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After a talent show at Grambling State University, E-40 and his cousin B-Legit decided to attempt a career in rap. They moved back to Vallejo and teamed up with D-Shot, E-40's brother, to form the group Most Valuable Players. E-40's gospel singing uncle (see "I got the game from my Uncle Saint Charles") helped them put out the record.[1] E-40 says "Oooh" in many of his songs. E-40's sister, Suga T, was then added to the group to form The Click....

Earl Stevens (born November 15, 1967) best known by his stage name E-40, is a Bay Area rapper, part of the Bay Area rap group The Click and founder of Bay Area hip-hop record label Sick Wid It Records.[1] The "40" in "E-40" was chosen by Earl as a reference to "40s" - 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor. The "E" was simply derived from Earl Stevens's first name.[3] The "E" has also been claimed to signify his habit of drinking 5 forties in one night, since "E" is the fifth letter. After the release of The Click's first album Down and Dirty, E-40's local solo debut was released. Todd Anthony Shaw (born April 28, 1966), better known by his stage name Too Short (seen on album covers as Too $hort),...

Emerging in 1993, when Dr. Dre's G-funk had overtaken the hip-hop world, the Staten Island, NY-based Wu-Tang Clan proved to be the most revolutionary rap group of the mid-'90s -- and only partially because of their music. Turning the standard concept of a hip-hop crew inside out, the Wu-Tang Clan were assembled as a loose congregation of nine MCs, almost as a support group. Instead of releasing one album after another, the Clan were designed to overtake the record industry in as profitable a fashion as possible -- the idea was to establish the Wu-Tang as a force with their debut album and then spin off into as many side projects as possible....

Their name, Geto Boys, comes from a deliberate misspelling of the word Ghetto. For both their first album 5th Ward Chronicles: Making Trouble (1988) and their second album, Grip It! On That Other Level (1989), the spelling was "Ghetto Boys", according to standard English spelling rules. For their third album, The Geto Boys, they changed it to the "Geto" spelling, which they still use today. According to an urban legend, the "Geto" spelling originated from a spray-painted street sign in North Houston (the sign has long since been replaced), along with graffiti written within the restroom walls at Willowridge High School in Missouri City, Texas during the late 1980s....

A onetime member of Houston's Geto Boys, Bushwick Bill created a stir with his 1992 release Little Big Man. It was an unvarnished, sometimes frightening release, with details about the shooting incident that cost him an eye, along with the customary sexism, violent imagery, and outlandish inner-city narratives that have long been the group's stock-in-trade....

Synonymous with Bay Area rap, E-40 garnered a regional following, and eventually a national one, with his flamboyant raps, while his entrepreneurial spirit, embodied by his homegrown record label, Sick Wid' It Records, did much to cultivate a flourishing rap scene to the east of San Francisco Bay, in communities such as Oakland and his native Vallejo. Along with Too Short, Spice 1, and Ant Banks, E-40 was among the first Bay Area rappers to sign a major-label deal, penning a deal with Jive Records in 1994, after years of releasing music independently, going back as far as 1990, when Sick Wid' It released Let's Side, a four-track EP by the Click, a group comprised of E-40, his cousin B-Legit,...

The East Oakland backpacker crew are members of the loose underground hip-hop consortium known as Hieroglyphics. The group consists of four erudite but hardcore MCs: A-Plus, Phesto, Opio and Tajai. Their debut album in 1993, '93 Til Infinity, produced an early-'90s anthem of the same name and spawned a movement towards bohemian yet rugged hip-hop. The crew drew comparisons to De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest for their abstract, whimsical style of storytelling. '93 Til was a youthfully impressionistic album echoing jazz and funk influences combined with precocious lyrical gestures. Such tracks as "That's When Ya Lost" and "Never No More" were memorable for their lyrics and feel alike....

David Martin Blake (born January 18, 1970), better known by his stage name DJ Quik, is a American rapper and record producer from Compton, California. His debut album, Quik Is the Name was led by the success of two top 20 R&B singles, "Tonite" and "Born and Raised in Compton." The album ended up reaching 10th on the album charts and being certified platinum by the RIAA.None of his successive albums reached the success of his debut, though they have been well received in California. Videos: 1) "Jus Lyke Compton" 2) "Safe & Sound" 3) "Born & Raised In Compton" 4) "Way 2 Fonky" 5) "Hand N' Hand" 6) "Tonight"...

De La Soul is a Grammy Award-winning hip hop group from Amityville, New York. They are best known for their eclectic sampling and quirky, surreal lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap subgenre. The members are Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos, Mercenary, Plug Wonder Why, Plug One), David Jude Jolicoeur (Trugoy the Dove, Dave, Plug Two) and Vincent Mason (P.A. Pasemaster Mase, Maseo, Plug Three). The three formed the group in high school and caught the attention of producer Paul Huston (Prince Paul) with a demo tape of the song "Plug Tunin'". Prince Paul was also sometimes referred to as Plug Four....

Scarface quickly became the South's most admired rapper and remained so throughout the '90s after breaking away from the Geto Boys to launch his solo career in 1991. Even if he never scored any national hits or stormed up the Billboard charts with any of his numerous albums throughout the '90s, no one could question his clout throughout the South. He essentially defined what it meant to be a Southern thug rapper years before anyone even coined the term Dirty South. This became glaringly evident in the late '90s when a massive wave of young MCs arose from Houston, New Orleans, and Memphis emulating his style of hard-boiled, ghetto-bred, straight-up hardcore rapping....