Today in Hip-Hop — August 24: E-40’s First Greatest Hits Turns 22, The Bay’s Most Prolific Rapper Took Inventory (And Then Kept Going)
August 24, 2004. Vallejo. Sick Wid It Records and Jive Records dropped The Best of E-40: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow — Earl Stevens’ first greatest-hits compilation, arriving a decade into a career that most rappers would have closed on already. Nine solo studio albums behind him at that point. A Bay Area empire in orbit around him. The comp peaked at #43 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart and #133 on the Billboard 200. Modest numbers. Wild catalog behind them. And 22 years later, 40 Water is still shipping.
The Bay’s connective tissue takes inventory
Understand what E-40 was in August 2004: 36 years old, a full decade deep into a career most rappers dream about ending on, and he was only halfway. In a Major Way (1995) had already gone certified gold. Tha Hall of Game (1996) charted top 15 on the Billboard 200. The Element of Surprise (1998) kept the certifications rolling. He was the connective tissue for the entire post-Too Short Bay Area generation — B-Legit, D-Shot, Suga T, Mac Dre, Mac Mall, The Click, all moving in his orbit. His slang had already started colonizing national rap English: “fasho,” “captain save a hoe,” the specific Vallejo diction that would become the standard by the mid-2010s.
What makes the timing on this compilation interesting is what came right after. Best of E-40 landed at exactly the moment 40 was pivoting from Bay elder to national crossover — Jive Records was bundling “Sprinkle Me,” “Rappers’ Ball,” “Nah, Nah…,” and “Practice Lookin’ Hard” for the incoming audience. Two years later he’d release My Ghetto Report Card (2006) with “Tell Me When to Go” featuring Keak da Sneak, and hyphy would break through to the mainstream. The comp was scaffolding. The wave came.
E-40 in 2026 has 30+ studio albums to his name, active tour dates, the Goon With The Spoon sausage brand, and the Earl Stevens Selections wine label. Still cooking. Still shipping. Still the Bay’s most prolific ever — and still not done taking inventory.
Also today in hip-hop
- 1999 — Puff Daddy drops Forever (27 years). Bad Boy’s second Combs album — a guest roster only that label at that moment could assemble: Nas, Jay-Z, Redman, Busta Rhymes, R. Kelly, Beanie Sigel, The LOX, Twista, and The Notorious B.I.G. posthumously. The record split reviews on release. The receipt of who showed up tells you what Bad Boy’s leverage looked like in the summer of ’99. Debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with 205,343 first-week.
- 1993 — Babyface drops For the Cool in You (33 years). Not rap, but the R&B architect whose production DNA fed Bad Boy’s hitmaking machine, TLC, Boyz II Men, and Xscape. Peaked #2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart. If you loved a 90s slow jam, Kenny Edmonds probably wrote it.
- 1955 — Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar is born (71 today). Best known as the dancer who moonwalked on Soul Train years before Michael Jackson took the move public — Daniel personally taught Michael the mechanics. Funk and soul built the rhythm floor hip-hop was built on top of.
Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team
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