Synonymous with Bay Area rap, E-40 built a devoted regional following prior to gaining national exposure with flamboyant rhymes peppered by slang inventive and extensive enough to warrant a lexicon. Throughout his career, E-40's entrepreneurial spirit has cultivated a flourishing scene in communities such as Oakland and his native Vallejo. Among the first Bay Area rappers to sign to a major label, E-40 went platinum with his first release for Jive, In a Major Way (1995). Through the 2000s, he added to his major-label discography with albums that regularly debuted within the Top Ten of the R&B/hip-hop chart, highlighted by Tha Hall of Game (1996), The Element of Surprise (1998), and My Ghetto Report Card (2006), all three of which went gold. Each release proved highly influential, not only on the West Coast but also in the South. Concurrently, the Bay Area rap scene, invigorated by the hyphy sound it cultivated, grew in popularity. It had no bigger champion than E-40, who continued to crank out multiple full-length projects on an annual basis throughout the 2010s. The breadth of the tracks on which he is featured, including Lil Jon's platinum "Snap Yo Fingers" (2006) and Big Sean's multi-platinum "I Don't Fuck with You" (2014), is another representation of the esteem in which he is held.