Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel includes: Fabolous, Nate Dogg, Suga T, Petey Pablo, Bun B, Eightball, Keek The Sneak, Bosko, James "Stomp Down" Bailey, Afroman, B-Legit, Kokane. | | Producers include: Rick Rock, Tone Capone, DJ Fingaz, DJ Rick, Mike D. | | Personnel: E-40 (vocals); Andrew Seidel (vocals, keyboards, percussion); Cousin MOMO, Talk Box, Suga T (vocals); D-Wiz (guitar); Ray Cham (Fender Rhodes piano); Bob McDowell (keyboards); Afroman (percussion, background vocals); Harm, Gibson, Kokane, Levitti, Moochie Mack, Young Mugzi of the Mossie (background vocals). | | Audio Mixers: D-Wiz; Lil Jon; Michael Denten; Rick Rock; Bosko. | | Recording information: Bombay Digital Studios, Los Angeles, CA; The Den & Doppler Studios; The Orange Room; The Sound Lab; VMF Studios. | | In a rap world increasingly populated by monotoned players and smoother-than-smooth R&B crooners, E-40's deft delivery and playful wordplay remain a real breath of fresh air. As usual for him (as well as most rappers), Grit & Grind has a few too many tracks; still, it's definitely front-loaded with talent, from the opener, "Why They Don't F**k Wit Us" (punctuated by organ lines and a female chorus), to the second track, "The Slap," with a barrage of rhyming riffs that finds him worrying a batch of suffixes like a dog with a bone. The productions, most by Rick Rock, are fleshed-out and never reliant on the usual West Coast clich?s. The metro-mentioning "Rep Yo City," with Petey Pablo, Eightball, Bun B, Lil' Jon & the Eastside Boyz, is another highlight. ~ John Bush | | Often imitated but never beaten in the rap slangin' stakes, E40 drops GRIT & GRIND, his third major-label album. which continues his innovative tradition of freestyle rapping (he's also compiling a dictionary that'll help us decipher what he's talking about). The West Coast Bay Area rapper is partnered here with a plethora of guests, including Afroman, Eight-Ball, Kokane, and Peet The Sneek, in a roller-coaster of an album that takes us from autobiography on "Da Bay" to drink recipes on the Funkadelic-influenced "7 Much," and is peppered along the way with glimpses of E's fabulous West Coast lifestyle. | | Less gangsta than playa, E40's content to be driving along in his tricked-out SUV, inventing rhymes and words to confound the outside world and dealing on the side to earn a little cash. There's little talk of guns and not much violence on GRIT & GRIND--more typical is "Mustard and Mayonnaise," a run-down of luxury items West Coast rappers can't afford to be without. This, combined with E40's new, improved vocal stylings ("I slowed down my spit," he says) make this good-humored slice of life go down nice and easy. |
Engineer: Dale Everingham; Taj "Mahal" Tilghman; Ralph Cacciurri; Tony Mills; Andrew Seidel; Bosko |
Musical Guests | | Petey Pablo | | Nate Dogg | | Suga-T | | Fabolous | | Eightball | | Lil' John & The Eastside Boyz | | Bun B | | Kokane | | Keek Tha Sneak & Harm | | Suga Free | | Bosko | | James "Stomp Down" Bailey | | B-Legit | | Afroman |
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