E-40 sits atop the Bay Area’s Mount Rushmore of rap. It can be argued no other regional rapper casts a longer shadow. While colleague and peer Too $hort comes close, 40’s work outside of the genre has made him more of a cultural figure, especially in recent years, through both his community-minded efforts and many entrepreneurial moves. His musical history, however, can be traced to the ’80s, not unlike rapper and actor Ice-T’s, who, along with 40, have helped shape the West Coast’s placement in hip-hop history.
The two will share the stage this weekend at Music in the Park in a powerful one-off for the ages.
E-40, born Earl Stevens (but also known by several non de plumes: Charlie Hustle, E-Bonics, 40 Fonzarelli, 40 Belafonte, E-Pheezy, and more) had built a body of work and an independent operation that remain central to Northern California hip-hop. Fittingly, he also refers to himself as The Ambassador to the Bay.
Stevens grew up on Magazine Street in Vallejo’s Hillside neighborhood. In the late 1980s, he and his brother opened a clothing store after deciding to focus on their business and musical aspirations. The shop became a base from which the Stevens family funded studio time. Looking back on the making of his 1993 debut, Federal, in an interview for Vibe Magazine, he described the process early on, a time when investment meant self-investment.
“I was cold turkey out of the soil, you feel me? I was new and was leaving my old life behind to work on this life, and use the money we’d put into studio time. Whether it was $40 or $400, I used that money to invest back into myself. I’d walk down to Vallejo Check Cashing, then walk straight to the studio and be like, ‘I need four hours for next Tuesday, here’s my deposit.’”
He also describes a bit of his songwriting process then: “So while I’m at the store cashiering or stocking, I’d write lyrics and jot everything all down while listening to beats. Once I got to the studio, I’d finish like four or five songs easily and all of those tracks over time became Federal.” In a recent full-circle moment, Magazine Street was renamed E-40 Way a few years ago, an event where he also received a key to the city.
His entrepreneurial drive has produced a catalogue of more than three dozen albums, revered projects and legendary collaborations. After continually introducing torrents of new slang to the popular imagination, his hyphy singles a decade after Federal bolstered the local scene beyond the East Bay, while later-era tracks like “Choices” kept him musically relevant and in the public eye.
When I asked how he continues releasing music at such a high rate after all these decades, he answered as only he would: “It’s all gravity.”
Community work, especially in recent years, has been as public as his courtside seats and businesses. A role that he wears rather well now as an elder statesman. In our same Vibe interview, he explained his approach: “You don’t always have to broadcast what you do on the internet or push it in the limelight or put it on the news,” he said. “But I definitely do that sometimes because I want to influence other people in my position to do the same thing.” In the same conversation, he revealed that he smartly chooses backpacks with lifetime guarantees for school giveaways so the “kids are taken care of for life.”
When E-40 and Ice-T perform this weekend, the evening will place two long-running California voices in the same room for one night. The first built a career by treating every available dollar as an investment for the next. The second helped write the early rules for gangsta rap. With such undeniable combined history, their shared bill in San Jose should be one for the books.
*E-40 and Ice-T perform at Music In The Park Saturday, Sept. 19th with DJ Evil E and Lyrics Born
