Legendary. The only way to describe E-40 and the influence and recognition he has brought to not only West Coast Hip Hop, but to Bay Area Hip Hop. E-40 has revolutionized language, style, and music. E-40 has not just created music; he has lead a movement; better known as Hyphy. Within the last few years 40 has released albums that have shined a spotlight on the talent, lifestyle and philosophies that exist in the Bay Area Rap scene.
Last year, 40 gave fans Revenue Retrievin’: Day Shift and Revenue Retrievin’ Night Shift this double CD album had enough heat to last the summer and now a year later we are blessed with more Bay Area lingo, style and musical charisma. March 29th, 2011 saw the release of another Revenue Retrievin’ compilation; this it is the Overtime Shift and the Graveyard Shift.
Graveyard Shift is just one more album showcasing the story-telling that E-40 has been so known for, the quality to be the voice his environment and the streets, each track an homage to the Bay that raised him. E-40 while finally getting the clout deserved in the mainstream even though he himself is a self-proclaimed underground artist; there are is no fakin’, frontin’ or illusions of grandeur. E-40 gives it to you, in his rawest form.
Graveyard Shift calls out the suckas and leaves rooms for compilation with for MCs from the Bay Area and beyond. B-Legit, Slim Thug, Bun B, T-Pain are just a few of the artist, putting in work on the Graveyard Shift.
His lyrics gives fans content that acts a tour through the Bay; there is not a Bay Area Hip Hop head that can listen to “That Candy Paint” and not think of sunny days in Oakland, San Francisco, Vallejo, or Richmond and not bop to the beat and reminisce.
On the track “E Forty”, a track that uses a soundbyte some 15+ years old from Tupac proclaiming as being “The Bay Area” it become real that E-40 has not just been apart of a movement, but he set the foundation for Bay Area Rap music, delivers his lyrics through the lense of the people who live it, and truly appreciates the environment that inspires him. E-40 says it best,
“I am what Ron Jeremy is to porn…the voice of the soul, face of the base, say what the people want to say, but aint got the outlet to say. So they cant on me to relay the way that they feel, you see the realest rapper alive, hood niggas live through me.”
Graveyard Shift has done just what it and all of E-40’s album were meant to do; represent and give voice to the people he knows and community he considers himself a part of. But the amazing thing about an album that is honest and pays homage to the artists’ environment is that in its truth and rawness it radiates out beyond the neighborhood and begins to speak to anyone that can appreciate it; E-40’s Graveyard Shift is an album of that caliber.
