So Far Gone...

I legit couldn’t think of a better title for this article. Drake really was ahead of the his time when he released this masterpiece. It’s funny, we usually wait to see what an artist does after their debut in the Light before we start to speculate what they may become. When Drake released ‘So Far Gone’ it was unanimous that he was gonna be the Drake we all know today.

I remember watching Drake on Degrassi and then he released a video called ‘Replacement Girl’ with Trey Songz and laughing my ass off. I didn’t think it was a serious thing. But then more and more music was coming from Drake and I couldn’t deny that the Boy was on some shit. I don’t think we’ve heard an artist rap at that level and give us some vocal as well. Having the backing off the absolute hottest rapper in the game at the moment Lil Wayne does not hurt at all. It’s pretty much in heard of for a new artist to have some of the features Drake had, while they were in the prime of their stardom.

‘houstatlantavegas’ was the moment I was like “oh he fucking out of here.” It was refreshing because I always loved rap and R&B blended records and he gave us both angles himself. Most artists would reach out for a feature, he showed the game that you could do both at a high level yourself. It was really the blueprint for some of my favorites like Bryson Tiller and Logic. It’s crazy that ten years later everything from production to lyrics is still very much relevant.

For Drake to go out and grab Lloyd for ‘A Night Off’ was absolute genius. Lloyd has a very distintive and unique singing voice that can carry him through any era of music. So Drake can lean on him when he needs some theatrical vocals. That’s not to say he didn’t do his thing but there was definitely the vocals I was singing (Drake’s) and the ones my friends who could really go sang (Lloyd’s).

For Drizzy to do what he did on that ‘Say You Will’ beat was crazy. Listening to this mixtape in 2019 highlights a lot of ironic situations throughout the years. Listening to Drake rap over a Kanye song during their feud right now, while Kanye is on his “journey”. ‘Say What’s Real’ sounds like he’s speaking directly to some of the most recent occurrences of Drake’s life. Except the Blackberry part.

What is there to say about my favorite song on the entire tape? Maybe that it’s technically not a song. ‘Bria’s Interlude’ really changed the rules on what constitutes as an interlude. Omarion was on some different shit on this bop. When I think of riding music the standard this is the Gold Standard. Since the rerelease of this project I have gone back countless times just to hear the Interlude.

I know I didn’t touch every single great and impactful record on this tape. I didn‘t have 12 hours to write it and y’all don’t wanna read for too long. But I really wanna speak to the fact that Drake showed us early on that he was gonna be a Legacy Artist. There’s not many artists that has the resume and catalogue that Drake has been able to curate. It’s fun that we are able to experience it again in the streaming era and it still lives up to Standard it set ten years ago. Classic is a word that’s thrown around very loosely nowadays, it is one of few words capable of describing ‘So Far Gone’.