audio review : The Block Brochure [ Welcome To The Soil ] ( albums ) … E-40

If E-40 keeps this up, he’s on his way to becoming the most prolific rapper ever. He released the Revenue Retrievin set, about eighty songs on four albums, in 2010 and 2011. Now’s he’s up to three albums at once with this new Block Brochure. “Welcome To The Soil,” the cover page reads, but there’s a hint of sarcasm because; while there is plenty of pussy to fuck, Mary Jane to smoke and alcohol to drink; it seems there’s more bad than good happening in the slums of San Francisco’s Bay Area. “Just the other day,” he informs us, “a little baby got hit with a stray.”

E-40 isn’t just another careless thug. He’s a moral-minded rapper with a lot of street wisdom or “game” as he prefers to call it. That often comes out in his lyrics. He’s also sort of funny; at one point, he admits to once wanting to be a professional comedian; so the best parts of these albums are his verses, which manage to outshine most of his guests. A notable exception to that includes the long-awaited return of a Spice 1 collaboration. “You send some niggas at me,” The Eastbay Gangsta warns on The Other Day Ago, “I’ll eat them and scrap the plate up.”

While the verses are the strong point; along with the beats, which have gotten increasingly better since the depopularization of the Bay Area’s musically atrocious Hyphy Movement; the hooks are generally weak. Of course that’s the case with every E-40 album and most rap albums in general. What this three-volume set needs is to be condensed down to one; let’s say twelve of its best songs. That could, and probably would, make it E-40’s best album so far. As is, there are simply too many mill runs to sift thru in order to get to standouts like Pussy Loud.

The songs are only occasionally wack. One of the worst is In This Thang Breh, featuring Turf Talk and Mistah FAB. And that’s not because the hook sounds like they’re saying, “We into stank breath,” which would be at least funny. It’s because the beat, led by an annoying siren loop panned to the left, is a throw-away. The Jealous beat, on the other hand, which could almost pass for a Dr Dre production, is a definite keeper. “I’m in a class by myself,” he boasts. And that might not be too far from the truth. But you wouldn’t know by listening to these three albums.

my rating : 3 of 5

2012

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