The making of Tell Me When To Go as told by the Bay Area legend himself, E-40.
My Ghetto Report Card is the beginning of a new beginning for me. Its old school E-40, with a new school twist, you smell me. The chemistry between Lil’ Jon and I is excellent. We have ourselves a masterpiece. If you don’t go to get My Ghetto Report Card, you are missing out, you dig. It’s a way different sound. I’m on there way Hyphy, telling it like it is. It’s a mixture of all different types of music. I got my southern driven music, I got my super Hyphy type of music, and the up-tempo knocks. I got my struggle type of music, you smell me. This is my second wind, you dig. This is “no peanut,” this is “coconuts,” it ain’t bananas.
Let me tell you how Tell Me When to Go came together. I was out there (Atlanta) for two weeks, knocking out a whole bunch of music. Lil’ Jon and I plotted out how we were going to come at the album. Jon was like, “This week, we’re going to work on all up-tempo blaps (tracks).” So we knew what we wanted when we went into the studio. The first day that I went in, it just so happened that I had a song that I wanted to work on called, “Muscle Cars.” So he started working on the MPC and came up with an up-tempo blap. So I told him that I wanted to get Keak the Sneak on their, and I wanted to get my artist Turf Talk on there. So I decided to reach out to Keak, knowing that I might have to MP3 the track to him, because he isn’t normally in Atlanta.
Now this is how God works in mysterious ways. So I got in touch with Dane Fame, Keak’s right-hand man, and asked him where they were at, because I had a blap that I wanted to email to them for Keak. So Dane was like, “We’re in Atlanta, man.” So I told him that I was there as well. I told him to write down the address to Stankonia Studio, because I wanted Keak to hop on this oo-wop, right here. We stopped to get some drink, some smoke and we had a blast. So we did “Muscle Cars” that day.
Let me tell you like this man, Lil’ Jon is hot because he don’t just make one blap; he try to do about 8 or 9 beats a day. He has huge speakers on each side, because he likes to hear his music like he’s in the club. This is why when his music comes on in the club; it overpowers everybody else’s shit. So Jon is working on another up-tempo track that goes like, “Dmm-dmm-clack-dmm-dmm-dmm-dmm-clack.” The next thing you know Keak, Dane and I were in the hallway and I heard’em say, “Tell me when to go, tell me when to go.” Then I said, “Tell me when to gooooooooo,” and it was history, right there.
After we finished our verses, I put that chin on there and we knew that it was a wrap like a Taliban hat. I’m going to tell you like this man, listen up. Jon said, “What we’re going to do is show them the visual.” So what we did was took a camcorder and put a trailer together. They filmed me in the studio singing the song and we also through in heavy DVD shit from side shows like, Oakland Gone Wild, Go Dumb USA and other films from the Yay area. We also took certain parts of the Hyphy dance just so they could see the visual. So we played it for Tom, Nayim and everybody over at Warner Bros. Tom was like, “We need to shoot this video in the next few weeks.” From then on, it was confirmed like a Don King perm. It’s one of the hottest records out right now.
Check out the E-40‘s album “My Ghetto Report Card” below.
E-40’s My Ghetto Report Card
is in stores now!!!
