Navigating the recession with E-40

What do Bill Gates and the Bay Area’s reigning king of Hyphy, E-40, have in common? Both lost money on Microsoft stock. “I first started messing with [stocks] in ’95 or ’96,” said E-40, known to his mother as Earl Stevens, via phone last week.

“I was sitting there waiting for something, but it just didn’t unfold for me,” said the rapper, who spent the weekend dodging bullets at a Denver engagement. (To be fair, the shots were fired after the show and had nothing to do with E-40.)

“Apple, now that’s what I should have got.”

Good thing Stevens has had better luck with his recently released album, "The Ball Street Journal," featuring several radio-worthy singles including "Pain No More," a West Coast anthem of sorts featuring Snoop Dogg and the Game. Now in its fourth week, the Sick Wid It/Warner Music release has so far sold more than 50,000 copies with limited radio support and no real tour dates -- yet.

But still, as any casualty of the record biz will tell you, album sales don't pay all the bills. Stevens, known to his fans simply as 40 or Charlie Hustle, has had a difficult time navigating the recession this year. The Ambassador of the "Yay" and slang generator for countless rappers is making some changes to his portfolio, which once included partial ownership of a Fatburger franchise. He recently closed his Pleasant Hill, Calif., franchise near his home in Vallejo, hoping to instead focus on his just-released record and his line of flavor-enhanced water, 40 Water.

“I’m moving on from Fatburger because it didn’t really take off like it did in Southern California,” he said. “I’m moving on to Wing Stop ... that’s where it’s at."

Stevens said he and an unnamed business partner have been developing their corner of the wings-slinging franchise for a year and that he will start work on his Wing Stop in Vallejo-adjacent Benecia “in a month or so." We're guessing Stevens knows something we don't about Wing Stop, because a cursory search reveals there is no shortage of outlets in the immediate area.

Additionally, Stevens said he was re-launching his fledgling 40 Water brand in 2009. “I’m revamping it right now ... changing the artwork, because there are so many big dogs out there, and I’m independent like an independent record, and big dogs like Pepsi are trying to crush me,” he said. The water will likely relaunch in the spring, with a transparent label, new flavors and added "antioxidants."

In the meantime, things are looking up for the rapper as he heads into the new year. “The Ball Street Journal” is arguably his best offering to date, with several singles begging for urban airplay.

"This record is a more well-rounded album,” Stevens said. “Over the past few years, rap music went into a phase where people’s ears are all over the place now. At one time there was West Coast and East Coast and that was it. It wasn’t a Southern man’s game like it is now.”

Accordingly, Stevens has increased his nationwide appeal with “The Ball Street Journal," tapping Lil Jon’s production skills once again. (Jon helped Stevens break nationally in 2006 -- most notably on his single “Tell Me When to Go.”)

“I go way back with Jon,” Stevens said. “These days, I’m not making an album just for the Bay Area; I have to make it for everybody ... Music changes every four years so you gotta mix it up. I’m gonna keep it real, though.”

As far as keeping it real this holiday season, Stevens likes to roll “old school” for the holidays.

“Christmas for me is all about my kids, my wife and my in-laws. It goes down like that ... but New Year’s Eve is a bit more wild. This year, I have a few show options I’m weighing. But back in the days, we’d get into the middle of the street and get some 12 gauges and bust [gunshots] in the air when it was 11:59. Those things don’t happen so much nowadays, so we just go out there and celebrate another way."

So does Stevens prefer an "old school" New Year's Eve? Or the current incarnation?

“I liked the old way [of celebrating] better," he laughed. "But now it’s too unsafe.”

-- Charlie Amter

Photo: Warner Music

Comments

[Rbklone 530]

E-40 GOES!!!! DAT DUDE RUNS IT WITH HIS MUSIC HE REALLY IS THE AMMBASSADOR.