So Gone

Album: After The Storm (2003)
Charted: 8 10
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Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Monica singing about almost losing her mind over an unfaithful man. The singer's close friend Missy Elliott wrote and produced the tune. "She wrote that record after eavesdropping on my phone conversation," Monica recalled, laughing to MTV News in 2012. "So when you think about things like that, that can only be done by somebody that's very close to you."
  • Monica was just 14 when her first album, Miss Thang, was released in 1995. After her breakthrough The Boy Is Mine in 1998, she released All Eyez on Me in 2002, which disappointed.

    This was a difficult time for Monica, who lost her grandmother and her cousin, and also witnessed a suicide. She also had to deal with rumors on the Internet - something that wasn't a factor when she started.

    "Everything about After The Storm was about my life after the hardship," she told Fader in 2016. "This album came when I felt whole enough to make a record again. 'So Gone' was actually created because [Missy Elliott] kept the microphone on and overheard my phone conversations. After hearing my phone conversation, she created this song."
  • This was Monica's biggest commercial success in years - it was her first Top 10 single on the Hot 100 since 1998's "Angel Of Mine."
  • The song incorporates a sample of The Whispers' 1977 recording "You Are Number One." That song's writer, Zyah Ahmonuel (aka Malcolm Anthony), gets a composer credit on "So Gone" thanks to the sample.
  • On Twitter, the #SoGoneChallenge started trending in 2016, with users doing their own verses to this track. On August 10, it took off when Chance The Rapper posted his, where he rapped about his pregnant girlfriend:

    She complains about the baby weight but I ain't panic
    Since she got pregnant she been showing crack like bad mechanic


    Monica, who is good friends with Missy Elliott, posted her own video on August 16 where she took the challenge with Elliott dancing in the background:

    Slap all those chicks for talking smack
    Making raps while they rapping on my old track


    Others to take the challenge include Kevin Hart, Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union.

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