EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: E-40 Talks Historic Quadruple Album, AI in Music & His Legendary Career

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Tawanda Robinson (0:53)

Welcome to the TMZ Podcast. I am Tawanda Robinson here in LA. So you guys know the TMZ studio is based in LA. But today, I am blessed to have a Bay Area legend in here, holding it down. You know what? There's no words that I can really put into formation that would talk about how iconic this person is. So I'm just going to introduce him right now. E40, thank you so much for coming in today. I appreciate you, my guy.

E-40 (1:19)

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Tawanda Robinson (1:20)

No, thank you so much for coming in. First and foremost, congratulations on your new album, Turning My Money Over. You released that.

E-40 (1:28)

Hello.

Tawanda Robinson (1:29)

And it's a historic album, if I should say. It's a historic project, if you will. Yes, ma'am. You were the first rapper to drop a quadruple album project. Now, first question when I saw this was, did you start working on this project before Drake dropped Iceman and Made of Honor and Habib Diyal at the same time, before we got a triple album? Were you already working on your quadruple?

E-40 (1:53)

Oh, so, you know, I've had multiple albums. I've dropped three albums before, back to back. I dropped six albums before, so it went, but it didn't go all at one time. It was the Blockbuster, Welcome to the Soil, one, two, and three.

Three separate albums the same day, right? Brand-new slaps, not-know-you songs, and then I kind of went, Welcome to the Soil, The Blockbuster, Welcome to the Soil, four, five, and six. So I've done that. And in the 90s, I had double albums. I had The Element of Surprise. I had Southwest Riders. I was on every historical multiple album there was from Crazy Bone album.

I was on that album with Gangsta Boo. I was on All Eyes on Me in the 90s. I was on that album.

Tawanda Robinson (2:46)

So you're not new to this?

E-40 (2:47)

I've been doing multiple albums for many moons. Ever since, you understand me, Yogi Bear was a teddy bear.

Tawanda Robinson (2:54)

Boom, you got a lot of features on this new album. You came pretty heavy. Got Anderson Paak, Colormike, Busta Rhymes, The Juvenile, Larry June, Too Short, Havoc, LaRusso, Peezy, IB., P-Lo- I mean, how?

You just locked in like that?

E-40 (3:08)

For real? Well, people are interested in interesting things.

Tawanda Robinson (3:11)

It's true.

E-40 (3:12)

And, you know, with these iconic rappers, you understand me, it was only right that iconic get what iconic. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, a lot of people love to see collabs.

You know, it's just we grab each other fan base. You know what I mean?

Because it's been times where, you know, my fans say, man, I first heard you on, you know, such a such album, you know, and it was like many moons ago, but I had already started, but it's like it's a trip. So that's how that's how we put it all together, like the weather, you know? Yeah, no, this is I feel so good about this 40-song quadruple album, you know, first time in history, 40 songs, four CDs. I also pressed up CDs as well. Because CDs is back.

Tawanda Robinson (4:04)

Are they?

E-40 (4:04)

Yeah, CDs is back.

Tawanda Robinson (4:05)

But if you got like, you don't have a CD, parts don't have CD players. Where they playing the CDs at?

E-40 (4:09)

Oh, the components are being made now.

So check this out. So you ever heard of Bump Box?

I'm not getting paid for this. It's me being real with it. My boy, Trader Truth, he say, man, I got a Bump Box that I want to send to you. It's a CD player and a dual cassette where you can tape from cassette to cassette. You got the Bluetooth, the whole woo-wop. I got that written out in my presence, and I'm gonna put my, I couldn't wait for my CDs to come out. I'm gonna slap, I'm gonna put one of my CDs in there, whether it's one, two, three, or four, whatever it is. So I got, turning my money over, what I got? I got uno, dos, what I got? I got, it's four of them. So I forgot how I titled.