E-40 and The Hype on Hyphy

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Born Earl Stevens in the San Francisco suburb of Vallejo, musician E-40 virtually invented the subgenres of West Coast and Dirty South rap. In the beginning, he attained his broadest reputation and fan base as a regional performer, via his single-handed establishment of the Sick Wid' It label; his recording efforts, both as a solo performer and with his group the Click, also hit big. But it was Stevens' self-promotional force that struck everyone as truly remarkable. In fact, his tirelessness yielded no less than three efforts in 1994 -- a hit single, the EP The Mail Man, and two albums: the E-40 solo outing Federal and the Click's Down and Dirty. Stevens' success solicited the attention of the infamous Jive Records, who distributed Sick Wid' It's whole backlog of material and two new albums, E-40's In a Major Way and the Click's Game Related. Many additional albums followed, though E-40 didn't begin to transcend regional acclaim until 2006, with his Warner Bros. album My Ghetto Report Card. The "hyphy" in E-40's home-video release, E-40 and the Hype on Hyphy is a derivative of "hyperactive," which refers to a West Coast rap movement recently promulgated by the rapper -- a crazy, wild, slightly anarchic, and party-happy mindset -- a state of being. This program, a documentary originally seen on BET, carries viewers inside of the "hyphy" movement, as it is celebrated by E-40, the Federation, and many other San Francisco-based rap artists and will be promulgated by much of their forthcoming music. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi