of the trio, offered to make OVO simply a fashion blog. This is my fashion blog. Halfway through the process, though, they scrapped it in favor of a mixtape that would go on to be So Far Gone.
Drake, a budding superstar already, caught the attention of Lil Wayne , who began to mentor him. When Drake was invited on tour with Wayne and another young protege, Nicki Minaj , 40 came along. For six months in , they rode in a bed tour bus across the U. If that meant being his assistant that day and helping him and getting him food and cleaning up, I did everything, but gladly.
I was proud to do it. Then the boss took notice. The question was the first extended conversation the pair ever had. Fuck this. I started feeling great.
When he finally collapsed on tour last year, 40 knew he had to make a change. A more serious complication arose when the world went into lockdown in the weeks after we met. The only uncertainty 40 shows about the future, and his place in it, is related to his MS. Shit was numb for a month. Grabbing a box that was delivered earlier in the morning, 40 pulls out an enormous bag of marijuana. In a way, he is: 40 partnered with a company called Robes Cannabis to begin the process of putting it in dispensaries across Canada, where recreational weed has been legal since This is a life-changing product that I need to help deliver to the world.
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