Earl's Grit (2002)

Fun fact: this is Alfie the bald (he's not really bald, he has down rather than fur, and he's also supposed to be really intelligent but he looks silly and sleeps all day) cat's favourite E-40 album! 

I had that all ready to post back in October when I uploaded Grit & Grind, and back then I wasn't lying about it being Alfie's favourite. I feel the need to acknowledge that since October Alfie the bald (down, hypo-allergenic actually) cat has moved onto the double disc The Element of Surprise to get his (daily, can you believe, E-40 definitely attracts fanatics) fill of E-40. He claims The Element of Surprise is better than Grit & Grind because it has 6 more songs on it. Weird. These days I'm all about the horror-gangsta Revenue Retrievin': Graveyard Shift or My Ghetto Report Card (which is Rep Yo City over and over, thanks Lil Jon), but it's interesting that Grit & Grind was at one stage a favourite of both of ours despite the fact that we look for different things in E-40. Though neither of us are purists (they stick to Federal I think, or know the words to every Block Brochure song off by heart), I can recommend Grit & Grind (if my non-purist word means anything) as a moment in E-40's Fall-ish career (rap's own "always different... always the same") where everything made sense.

dwld
strm

in a major way (1995)

It’s a throwback, but I grew up in the East Bay in Northern California. That was pretty much my first exposure to Bay area rap and I've just been in love with it ever since. I've always had love for the Bay and all that. I think that’s what started me on the tip of looking into other stuff like Mac Dre. Even Tupac is on that album. Even though E-40 is kind of mainstream, he’s always kept it underground, too. I just have fun memories of that tape with me and Kyle driving home from working at the movie theater in the middle of the night just letting that album slap in his tape deck.
-Blake Anderson

Bigger beats (it sounds like), all fat and bubbly, E-40 gets excited by that audible increase in budget (in a major way), his focus reflected in the lack of bullshit found here, as well as his delightfully oddball flow- stop, start, bend a word to make it sound funny, make one up, double-time, sing, etc- and insane intros: Woke up in the A.M., toasted out of my cranium / Gotta take a shit, took a dump in the Mediterranean... Classic record

A+

stream / try

Down & Dirty (cd not cassette sorry!) (1994)

E-40 + B-Legit = heaps of fun!

mega / amazon