Mob music is the style of music E-40 rapped to on his Federal debut. The beats on that album were produced by Studio Tone and they, like most on those early albums, pound. But somewhere along the way; a decade after Federal, to be exact; E-40 lost his way. Now, another decade later, what he tries to pass as classic “mob” music is a collection of mostly watered-down starter beats. They do “pound” in the literal sense, meaning they’re produced with enough bass to give your speakers a workout, but not in the aesthetic sense the slang term implies.

Studio Tone is limited to just one track. That song, entitled Ask About Me, is perhaps the closest this set comes to classic “mob”. Most of the others, on both albums, sound like new-age post-Hyphy “function” music to me. That makes the double album concept a bit of a fraud. Long-time E-40 and Too Short fans anticipating an epic return to form shouldn’t get their hopes up, in other words, because they’ll be disappointed in a major way. In fact, the individual solo albums E-40 and Too Short released earlier this year are considerably better than this set.

Aside from the beats, the album concept is also thrown off by the fact that both rappers aren’t given equal time. This seems more like an E-40 release featuring Too Short than a true one-and-one collaboration. Too Short is featured on only the West Coast Shit chorus. E-40 is featured on several. I think E-40 has more verses too. He’s the better rapper, sure, but it’s a major flaw; one that would be hard to overcome even if most of the beats weren’t amateurish and most of the hooks weren’t lackluster. Some; Toasted, Say I and One Foot included; are just plain annoying.

my rating : 2 of 5

2012