E-40 -- My Ghetto Report Card Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 07.25.2006
One of the great American success stories.
E-40 My Ghetto Report Card
2006
Reprise
8.5
Think of it. Fat guy from the Bay Area creates a unique style, makes rap tapes, sells them out of the back of his car, gets enough money to make his own label, winds up on Jive and parlays his success enough to finally be on Frank Sinatra's fucking vanity label. No way to beat that.
The current trend is the whole "dirty South/crunk" type of song popularized by Lil' Jon and this album is one of E-40's style of rapping, which is a much of an institution in the game as anything else, meeting the "dirty South" sound. E-40 is somewhat of a musical chameleon and he has no trouble mixing in with the Lil' Jon sound, which amounts in one of the better releases of his career. Quite frankly, this album sounds like an E-40 album much more than it sounds like a Lil' Jon disc. All of 40's trademarks, from him having a conversation with himself in the middle of the songs, to his never-ending contributions to the expanding English slang lexicon, to his ultra-fast, ultra-smooth rapping style that almost seems to completely disregard the various beats he raps over to his dizzying array of insider references, are in full form here. Even though by now it is 40's formula, it never sounds derivative. Nobody has pulled off sounding like E-40 yet and what he does here is done to perfection and in fact, adds a new twist on the track Gouda, which features long-time co-hort and cousin B-Legit.
E-40 will never win any greatest rapper ever awards, but he has bent the musical form completely around to suit him. The man is a true original and his success has all been on his terms. Many people don't like his somewhat hyperspeed schizophrenic style of rapping, yet it all works to such great effect here that one can't help but admire the skill and seeming ease with which he pulls it all off, all the while both referencing his weighty past AND the "dirty South" trend of the here and now. E-40 is one of those artists that will probably never get pushed over and go all the way into superstar, but if there is any chance of that, it will be on the strength of this album. After years and years of rapping, some rappers, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Spice 1, have lost several steps in terms of quality and some rappers, DJ Quik and E-40, seem to somehow be improving with subsequent albums. E-40 keeps getting better and better, leaving one to wonder if his best years are still ahead of him rather than behind.
The artwork here is nothing special. One section is devoted to 40's "report card" (he got all A+s in such subjects as "tycoonin'", "hustlin'", etc.) superimposed over what looks like an 80's Monte Carlo. E-40 himself appears in various places and the credits alone take up four pages, as well as an ad for 40's first "Rap Slang Dictionary", which was supposed to be out two or three albums ago.
The 411: Aside from a few rather suspect "guest" appearances, this is a solid disc, front to back. In an age and time when music seems to be taking a decided nosedive, it is nice to see that some of the artists that one relies on can be relied on to deliver, time after time. While a definite contender for rap album of the year, it also shows how good meetings of rap styles can be, fulfilled potential, if you will.
