When Drake breaks from Nothing Was the Same’s long-winded intro to declare "40 is on Martin Scorsese,” he's referring of course to Noah Shebib, the small, bald and bearded guy, always in the studio or hiding behind his laptop, who has been Drake's primary producer, engineer and other-half since his career began. Shebib is as instrumental to Drake's sound as Drake — by his own calculation, he's had a part in "100 percent" of the music Drake's put out: "Everything goes through my hands," he told FADER in 2011. As if that weren't work enough, he also takes it upon himself to “to protect Drake from his niceness." He and Drake have more than music in common: 40 was also a child actor, making appearances in Wind at My Back, Goosebumps and The Virgin Suicides.

40 was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005. In Pusha-T's diss. "The Story of Adidon," he rapped, "OVO 40, hunched over like he 80— tick, tick, tick/ How much time he got? That man is sick, sick, sick." 40 responded on Twitter with a link to information about World MS Day.