Songwriter

Noah "40" Shebib

Noah James Shebib

Toronto, Ontario·b. 1983-06-31

Noah Shebib, professionally known as 40, is best understood as Drake's primary creative collaborator — a producer and engineer first, but a constant writing partner in the production-as-composition sense that defines modern rap credits. 40 met Drake in Toronto in the mid-2000s through the city's music community and helmed major portions of So Far Gone in 2009, then became the in-house architect from Thank Me Later onward. His co-writing credits surface across the catalog because the half-speed drum programming, pitched-down vocal beds, submerged low end, and long reverbs he prints on a track are the song's compositional DNA, not just its mix. He is listed on the publishing splits for Marvins Room, Take Care, Hold On We're Going Home, Hotline Bling, Headlines, and large stretches of Scorpion, Certified Lover Boy, and Honestly Nevermind. He co-founded OVO Sound with Drake and Oliver El-Khatib in 2012 and serves as executive producer across every Drake studio album. Beyond Drake he has produced and co-written for Alicia Keys, Jamie Foxx, PARTYNEXTDOOR, dvsn, and others in the OVO orbit. He has spoken publicly about living with multiple sclerosis and the way it shapes his studio process, including extended periods of remote engineering. Within this encyclopedia he is a writer in the way most modern producer-writers are — credited on the underlying composition because the beat and the song are no longer separable.