E-40 - My Ghetto Report Card

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Although generally a sinister sounding album with heavy base lines, various other sounds and moods appear throughout. A cantankerous feel dominates many of the tracks including Gouda featuring B-Legit and Stressmatic of the Federation, I’m Da Man featuring Mike Jones and Al Kapone, and Yee featuring Too Short and Budda. These tracks in particular contain riffs that sound like they could have been bitten straight from a horror film. Some old school sounds find their way onto Yay Area, mixed in with elements of Lil’Jon’s crunk style sounds. By the end of the album, my favorite track Happy to Be Here closes things with a soulful chorus and a reflective topic that offers a smoother and warmer mood to the mix.

Lyrically it’s not the album to play when mum’s in the room … unless she’s down with the pimp talk. These boys rap about what they know best: sex, drugs, guns and money. They tend to be very blunt about these topics, which can also become tedious at times. However, there is no lack of creativity as the E-40, Father of Slanguage, upholds his lyrical flair throughout the tracks. 40 is the man responsible for originally coining the term ‘fa shizzle’ and in this album imparts words such as ‘guoda’; which means ‘cheese’…which means ‘yaper’…which means ‘drug money’. Overall, E-40 and his associates produce a range of lyrical styles that are both unique and innovative.

Ultimately 40’s album features some clever sampling, making the various selections of sounds and riffs his own. We can guess that E-40 must record in a pretty spacious studio, given that he’s managed to fit a huge bunch of guests onto the album, only going solo in three tracks. On the whole, this album has a reasonably decent blend of moods and flavors although leaning slightly towards the traditional gangster rap sound. If you can enjoy the crudeness of the topics, you will also enjoy the skitz which break up the album nicely. Get the F**K on.com is a definite gut buster. If I was 40’s teacher this would probably get a C+ along with a pretty, stick on star.