So Far Gone is released

Why it matters

So Far Gone came out February 13, 2009, as a free mixtape, posted to Drake's then-modest website OctobersVeryOwn.net. Drake was 22 years old, a former Canadian teen-soap actor (Degrassi: The Next Generation) who had been releasing rap mixtapes from Toronto for several years to limited reception. So Far Gone was the third of those mixtapes. It changed everything for him. The mixtape leaned heavily on the 40 (Noah Shebib) production sound: slow, atmospheric, melodic, descended from the post-808s & Heartbreak template but reshaped for Drake's singing-and-rapping hybrid delivery. "Best I Ever Had," "Successful" with Trey Songz, "Houstatlantavegas," "Lust for Life," "Brand New." The mixtape was downloaded over two million times in its first month, an unprecedented number for a free-distribution release. Lil Wayne signed Drake to Young Money/Cash Money within weeks. So Far Gone is the document of Drake's arrival, made before he had a major-label contract, with no commercial obligation to anyone. You can hear, on it, exactly the voice he would spend the next sixteen years scaling commercially. The pieces were all already in place.