A biography for E-40hasn’t been written yet.
“When I was in the marching band, I used to take my snare drum and turn it over and use my drumstick and scratch on the other side. That was just being creative.”
“I paint pictures with my raps.”
“The rap game without me would be like woofers without bass.”
“I used to burn rubber at every light, mean mugging everything there was, cause that was my attitude.”
“I love working with different artist with different styles and different producers with different sounds, creativity is everything.”
“I first started rapping when I heard the Sugarhill Gang in 1979, when I was 11 years old in seventh grade.”
“Ebonics is me. I'm the king of slang, hands down.”
“When I do listen to music a lot of times I listen to old school music, I'm talking about Earth, Wind & Fire, I'm talking about the Isley Brothers, the O'Jays. It just eases my mind.”
“I feel like this - everybody, every rapper to me, I feel like every rapper got a little bit of E-40 in them, whether they know it or not.”
“It's always a dream come true to do music with your pops. And your son.”
“I just respect people and mind my business. I don't got time to worry about what the next man's pockets are looking like, I gotta worry about what mine are looking like and my family.”
“It's like with me, I feel like I was never one of those rappers that, you know, stayed in one time warp.”
“I'm not a full-fledged producer, but I can be one if I want to really spend my time on straight being a producer.”
“I don't listen to rap all the time. Even though I rap, rap can be nerve-wracking.”
“Longevity has a lot to do with me continuously nonstop putting music on the shelf, and making myself be the face of the Bay, and continuing to carry the Bay on my back for many moons, you know.”
“I'm always giving life lessons in my music.”
“I looked up to Too Short before I was making my own music.”
“I'm the greatest game-spitter of all time. I talk about the swell, the block, the 'hood. I'm a street commentator. I narrate how people live. That's E-40.”
“Communication, that keeps everything cool. Not holding anything back, you got to tell each other what's on your mind, that's really it. Otherwise when one gets mad at one, it can burst and you just let it out and it can just come out wrong.”
“I'm glad I'm setting an example for the younger generation so in the future they can say, 'Look how long E-40's rap career was. Look how long he stayed relevant.'”