Marcel Friday

ALBUM REVIEW: E-40 – The D-Boy Diary

Originally posted on HipHopDX 12/2/206
Rating: 3.6/5

Longevity and Hip Hop aren’t words that are commonly synonymous. There’s keeping your name relevant throughout the years and then there’s being able put out a consistent body of work to match. The Bay Area leads the league in all of those statistical categories thanks to E-40. The dual book D-Boy Diary stands as 40’s 23rd and 24th studio albums and slowing down is not the motto here. But with this latest album set coming in at 44 tracks over the course of three hours, perhaps it’s time Charlie Hustle paced himself a little better.

By the way, that wasn’t a typo. The D-Boy Diaries are an asinine 44 tracks in length, spanning over the course of an entire Lord of the Rings movie. Yep, you can ghostride the whip all the way to Mordor and still have some E Fonzarelli music to spare. That’s the thing about being indie; an A&R to help you vet bad ideas is always ideal. If there’s anyone who could pull it off, however, it’s Earl Stevens. Despite having a rollout longer than a lot of current MC’s entire discography, E-40 shows why he had been able to remain relevant over the past four decades.