Here's an early dosage of the interview I did with 40 for the new issue of StreetLow Magazine...
E-40 “Breaking News”
Interview by Jay Tee
After more than 10 years in the game and about 4 million records sold, E-40 is still doing it in a major way. Although he has never achieved superstar status, his bank account has gone Platinum a few times. With his 9th solo album about to hit the streets in a few weeks, I sat down with the “Ambassador Of The Bay” to get the Four Eleven on Mr. Forty Belafonte.
Jay Tee: I heard your new single “Gasoline” the other day. It’s knocking as usual. Tell me a little bit about the new album?
E-40: Well, my new album is called “Breaking News”. Some of the people that I got on there are my boys Pusha T and Malice from Clipse. Of course I had to represent the Bay Area and put a song on there called “Northern Cali-Fool-Ya”, which I got laced by my boy James “Stomp Down” Bailey. He was like “40, you need to do a song called Northern Cali-Fool-Ya”. I was like “It’s all gratifying. I’m gonna get all the cats from the Yay that’s making some kinda noise right now”. So I went ahead and put me & B-Legit on the first verse. I put San Quinn & Messy Marv on the second verse and then E-A-Ski & Keak Da Sneak on the third verse. It’s a smacker fo’ sho’. The album “Breaking News” is pretty much man, all stomps. The reason I called it “Breaking News” is because I’m talking about issues on the whole album. About life in general. Everytime you look at the television, it’s always breaking news. That’s how the album cover looks and everything.
Jay Tee: What’s up with the E-40 & Too Short collaboration album?
E-40: Basically, it gotta be contractually right. Not between me & Short, but between us and Jive Records. It will probably end up coming out in the fourth quarter.
Jay Tee: “Southwest Riders” was one of the first double disc compilations ever. Anything else like this in the works?
E-40: I plan on doing a “Southwest Riders 2” and I got in the works a compilation called “The Bay Bridge” with all the top rappers from the Bay putting a song on the album. You know I gotta represent my soil.
Jay Tee: I know that you and Tupac were good friends. Can you tell us something about him that we probably never read or heard before? A different side that we don’t know about.
E-40: One of the different sides of Tupac, as gangster as he might have been, and don’t get it twisted, the boy was a gangster, but, he was never a trouble maker. You would have really had to push his button for him to flash on you. Another thang about that cat that a lot of people don’t know, I mean they can probably tell, was that he loved the kids. I seen crowds of people around him and he’d make sure that he took pictures and signed autographs with all the kids before he’d leave. That boy loved the kids. And I gotta say that’s the way I am. Smell me. Dude had a good heart. And on the other side of the pillow, he would go in the studio and just knock shit out. The man would knock out a verse in 5 minutes. He would do a whole song in an hour and a half. He had great work ethic.
Jay Tee: 50 Cent fired it up for street music once again. What do you think about him making it cool to not have to do the Ja Rule type of music to sell records? Bringing the underground back to the mainstream.
E-40: I loved the way 50 Cent did bring it back to the streets. You know, opened it up for the radio world. That’s something I always been waiting for. Like with “Gasoline”, I knew when I first heard it that the song could be on the radio. I’ve always been about reality rap. It was a point in time where I couldn’t even get on the radio cause I had the word “Hennessey” in my rap. My videos was getting edited because I had Louie The Thirteenth bottles in em’. But now it’s cool for all of these other rappers to show Hypnotic bottles, Amaretto bottles, Champagne bottles, all kinds of liquor in they videos.
Jay Tee: Yeah, Busta Rhymes does a song and gets a commercial deal with Courvoisier.
E-40: Yeah, we had a song called “Hurricane” and couldn’t show nothing. It’s a cold piece. You know, we’re way ahead of our time. It’s things that people are saying right now that I been saying back in the day. It’s like the world take a long time to catch up to my slang. By the time they catch up, I’m way out into another word.
Jay Tee: I know you were one of the hardest 40 Ounce drinkers back in the day. What’s your liquor consumption looking like these days?
E-40: I kinda slowed up cause I’m used to drinking in “Ignoration”, not “Moderation”. You’re supposed to drink in “Moderation” not “Ignoration”. It got to a point where I would drink just to get drunk. Now I just drink a glass a wine. Not just 1 glass, I still do my thang. I still drank Carlos Rossi, the red kind. It’s good for the blood. I slowed it up because I had border line high blood pressure in 1998. It started elevating as the years went by. But, I knew. I been cut back on my eating habits, like all the pork and red meats and started eating more turkey, chicken and fish. But at the same time, I was eating frozen foods, which contain a lot of sodium in em’. And the frozen foods I was eating was the turkey, fish and chicken. So, one day I went to the dentist about a year ago. The dentist was like, "your blood pressure is hecka high". He checked it before he started working on my tooth. He said, “I gotta take you to the doctor right now because it’s really elevated”. I automatically don’t like the dentist, you know what I mean? You’ll be surprised about how many street cats don’t like the dentists. Anyways, I knew my blood pressure was high because your heart starts beating a little faster when you at the dentist or the doctors. Automatically. So you know, I went to the doctor and it was hecka, heck, hecka, high. The doctor was like, “check this out, your either gonna have to lose weight and cut down on your sodium intake or your gonna be walking around here leaning to the left, looking like your crazy”. You know what I mean. Heart attack material or a stroke. You don’t want no stroke. He scared the hell out me with that. He said “it would probably be better if you had a heart attack because you might not want no stroke”. He was fucking with me, right. I was like, “man, I don’t want either one of them”. He was a comedian with with it, but at the same time he was serious. But anyway, I was like, okay, bam, I’m gonna have to go ahead and handle my business. I went ahead and dropped off a good 40 something pounds. You know what I mean, off top. It was hard work. I went and got a personal trainer, me and my wife work out together. We go to the gym everyday. I also got a gym in my home. I been doing alot of cardio, toning up my muscles. Turning that fat into muscles. My eating habits been excellent. I’m eating things I never thought I’d be eating. Like if I eat eat a salad, I don’t even put no salad dressing on it. That’s too much sodium. I’ll put some apple cider vinegar on there. You know what I’m saying. Stuff like steam vegetables and steamed salmon. Stuff like that. You feel me?
Jay Tee: I know you got an old school Cutlass tucked away in the garage. What do you think about the Lowriding scene?
E-40: I always liked lowriders. I’m from the Hill Side of Vallejo and a lot of the cats never really scooted em’ on my turf, but like say for instance instance if I was in L.A or San Jose in that environment, where everybody scooted lowriders, I’d be right along there with everybody else. It just so happened that we scooted Cutlasses, Mustangs and Falcons. You dig?
Jay Tee: What is it gonna take to bring the Bay back?
E-40: A unified effort. Everybody unifying. Cats gotta step up their game and come with world wide quality shit. I feel alot of the producers got to step up as a whole. You got some hot producers out here, but a lot of em’ is stubborn. They be stuck in their little era. A lot of em’ can produce almost anything, but they’re stubborn. And that’s the problem. They can do dang near any kind of music, but they just wanna stay real regional sounding. You know, the music is not really standing up to what today’s music is all about. A lot of rappers and producers is scared to get down on different things. You know, I like to get down on different music. I always have been different. So I like to do different thangs. I let my nuts hang over my shoulders. They just gotta accept me for how I am. How I poke my spit. They should be happy that they got a representative that ain’t scared to venture out. Come with different flows, like I don’t rap just one way. I rap however the song takes me. I might rap fast on one song. If it feels like I don’t need to rap fast, I’ll slow it up. I come like that. You never know what an E-40 song might bring to you. That’s why I like to keep em’, you know, when they think I’m going right, I’m going left. You know what I mean?
Jay Tee: I know exactly what you mean Playboy! Keep doing your thang…..
E-40 “Breaking News”
Interview by Jay Tee
After more than 10 years in the game and about 4 million records sold, E-40 is still doing it in a major way. Although he has never achieved superstar status, his bank account has gone Platinum a few times. With his 9th solo album about to hit the streets in a few weeks, I sat down with the “Ambassador Of The Bay” to get the Four Eleven on Mr. Forty Belafonte.
Jay Tee: I heard your new single “Gasoline” the other day. It’s knocking as usual. Tell me a little bit about the new album?
E-40: Well, my new album is called “Breaking News”. Some of the people that I got on there are my boys Pusha T and Malice from Clipse. Of course I had to represent the Bay Area and put a song on there called “Northern Cali-Fool-Ya”, which I got laced by my boy James “Stomp Down” Bailey. He was like “40, you need to do a song called Northern Cali-Fool-Ya”. I was like “It’s all gratifying. I’m gonna get all the cats from the Yay that’s making some kinda noise right now”. So I went ahead and put me & B-Legit on the first verse. I put San Quinn & Messy Marv on the second verse and then E-A-Ski & Keak Da Sneak on the third verse. It’s a smacker fo’ sho’. The album “Breaking News” is pretty much man, all stomps. The reason I called it “Breaking News” is because I’m talking about issues on the whole album. About life in general. Everytime you look at the television, it’s always breaking news. That’s how the album cover looks and everything.
Jay Tee: What’s up with the E-40 & Too Short collaboration album?
E-40: Basically, it gotta be contractually right. Not between me & Short, but between us and Jive Records. It will probably end up coming out in the fourth quarter.
Jay Tee: “Southwest Riders” was one of the first double disc compilations ever. Anything else like this in the works?
E-40: I plan on doing a “Southwest Riders 2” and I got in the works a compilation called “The Bay Bridge” with all the top rappers from the Bay putting a song on the album. You know I gotta represent my soil.
Jay Tee: I know that you and Tupac were good friends. Can you tell us something about him that we probably never read or heard before? A different side that we don’t know about.
E-40: One of the different sides of Tupac, as gangster as he might have been, and don’t get it twisted, the boy was a gangster, but, he was never a trouble maker. You would have really had to push his button for him to flash on you. Another thang about that cat that a lot of people don’t know, I mean they can probably tell, was that he loved the kids. I seen crowds of people around him and he’d make sure that he took pictures and signed autographs with all the kids before he’d leave. That boy loved the kids. And I gotta say that’s the way I am. Smell me. Dude had a good heart. And on the other side of the pillow, he would go in the studio and just knock shit out. The man would knock out a verse in 5 minutes. He would do a whole song in an hour and a half. He had great work ethic.
Jay Tee: 50 Cent fired it up for street music once again. What do you think about him making it cool to not have to do the Ja Rule type of music to sell records? Bringing the underground back to the mainstream.
E-40: I loved the way 50 Cent did bring it back to the streets. You know, opened it up for the radio world. That’s something I always been waiting for. Like with “Gasoline”, I knew when I first heard it that the song could be on the radio. I’ve always been about reality rap. It was a point in time where I couldn’t even get on the radio cause I had the word “Hennessey” in my rap. My videos was getting edited because I had Louie The Thirteenth bottles in em’. But now it’s cool for all of these other rappers to show Hypnotic bottles, Amaretto bottles, Champagne bottles, all kinds of liquor in they videos.
Jay Tee: Yeah, Busta Rhymes does a song and gets a commercial deal with Courvoisier.
E-40: Yeah, we had a song called “Hurricane” and couldn’t show nothing. It’s a cold piece. You know, we’re way ahead of our time. It’s things that people are saying right now that I been saying back in the day. It’s like the world take a long time to catch up to my slang. By the time they catch up, I’m way out into another word.
Jay Tee: I know you were one of the hardest 40 Ounce drinkers back in the day. What’s your liquor consumption looking like these days?
E-40: I kinda slowed up cause I’m used to drinking in “Ignoration”, not “Moderation”. You’re supposed to drink in “Moderation” not “Ignoration”. It got to a point where I would drink just to get drunk. Now I just drink a glass a wine. Not just 1 glass, I still do my thang. I still drank Carlos Rossi, the red kind. It’s good for the blood. I slowed it up because I had border line high blood pressure in 1998. It started elevating as the years went by. But, I knew. I been cut back on my eating habits, like all the pork and red meats and started eating more turkey, chicken and fish. But at the same time, I was eating frozen foods, which contain a lot of sodium in em’. And the frozen foods I was eating was the turkey, fish and chicken. So, one day I went to the dentist about a year ago. The dentist was like, "your blood pressure is hecka high". He checked it before he started working on my tooth. He said, “I gotta take you to the doctor right now because it’s really elevated”. I automatically don’t like the dentist, you know what I mean? You’ll be surprised about how many street cats don’t like the dentists. Anyways, I knew my blood pressure was high because your heart starts beating a little faster when you at the dentist or the doctors. Automatically. So you know, I went to the doctor and it was hecka, heck, hecka, high. The doctor was like, “check this out, your either gonna have to lose weight and cut down on your sodium intake or your gonna be walking around here leaning to the left, looking like your crazy”. You know what I mean. Heart attack material or a stroke. You don’t want no stroke. He scared the hell out me with that. He said “it would probably be better if you had a heart attack because you might not want no stroke”. He was fucking with me, right. I was like, “man, I don’t want either one of them”. He was a comedian with with it, but at the same time he was serious. But anyway, I was like, okay, bam, I’m gonna have to go ahead and handle my business. I went ahead and dropped off a good 40 something pounds. You know what I mean, off top. It was hard work. I went and got a personal trainer, me and my wife work out together. We go to the gym everyday. I also got a gym in my home. I been doing alot of cardio, toning up my muscles. Turning that fat into muscles. My eating habits been excellent. I’m eating things I never thought I’d be eating. Like if I eat eat a salad, I don’t even put no salad dressing on it. That’s too much sodium. I’ll put some apple cider vinegar on there. You know what I’m saying. Stuff like steam vegetables and steamed salmon. Stuff like that. You feel me?
Jay Tee: I know you got an old school Cutlass tucked away in the garage. What do you think about the Lowriding scene?
E-40: I always liked lowriders. I’m from the Hill Side of Vallejo and a lot of the cats never really scooted em’ on my turf, but like say for instance instance if I was in L.A or San Jose in that environment, where everybody scooted lowriders, I’d be right along there with everybody else. It just so happened that we scooted Cutlasses, Mustangs and Falcons. You dig?
Jay Tee: What is it gonna take to bring the Bay back?
E-40: A unified effort. Everybody unifying. Cats gotta step up their game and come with world wide quality shit. I feel alot of the producers got to step up as a whole. You got some hot producers out here, but a lot of em’ is stubborn. They be stuck in their little era. A lot of em’ can produce almost anything, but they’re stubborn. And that’s the problem. They can do dang near any kind of music, but they just wanna stay real regional sounding. You know, the music is not really standing up to what today’s music is all about. A lot of rappers and producers is scared to get down on different things. You know, I like to get down on different music. I always have been different. So I like to do different thangs. I let my nuts hang over my shoulders. They just gotta accept me for how I am. How I poke my spit. They should be happy that they got a representative that ain’t scared to venture out. Come with different flows, like I don’t rap just one way. I rap however the song takes me. I might rap fast on one song. If it feels like I don’t need to rap fast, I’ll slow it up. I come like that. You never know what an E-40 song might bring to you. That’s why I like to keep em’, you know, when they think I’m going right, I’m going left. You know what I mean?
Jay Tee: I know exactly what you mean Playboy! Keep doing your thang…..
