Dubcnn: Now some music that fans SHOULD be spending their money on are the two new albums you have coming out on March 29th, "Revenue Retrievin: Overtime Shift" and "Revenue Retrievin: Graveyard Shift". Should we consider these albums extensions of the first two "Revenue Retrievin" records?
E-40: Yeah that's the continuation of the "Revenue Retrievin" series. What I'm doing is building up a series of albums and once they go snatch up these two albums, they're gonna see in the artwork that I have two more albums out that came out 11 months ago, which was "Day Shift" and "Night Shift", so you can snatch up the whole catalogue. Hopefully, when I do my in-stores and everything, I'll see people with 4 CD's in their hands - or I'll see people with 17 CD's in their hands, every album I ever did! How about that one? *laughs* Why not!
Dubcnn: Can you pick a highlight song off each album and give us a quick rundown on what makes it special?
E-40: One of my personal favorites is a up-tempo slap that I'm just gassing on. It's a song called "Fuck'em". It's not talking about a particular person, but just fake ass muthafuckas. Industry muthafuckas, just fake people overall. Real muthafuckas gone feel it and those where the shoe fits ain't gone feel it. *laughs* They gone be like "That nigga talkin' about me!" Nah, nigga you talkin' about yourself that means you must feel guilty! I ain't never say it was you! I'm just talking about muthafuckas that's phony. I don't like to be around phony muthafuckas. I used to practice looking hard back in the day when mean mugging was in style, now I practice looking solid! *laughs*
Dubcnn: Problem is, a lot of times phony muthafuckas won't know they phone, so they won't even get the song.
E-40: That's real talk! You know that, right? I'm telling you! It's over they heads! Then I got another one called "I Love My Momma". People don't realize how important a mama is. They do, but they take it for granted. They don't realize a mama is gonna be there, she's gonna have your back whether you're wrong or right - the majority of the time. That's your mama! She made you, she birthed you! So I had to dedicate a song to her called "I Love My Mama". Then I got another one called "Born In The Struggle" that really stands out to me, something that will make a gangsta cry, man. That's where I'm at man, I get it from all angles!
Dubcnn: Tell us about some of the collaborations you have on there, who did you work with on this record?
E-40: I got a track with Devin The Dude and we never really had a chance to get it in. We did a song back in the day that never got out there years ago, it might have went on a compilation or something, but it was about time for us to link up and do something. We did a song called "Looking Back" and I'm looking back at when I first met him in the Rap-A-Lot offices out there in Houston. Ever since then, we clicked! He loves to smoke weed, me and The Click love to drink and we were just cool ever since the early 90's.
You're gonna like this song, it's produced by Jake One and it's gonna give you that old school feel. We gassing on there and talking about how it used to go back in the days. Not knocking nobody or anything, cause I don't knock the new generation, I let them do their thang, I fuck with the youngsters, cause it's a lot of youngsters out there that's eager to learn. They ask me questions and I give them food for the brain, I lace their boots, let them know my opinions. But for the most part, we talk about what you and me were talking about earlier comparing the analog days to the digital days. We just tell it how we used to do it back in the days.
Then I got a track with Bun B and Slum Thug called "Candy Paint", one of them slaps. Summertime music! Of course you know I got all my Sick Wit It artist on there. I got another interesting track called "I'm Serious' that T-Pain produced for me and he did the hook. But when you hear this track, you're gonna see that it's far from a radio song, it's just a slap. *laughs* It's funk, on some West Coast type of funk that you wouldn't expect. like "the fuck is 40 doing? It's 2011!" But you're gonna have muthafuckas saying "Man he's really saying something on there and I needed to hear this kind of sound again." I'm telling you! *laughs*
Dubcnn: Your son Droop-E is very involved in your career. You're actually signed to his label and he is co-executive producer of your album. How early on did you start integrating music into your son's life?
E-40: He was always my little buddy man! Back in the 80's, I'd dress him in the same kind of outfit I had, that's how we used to do it back then, the son and daddy would have the same kind of outfit on. That was my little buddy, I'd put him in my drop top cutless and we'd slide out! You know what I mean? *laughs* He was always asking me questions and stuff when I used to take him to school, so we did a skit on the "Federal" album in 1992 when he was 3 years old and we called it "Questions". I feel like whenever a youngster asks questions, he's willing to learn about life in general. I told him to always ask me questions and never stop. I breeded him just by being a daddy.
When he turned 6, I had him come down to the studio in Richmond - well he was 5 at the time but the album came out when he was 6. He rapped on one of my songs called "It's All Bad" and he spit 8 bars on there and gassed it! Then that album went platinum! *laughs* Right? By the time the next album came out, he was 9 and it was the "Hall Of Game" album. He gassed another track called "Growing Up", where he was rapping fast and everything, adjusting to the beat. That album sold 775,000 records and went gold! This dude been in the game for a long time!
My wife put him down for piano lessons when he was 9 years old and he learned how to play the keys, just fucking around. So he'd come down to the crib where I had my studio and be around Rick Rock, Bosko and my producers that I've been working with for years. He'd watch them, analyze them, and watch my engineer D.Wiz as he engineered and D.Wiz gave him my old school Pro Tools thing so he started working on beats on that. He made a couple of beats and I was like "Boy you got it! You got what it takes!" So when he turned 15, I went and bought him a full fledged studio and from then on it's been all gas no brakes!
He also produced a track on my "Ghetto Report Card", the one with "Tell Me When To Go" and "U & Dat". He had a song called "Sick Wit It" on that, so he got Gold records and Platinum records on his wall! He had that when he was 16-17 years old! What I like about Droop-E is that he's got his own sound. People that have heard his own music like that "I'm Loaded" video with the Sade sample, it opened them up to him. They knew he was Bay Area famous already, he had an album out with B-Slim called "The Fedi Fetcher and the Money Stretcher" in '06-'07 when he was still in high school. It sold a substantial amount of records too. I could go on and on forever!
Dubcnn: You pretty much answered my next question already, I was about to ask whether you were happy that he chose music as a career or you have liked for him to pursue a different route?
E-40: I let him go through all the things that he rolled the dice on. He used to play basketball in the backyard like he was on And1, he played all the sports except football, I let him analyze the game. Music has always passion so it naturally happened, it wasn't forced. He was born in this. So to answer your question, I'm very grateful and I'm glad he's a producer. A producer can chill out and just make money. I know a lot of producers that's way richer than rap artists, for real. Producers can produce forever as long as they stay on their toes and stay updated on all the sounds. If you got the talent, stay creative and don't get lazy, you can produce forever! You can be 50-60 years old still producing, as long as you're coming with slaps!
And he got both ways, cause he produces and raps. He's a helluva good rapper and he can produce. So put it this way, out of 100% publishing on a writer's split, the producer is supposed to get 50% off top, depending on what you work out, cause if it's a sample in the song, the producer might have to bite the bullet on that and give some of it away. But the producer gets paid for the points, royalties, and a lot of times on publishing. When you're a producer and a rapper and you produced the track you're rapping on, you're getting more bang for your buck when it comes to the bread.
Dubcnn: Does Droop-E help you stay connected to the youngsters and having a feel for what's currently needed?
E-40: Without a doubt! I respect his judgement and vice versa, he respects mine. We both got something to offer. I'm a O.G. and he's a young G. *laughs*
Dubcnn: You're also going to be finally releasing your long awaited collaboration album with Too Short, "The History Channel". Explain to us why this time we should actually believe that it's coming out?
E-40: *laughs* Cause we've already been in the lab, and the MAIN reason why you must believe that it's coming out, is because we are not under any contractual major label situation. We are independent.
Dubcnn: Yeah, Short told me in our interview that Jive didn't want ya'll to make an album together?
E-40: Right! And we never understood! We got love for Jive, but we always questioned them about that, like why wouldn't you wanna do that? It's certain things that they just wouldn't let us do and we couldn't figure out why. Shit we both got names, we could have sold some records. But now it's time! God works in mysterious ways and now it's time. We've already been in the lab, we got slaps and every time we come with a song, it just so happens to be one of them bangers. So we might as well keep doing it and not fix something that ain't broke!
Dubcnn: What can we expect from "The History Channel" sound-wise, is it going to have a throwback sound?
E-40: Expect some vintage shit and expect some new shit, like a happy medium between old school with a new school twist. Basslines, good sound of music that's tantalizing to the ear, shit that's gonna have muthafuckas like "I'm fuckin' with this I can't wait to bump this in my muthafuckin' cutless!"
Dubcnn: Any estimated release date?
E-40: We're trying to have it out by late summer.
Dubcnn: What about a new Click album, is that a possibility?
E-40: It's a big possibility! We've been going in once a week knocking out two three songs a day, trying to put it in motion. The first couple of sessions we've had have been very successful, so we know we've still got it. We got the right producers, the youngsters are fuckin' with us tough, some of them youngsters that got that old soul. Of course Droop-E is on the case, you smell me?
Dubcnn: Is there anybody in Hip-Hop left that you wish you would have the chance to collaborate with?
E-40: Let's see… It's plenty of them. I wanna do a song with Raekwon and Ghostface. I do. I don't care if the East Coast loves me or not, I just like them. I love a lot of rappers from the East Coast, especially the ones from my era. I got love for Jay-Z, I wish I could do a song with him, I think Jay-Z is still rapping circles around these youngsters, he's on the case, he's a OG. I'm only a couple of years older than him and I respect what he's doing. He's built different, he's from he 80's and that's where I'm from. We got that 80's in us and I don't even have to tell you how heavy it was in the 80's. We got that in us, real 80's hustlers, you smell me? When you got that in you, you a monster, you know too much! *laughs*
Dubcnn: You and the East mash well together, let's not forget about the song you and Talib Kweli did "Real Life".
E-40: Hell yeah! I gotta get with him. I gotta get with Scarface too, we've been knowing each other since '92 and never did a song together, you know what i'm saying? I also wanna do a song with Dr. Dre one day!
Dubcnn: That was my next question!
E-40: I got respect for Dre. One day it's gonna happen, but I guess Dre is the type of person you just got to be around him. I'm out here wiggling, I don't live in L.A., I'm in the Bay.
Dubcnn: But you were on the set of Dr. Dre's "Kush" video, right?
E-40: Yeah, yeah, we was pow-wowing, I just gotta get out there. That boy got a lot on his plate, I don't think it's nothing personal. I used to think it's something personal, but it's not. I got that understood.
Dubcnn: The E-40/Dr. Dre collabo is long overdue, I know you've been waiting for it.
E-40: It's definitely long overdue, that would be a beautiful thing. I think that the West Coast would like to see that. I am a West Coast legend, I am a Hip-Hop legend and I brought a lot to Hip-Hop, you know? Period. I don't want to have to go into details, one day when they read my book when I come out with it, about my life and what I contributed to Hip-Hop, then they will know. I'm also getting ready to put "Charlie Hustle: The Blueprint of a Self-Made Millionaire" back out there. Maybe I can let ya'll debut it or something. I wanna put it back out there so people can do their due diligence and read up on what I've done. I put that DVD out 12 years ago! And it was a Gold selling DVD! I'm ready to revive that.
Dubcnn: Speaking of books, what happened to your "Book Of Slang" that you wanted to release?
E-40: I'm doing the dictionary first and then do that. I stay in the studio making music but I love mailbox money so I'm on the case.
Dubcnn: Besides your children and your family, what's your most prized posession in the world?
E-40: My wife. Oh you said besides my family… Shoot, to be honest with you… God. That's it. That's all. Also of course my music. I love music, I tell people all the time, that if I had a billion dollars, it wouldn't matter, as long as I'm in my right mind, I'ma continue to do music. Now what I mean by that is, even if I don't sell it to the public, even if it's just for me, I'ma do it. It's therapeutic and healing, I love music.
Dubcnn: I think that's a perfect note to end the interview on. We appreciate you taking the time 40, best of luck for the album.
E-40: Aight bro, nice talking to you, I'll be at you soon.
