E-40, Charlie Hustle (1999)

Label: Jive, Sick Wid It
Kendrick Lamar: "‘Big Ballin’ with My Homies,’ ‘L.I.Q.’ My partner Earl used to bump that CD all the time every day and then I just kind of took a liking to it. It was fun, made you get turnt up the same way E-40 do it today. Straight turn-up music. The slang and ghetto terms and the streets. It was fun.

“Definitely [learned from him]. Overall, just to be original. Stand out. Nobody ever sound like E-40, still to this day. He’s reinvented himself as whole new artist. Nobody’s gonna sound like him. That’s my whole thing too.”