Maurice Garland: World-Renown, Locally-Respected Writer, Photographer. Tastemaker and Lifestylist: In The 'Yo: E-40 & Drumma Boy

I know I've never been good in keeping up my "installments" and "series" with the blogs but here is another one I'm gonna try to start. Its called In The 'Yo. [as in Studio]

Every once in a while I get to kick it in the studio with different musicians and be a fly on the wall. Sometimes its because of work, sometimes its just from kicking it. This past Saturday E-40 was in town recording at Stankonia for his new album the Ball Street Journal.

40 is my dude. I met him a couple years ago at Stankonia through my boy DK. Us, 40's wife and a couple other folks sat in the studio all night drinking Carlos Rossi by the jug talking about stuff like basketball, our favorite UGK songs and why in the hell he signed with Lil Jon's BME label (I forget the reason he gave, but it made sense after he explained it). That same night, he happened to be recording "She Say She Loves Me" for his My Ghetto Report Card album which samples a mutually favorite UGK track, "Diamonds & Wood." Hearing the stuff he was making got me excited about the album.

A couple months later 40 was in Stankonia again recording for the album. Me and DK fell through to holla at him. This time he was actually in the studio with Jon, writing to a beat he was making [Side note: Lil Jon looks crazy as hell without his shades on]. Al Kapone was in there too. Of course, jugs of Rossi were on deck. The early sketches of the beat Jon was making sounded crazy as hell. He was just kinda pounding on the keyboard and shuffling through the sound module. It was hard to try and nod your head to what he was doing, because it didn't sound like he knew what he was looking for yet, but 40 was still sitting there writing.

After a while, Jon finally got a groove going and they started bouncing ideas off each other. 40 told Jon he felt he needed a singer to be on the hook. Jon was like "FUCK THAT SHIAT!, WE DONT NEED NO GOT DAMN SINGER! WHHHUUUAAATT?!?!" [okay, he didn't really say WHHHHUUAAAAT?!?!" at the end]. But 40 said he wanted to get Nate Dogg on the hook. Everybody in the room was pretty much like "uh, Nate is kinda played out right now." You have to remember, this was around mid to late '05, so it was kinda true. Then Al Kapone suggested Akon. At the time Akon was on at least 3 other people's hook, so some of us was just like, eh, whatever. From that T-Pain's name popped up. Now, this was when T-Pain was new as hell, "I'm Sprung" was just starting to blow up. No one had a way of getting in contact with him, but I did. I had just wrote T-Pain's bio so I was pretty familiar with him and his camp. I called his manager and told him 40 wanted to holla at T-Pain and that he should come through. T-Pain had just happened to move to Atlanta around that time, so he was in town and they said they was on their way. By this time it was already 1:30 in the morning. Me and DK both had real jobs that we had to wake up and go to work early the next day, plus T-Pain wasn't exactly clear on what time he was planning on coming, so...I told them T-Pain was on his way, we gave everybody dap and left.

I don't know what happened, but I ended up not even going straight home, I think I went and got something to eat and fugged around and went to the club and started drinking and socializing, completly forgetting about work. Yeah, trippin. But around 3:30 that morning 40 emailed DK talking about "MAN! Thank the homie Reese! T-Pain came through and put it down! I think we got one of those ones!"

We started to go back to Stankonia to hear what they made, but fugg that, gotta go to work in the morning. A couple of months later after "Tell Me When To Go" had came out and became a hit the world was anxious for 40's new album. Like I said, I had heard some of the stuff he was doing and it was dope. But I hadn't heard the T-Pain song yet. No, I take that back. 40 played for DK over the phone but the sound quality was crappy so I didn't bother listening to hard. All I heard were those bells and shit Jon was pounding out in the studio that night and T-Pain saying what I thought was "BOOOOOOOOOOOOTY, BOOTY!". But, I finally heard the song in its entirity with Kandi from Xscape on it on the radio a couple weeks later and was just like "wow, I helped make this."

Now, I ain't gonna lie, I liked the song, kinda, but it wasn't my favorite joint from 40, let alone on the album, and I think most loyal 40 fans feel the same. But sheid, that don't matter. "U And Dat" went on to become 40's biggest hit to date. I mean, hell, they got a Boost Mobile commerical with a Chinese dude reciting 40's lyrics in bathroom mirror, straight acting a fool! And shood, that E-40/T-Pain hook up led to everybody and their mama following suit and hiring that boy to sing hooks on their songs. Once again proving that E-40 is still the most underappeciated rapper/trendsetter in the game.

In case you are wondering, no, I ain't get paid. I ain't tripping though, I'm just glad to help. But I tell you this though, that ain't happening again! When I was in the studio with MacBoney a couple weeks ago some dude was in there talking about how he about to try and get paid off Gucci Mane's "Freaky Girl" based off the fact that he told the producer of the track that he was watching XXX on DVD and heard a dope ass beat in the background. So he feels that since he told the producer that he should replay this already made beat and that he helped plug in the keyboard for him to play it, that he should get Executive Producer credits. I mean, yeah, go and get your money little duffle bag boy, but giat dayum, are you serious??? If he can get bread for just doing that, I am in the wrong profession. But like I said, 40 gave me a shout out on 106 & Park, we keep in contact and its all love whenever I see dude.

But yeah, I wanted to share that backstory with you, as well as these pics from this past Saturday. 40 was in the studio with Drumma Boy and they was cooking up some dope shit. Drumma is responsible for Plies' "Shawty" featuring T-Pain, USDA's "White Girl," that new Scarface song "Never" as well as some dope shit on that newest Pastor Troy album. I did a piece on him for SCRATCH a couple months ago. Drumma is already a dope ass producer, but he brought in live guitar and bass players to add some funk to the beat. 40 said its gonna be some shit to play dominoes too, and I agree. I think they are naming the song something like "Getting Paper" or "Coming Back Tonight." I only say that because thats what I heard in the hook.

40 On that Rossi...