 "Photo: Illustration by Ryan Muta")
He has been accused of “getting stupid,” “going dumb” and instigating others around him to get “hyphy.” He has created a lingo of his own that has been reproduced and updated by himself and others. He helped put Bay Area rap music on the map and launched the hyphy movement into the mainstream music world.
But with over two decades of experience in the rap industry, Vallejo-born rapper E-40 is unsure why venues such as the Senator Theatre refuse to book a performance with him.
“I’ve been puzzled, man,” said E-40, whose real name Earl Stevens. “For a long time I’ve been tryin’ to figure out who put some dirt on my name or whatever, like what happened up there?”
Though Senator manager Justin Maximov declined to comment, there has been speculation that E-40’s high-energy shows attract gang activity such as one shooting, which killed one man and injured five other people. The incident occurred after an E-40 show Dec. 27 at a Denver nightclub called Vinyl.
Stevens said he was in his hotel when the shootings occurred and thinks he was pinned as a scapegoat for what happened that Saturday night.
“These incidents don’t have nothing to do with me, my stage show or my music,” he said. “What it has to do with is the environment and gang violence.”
Stevens said he is not affiliated with any gang activity and has never spent more than three hours in a holding cell resulting from two charges of driving under the influence, which occurred in the early ’90s, he said.
“I think that he’s not being fair,” E-40 said about Maximov’s refusal to comment on the issue. “I’ll come all the way out to Chico to have a sit-down with him so he can see what kind of character I am.”
AS Presents event and security coordinator Isaac Uhunmwuangho still thinks there is hope for E-40 to perform at Chico State, regardless of a failed attempt at getting E-40 to perform in February. An artist with E-40’s label Sick Wid It Records told Uhunmwuangho the rapper would only perform with an advance deposit for the show, but AS Presents does not negotiate deposits with artists, he said.
“If I got in direct contact with his management and I talked it out where they didn’t want a deposit — they got paid the day of show, like everybody else — I would totally fight to the death for E-40 to come up here,” Uhunmwuangho said.
With an understanding of the precautions JMAX Productions is taking, Uhunmwuangho thinks a concert at Bell Memorial Union would differ from one at the Senator Theatre.
“BMU shows, people know it’s campus, people know there’s security, people know there’s cops,” said Uhunmwuangho, who places bringing E-40 to Chico on his list of things to do before he graduates. “As opposed to JMAX, they have a rougher crowd most nights because they’re not associated with the school.”
Lt. Robyn Hearne of the University Police said standard precautions would be taken in the case of an E-40 show and it would be treated the same as any other performance on campus.
“Our officers are trained in crowd control as well as anything else so, again, it’s just a matter of what is happening at the time as to how we would respond to it,” she said.
Even with the complications, E-40 still has aspirations of performing at any venue in Chico that would be willing to book him. He said people should get to know him before they make any assumptions.
“Chico, I love y’all and I’m not the reason why they don’t want me there. It’s gotta’ be something else, but I want to be there for sure. God works in mysterious ways and I’m on deck like a sailor.”
Tyler Harbaugh can be reached at
tharbaugh@theorion.com
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