the cultural impact of drake’s so far gone
With the release of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, it marks his sixth studio album and the continuity of his dominant run in the game. How has he been able to establish this type of run? Why is his music still topping charts until this day? How did a kid from Toronto, Canada begin to shape the mold for hip-hop and what it was to be a rapper in the 2010s? To answer these questions, we need to look at his debut EP released on September 15, 2009 - So Far Gone.
Before we get into it, it is important to look at the landscape surrounding the time before So Far Gone was released. In 2008, prior to the release of So Far Gone, Kanye West released 808s & Heartbreak. A lot of 808s themes focused on West’s struggles through his rise to stardom, the loss of his mother, and loneliness. Kanye West has often stated that the album was “therapeutic for him” and that he had melodies within him that could express how he was feeling compared to traditional rap flows popular at the time. This is important to note as a point where there was a shift in the landscape and sound of hip-hop at the time from gangster, hard-hitting raps and sounds to more melodic flows and sounds that were grounded in emotional topics.
The main criticisms of So Far Gone at the time centered around it sounding like 808s & Heartbreaks. Looking back at these criticisms you can see where people were coming from with the rapping-singing blend both albums brought to the table, but looking deeper into both 808s and SFG, a commonality between both albums was that they both contained topics and emotions that were relatable to listeners. The title itself stems from the idea of getting too wrapped up with our ego, and that we can be conscious about it.
The lyrical content and the themes on So Far Gone are really what garnered the attention of mainstream appeal. So Far Gone contained lyrical content and themes of women, the ego, conscience, braggadocio, and vulnerability. The mixtape itself showed the viewpoint into a conversation that Drake is having with himself in dealing with the pressures of life, his career, his identity, the interactions and relationships he has with people (especially women), and trying to navigate through life. These core themes allowed So Far Gone to stand out and also be so relatable to the fans as it embodied a coming-of-age story. A lyrical and thematic standout on SFG is “The Calm” which showed an introspective Drake venting about his stresses and burdens of life over a dark, spacious, underwater sounding beat. The whole concept of “The Calm” is about trying to stay calm and confident while his whole world is a mess - which is something that most people can relate to. We all deal with problems at some point in our life and we deal with them differently; whether through suppressing them or facing them head on.
So Far Gone also conveys a unique sound for the time. As much credit as Drake gets, a lot of his success needs to be attributed to his producer & engineer 40. You’ve heard that type of sound before with The Weeknd, Partynextdoor, Brent Faiyaz, 6lack and the list goes on but it was 40 that spearheaded the movement. He has an interesting way of fleshing out the high-end frequencies of a sample to leave only the low-end left. You can prominently hear this in the second track of So Far Gone - “Houstatlantavegas”.
Taking out the high-ends allows for this melodic, spacious sound to let Drake’s vocals shine. Also, compared to most hip-hop songs, 40 uses darker sounds such as a tom compared to snares to allow for Drake to be heard much clearer on the track, while matching the moody melodic tone and themes within his music. You can also hear this in “Brand New” and “A Night Off” which shows off Drake’s R&B chops.
In a time where the mixtape was king, So Far Gone reinvented the formula by having a mixtape that was of album quality. Its commercial release debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard chart in 2009 and eventually went on to peak at No. 3. This release would coincide with the legendary blog era in the early 10s’ which saw the rise of artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, J. Cole, Wale, Mac Miller, Meek Mill and much more. J. Cole’s manager ‘IB’ has also been on record saying that So Far Gone had raised the bar of mixtapes from being a tape full of freestyles to including real songs on a tape.
12 years later, So Far Gone stands the test of time as it is an important piece in hip-hop history. It was the first body of work to cement Drake’s unprecedented run while establishing the sound of hip hop and R&B for the years to come. All this from a mixtape uploaded by a 22-year-old kid from Toronto. Not bad, eh?