When it comes to guests from outside the Bay, Bun B and Slim Thug's generically titled "That Candy Paint" is redeemed by euphoric production. Most of the guests here come from the Bay area rapper Beeda Weeda has a particularly impressive moment on "In the Morning", and rising star DB Tha General stands out on the striking "Streets Don't Love Nobody". Or "My Money Straight" arrives, a revival of the classic Bay area mob music sound with an invigorating verse from RBL Posse member Black C. But just when it seems like post-hyphy minimal bangers start to dominate, the acoustic bass-driven "43" switches gears into noir-ish atmosphere.
The meat comes courtesy of producer 40's son Droop-E, who has transformed the sound of hyphy's brief geographically-linked moment into E-40's personal house production style.
These are exceptionally balanced records, moving swiftly through a huge variety of production tics and songwriting styles. Even T-Pain feature "Serious" seems more like a sincere attempt to highlight the singer's strengths, rather than a too-late bone thrown to a chart-rap audience. Although there are tracks that seem like potential minor hits or have unique pop sensibilities, the trend-chasing days of 40's career appear to be over. The entire project suggests a profound level of confidence from E-40. Instead, the idea seems to be for E-40 to create a panoramic view of street rap from as many narrative angles as possible. The two most recent additions to E-40's creative renaissance, Overtime Shift and Graveyard Shift, are only vaguely conceptual. It's several hundred megabytes of diverse and wide-ranging music whose sense of purpose is proportionate to its overwhelming size. With four full-length LPs released in just under 12 months, the records are less a set of distinct statements than a data dump. The Revenue Retrievin' series doesn't just cement E-40's legacy, it extends it. The list of veterans with two-decade careers who aren't reiterating old formulas is even shorter. Few MCs release as many consistently great rap songs as E-40.
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