Happy 30th Anniversary to E-40’s second studio album In A Major Way, originally released March 14, 1995.
Earl “E-40” Stevens is a hip-hop institution. He earned his reputation as an extremely creative and prolific emcee. He’s one of those special artists who releases music that sounds completely different than what came before and he’s never been successfully replicated. The man who often calls himself 40-Water has been part of over 30 projects and recorded a few genre-defining tracks.
E-40 has been releasing music for nearly 35 years. He spent decades building a regional following, operating throughout the Bay Area, particularly his hometown of Vallejo (a.k.a. “The Valley-Jo”), a city of a little over 100,000 residents about 25 miles north of Oakland. He earned attention through his unique voice, serpentine flows, charismatic demeanor, and bizarre slang.
E-40’s slippery delivery is mind-bending, as he possesses the ability to speed up and slow down his raps at a drop of a dime. He also possesses more panache than seems humanly possible at times, as even his mispronunciations (be they intentional or not) give him more character than many emcees drawing breath.
But the slang is probably E-40’s biggest claim to fame, as he has spent decades developing and perfecting his own rap language. He’s known for slathering his rhymes in oft-impenetrable verbiage, peppering them with witty turns of phrases. These days I can listen to E-40’s music and discern the meaning of nearly all of his verses, but in the 1990s, his raps could sound like something spoken in an alien tongue.
It was In A Major Way, released 30 years ago, that placed him firmly on the trajectory to stardom. His second full-length is one of his most successful and featured some of his best-known material, giving audiences worldwide a taste of what he was capable of as an artist.
E-40 founded Sick Wid It Records, his own label, in the early 1990s. The label released music made by himself and the members of The Click (formerly Most Valuable Players), his collective of family members who also rapped. The Click’s ranks included his sister Suga-T, brother D-Shot, and cousin B-Legit. Through Sick Wid It, he released his debut full length Federal (1992) and his follow-up The Mail Man EP (1993). The latter, featuring singles like “Practice Looking Hard” and “Captain Save a Hoe,” really assisted E-40 in building his audience. E-40 eventually signed a distribution deal with Jive Records, a label that already had an established penchant for working with emcees and crews from the Bay Area.
It's hard to overstate how unique E-40’s music sound was at the time of In A Major Way’s release. The Bay Area is already the home of a vast array of musical styles, as evidenced by the success of artists like Too $hort and the Hieroglyphics crew. But E-40 created something else entirely. He often called his style “Mob Music,” slightly to the left of traditional Bay Area rider/gangsta shit. For production, he enlists and functionally introduces an eclectic collective of beat-makers that sculped the Vallejo sound.
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Though much of 40’s music references the environs that surrounded and raised him, like all great music, In A Major Way spoke to people from outside the region. On Fat Ray and Black Milk’s recent Food Of The Gods (2025), the Detroit-raised Ray name checks “Da Bumble,” the album’s opening track, as a primary influence. Furthermore, Kendrick Lamar paid visual tribute to In A Major Way in his symbol-heavy “Squabble Up” video from GNX (2024), portraying a giant version of the golden Rolex that appears on the album’s cover.
The aforementioned “Da Bumble” showcases 40’s unique style and approach that he brings to In A Major Way. He delivers one long verse to a rough and tumble track produced by Sam Bostic. Apparently inspired by Spice 1’s “187 Proof,” the beat is punctuated by fluctuating synths and piano grooves. 40’s rhymes utilize, in his words, “ghetto slang” and portray slices of street life. Three decades later, it’s almost startling to hear 40 Water rap about selling crack and dodging the police with a detached nonchalant cool. “In the morning, cooking bacon,” he raps. “In the ghetto in the bullet-proof apron / Here comes the laws, batter-ram crushing through my walls / I’m in my drawers running from the canine cocaine-sniffing dogs.”
Tracks like “Spittin’” further showcase 40’s skewed rhyming sensibilities. I can’t think of many opening lines more off-the-wall than “Woke up in the A.M., toasted out of my cranium / Gotta take a shit; took a dump in the Mediterranean!” He delivers three full winding verses to a keyboard heavy Studio Ton track, zigging and zagging with reckless abandon, stuttering words while modulating his flow at irregular intervals. E-40 and Studio Ton later work in tandem to slow things down to a relative crawl on “Dey Ain’t No,” a creeping dedication to doing dirt, as the emcee describes rolling through Vallejo in an immaculate ride.
E-40 does tackle serious subject matter on In A Major Way. In an interview with Complex, he said “1-Luv,” the album’s first single, was inspired by incarcerated friend and rhyme partner Kaveo’s experiences in the penitentiary. As a result, he decided to “dedicate this to the incarcerated playas in the game. Lemme just explain life, go through the hard times, and cover every part of the game.”
Despite similarities in subject matter and the same title, he and Nas each developed their respective “versions” of the song independently of each other. And despite similar subject matter, each is its own animal. Accompanied by vocalist Levitti, E-40 describes his own upbringing in poverty, while vividly depicting life behind bars. “This ain't no happy Shirley Temple tale-listic crap,” he raps. “This here is serious: more realistic than Radio Shack.”
“Sprinkle Me,” In A Major Way’s second single, stands out in contrast to the rest of In A Major Way’s vibe. Produced by Sam Bostic and Mike Mosely, the track’s delicateness makes it unique in the midst of all the slumping Mob Music. E-40 trades verses with Suga T, each “sprinkling” the listeners with their unique game and wisdom, each bringing boisterous energy to contrast with the sprinkles (pun intended) of keys. 40 proclaiming himself to be “hipper than a hippopotamus” is another of the all-time great opening lines.
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E-40 works with many of his Click cohorts and a wide array of local collaborators throughout In A Major Way. He goes verse for verse with B-Legit on “Sideways,” a lively dedication to smashing down along the Bay Area streets and highways at tremendous speeds. Spice-1, 2Pac, and Mac Mall all make memorable appearances on “Dusted And Disgusted,” the album’s most rugged entry, each describing their commitment to pulling off “licks” and jacking hapless victims. B-Legit and fellow Vallejo O.G. Celly Cel join 40 Water on “H. I. Double L,” their extremely funky exposition on acting a fool throughout the city of their birth.
In A Major Way wraps with “It’s All Bad,” E-40’s introspective look at societal decay. The song functions as a more melancholic version of Too $hort’s “Thangs Change,” as he laments the general apathy and despair that permeates so many Black communities in this country, as well as the pervasive violence that continues at an unrelenting pace. The song even features a brief closing verse from Droop-E, E-40’s then six-year-old son. Years later, Droop would become a successful producer, hooking up tracks for his father and others.
In A Major Way was E-40’s most commercially successful album, certified Platinum. He used its success to both build his own career and expand the scope and influence of Sick Wid It Records. Through the label, he would continue to champion the members of The Click and other Vallejo-based artists, such as Mac Shawn, Lil Bruce, The Mossie, and Rhythm X.
And yet, E-40 arguably still doesn’t get enough credit for what he achieved with this album. It took his native city to the next level of recognition and delved into all corners of life in mid-1990s Bay Area. And he sounded uniquely fly while doing so, even if it took a little time to discern what the heck he was talking about.
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