18 Meets 40

Monday night I had one of those moments where the universe spoke to me.

It said, YOU’RE EXACTLY WHERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE.

You see, everything I’ve been doing in these last 10 months, everything you’ve heard me talking about on these episodes about these being my “mixtape days,” every intro that I tape is a fan that I can gain, if I build it, they will come, growing where I’ve been planted, pursuing this path that’s uniquely my own for the reasons that I do, the universe rewarding people who pursue what they feel is truly their calling... Monday night was a confirmation of all of these things.

So, what happened?

I met Noah 40 Shebib. A guy who I respect and appreciate more than any words or post could ever do justice. A guy whose nickname, “40,” is short for “40 Days and 40 Nights,” because of how much this dude lived and slept and grinded in the studio working on So Far Gone, one of the most influential musical projects to have ever been released and one of, if not my favorite, of all time.

Just some quick context for anyone who’s unfamiliar... 40 has exclusively worked as Drake’s producer and right-hand man since day one. He, along with Drake and longtime friend Oliver El-Khatib, are the three co-founders that comprise the ownership group of the music label, OVO Sound. He is responsible for 18 Grammy nominations, he is a 2-time Grammy award winner, and singles he’s produced have combined to go 90x Platinum (RIAA).

I have literally kept this GQ article as a tab open at the top of my Safari pages in my phone for the last three years because of how frequently I’ve gone back and read this interview. To this day, the album artwork for So Far Gone is still the background on my phone.

What keeps me coming back, and the reason I’m so fascinated with what he and Drake and El-Khaib have accomplished, is because it tells their origin story. The article echoes the themes that dominate Drake’s lyrics throughout the So Far Gone mixtape and tells this story of them all being at the bottom, recording songs in hotel rooms and mastering them with iHome clock radios, fighting through self-doubt, being broke and begging their moms not to worry because everything was going to be alright, and just having this belief in themselves that they knew what they were creating together was special.

The mixtape would go on to launch Drake into the stratosphere and establish him as one of the rising stars in the game, where of course he’s remained for the last 12+ years and elevated himself as being one of the greatest and most commercially successful artists of all time. Not rappers, artists.

I could go on and on and on about how much inspiration I get from reading about those moments and thinking about how raw and honest Drake’s lyrics are throughout that entire mixtape… it gives me goosebumps even as I type this out.

But that’s why, after idolizing this guy and the way he came up for so many years and drawing so many parallels to the way I’m living my life right now, literally calling them my “mixtape days,” being there in that moment and sharing it with him was so unbelievably powerful.

Getting to meet someone who’s been so influential on me, and tell that person, thank you for existing, thank you for doing what you do, thank you for being who you are, thank you for the contributions you’ve made to music, thank you for being responsible for so many of the memories and moments I’ve shared with my best friends... I truly feel blessed to have been able to have had the opportunity to pay him those respects.

But what’s more… Meeting him and telling him who I am and what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it, and what’s had to happen to make this moment possible, and him asking to see my studio, and showing my whip, and telling him about my vision, and watching how intently he listened and stared into my soul and still hung on every word... It was the purest form of validation and feedback I could ever hope to receive. ESPECIALLY from him. What a feeling.

This Atlanta trip has confirmed to me that I’m on the right path, I’m doing the right things, for all of the right reasons, and I just gotta keep going. Day by day, decision by decision, brick by brick, I just gotta keep building upon where I’m at and what I’ve done in order to get here.

I promise, we’re far from over.

There’s one final thing I want to add... let me be very clear about this last piece because it’s important and I want you to know where I’m at with my expectations moving forward...

I obviously asked if he would wanna find a time to come on the show and chop it up for an hour via Zoom and let me interview him about his creative process, sources of inspiration, his why, where it all comes from, how difficult it was at every step of the way, especially the beginning, etc.

And I really hope we can find a time to connect and do it because it would be amazing to nerd out with him and fire off questions and just sit back and learn from one of the greatest creatives to ever do it.

But even if that doesn’t come to fruition, and that moment never comes, sharing the one that did will have made all the difference in the world. It already has.

The story of meeting him in and of itself is incredible, and the confirmation of all of these little things I’ve been doing nonstop that have been collectively building and accumulating and percolating and ultimately leading up to the intersection of all of these things in that moment... that man has already given me the greatest gift I could ever hope to receive from him.

The TikTok video I taped that night telling this story went viral and got over 20k views, 3,000 likes and 160 comments. And with each comment, I took each and every one as an opportunity to continue building on that buzz and encourage people to follow me on other social media platforms, subscribe to the podcast, and engage with these new followers.

Before that video, I had 8 followers on TikTok. They were the 8 friends I knew who had TikTok accounts. Since then, I’ve gained 220. And now, all of the work I’ve been putting in over the last 10 months is finally starting to pay off because I was ready. I had been building and building and building, waiting for a moment like this to come, so that when it finally did, I would be ready. And this time, I was ready.

So, what’s next? Another day in the trenches. A continuation of everything I’ve been doing to get here, and a continuation of the steps I’m taking in order to get where I’m trying to go. Moments like this renew the passion I bring to the studio every time I walk into it. And every time I sit down to write. And every time I drive 1,500 miles a week. And every night I get 6 hours of sleep and every morning I get up and do it all again. These moments stoke that fire that burns within me and gives me the energy I need to keep going.

I just gotta continue to be... me ???