Biography

After 12 albums and 15 years, three gold and one platinum album (one with his group The Click) E-40 is ready to unleash his patented slang and unforgettable flow to a new generation of fans with his debut album for BME Recordings/Sik Wid It/Reprise, My Ghetto Report Card.

It’s no seet why 40 has remained current; he stays on top of the streets. “I stays woke. I like to put a new twist to what I do,” says 40. “Every now and then you got to reinvent yourse by getting with these young cats, that way I stay fresh in the game. That’s the seet to my longevity.”

With his latest album My Ghetto Report Card, E-40 once again re-invents himse by introducing the nation to a movement that has been bubbling in his native Bay Area for the past few years - Hyphy. Like Crunk in Atlanta or Sew Music in Houston, Hyphy music is the sonic component of the new Bay Area youth culture.

The energy of the youth eated a power so strong that the music coming out of the bay was forced to follow suit, giving the streets a soundtrack to the movement. Hyphy has a dance component, where dancers compete with each other for dominance of the owd – as displayed by the award-winning Bay Area dance group, The Animaniaks, in E-40’s hit video “Tell Me When To Go.” This ultra-intense form of freestyle dancing is called going dumb. The customary fashion for Hyphy is jeans, white tees, dreads and big sunglasses called “stunna shades.”

A prime example of Hyphy music is the blazing joint “Tell Me When to Go”, E-40’s lead single featuring Keak Da Sneak. “Tell Me When to Go” is a high energy joint with a pounding kick accented by a rhythmic handclap and an extra thick bass line. But nothing helps to convey the intensity of Hyphy culture more than the video for “Tell Me When to Go,” a glossy film noir joint that depicts the fashion, dance and car culture that has come to define the cultural phenomenon called Hyphy. “Tell Me When to Go,” both the video and the song, is bound to make the hip-hop nation "straight go dumb in the streets.”

“Muscle Cars” is another Hyphy track on Ghetto Report Card that celebrates Northern California car culture. “What we do is we drive muscle cars,” explains E-40. “We drive Buick LaSabres and we drive Park Avenues. And what we do with them we slap some candy paint or drive them factory. We slap some shoes on them. We slap the same color tint as the paint. Throw some whistling pipes on it, some tremendous, bananas, super duper throb in the trunk.”

Produced by Lil Jon, Rick Rock, and E-40’s son, Droop-E of the Pharmaceuticals, as well as mainstay producers Bosko and Studio Tone, My Ghetto Report Card offers E-40 fans a variety of musical styles to enjoy. The Rick Rock produced “I’m Off The Chain”, which borrows the line “we be to rap what key be to lock” from the classic Digable Planets jam “Cool Like Dat”, is yet another in the long line of fire 40 album starters. Bridging the gap between the South and West Coast “She Say” featuring Eightball and Bun B. The three slip into player mode by slowing down the pace. The song is about a jealous woman who is always checking on her man while he’s out

there working. Built around a slinky funk bass line and a slow melodic guitar riff that would put any 70s funk band to absolute shame.