Sleazy {\West Coast} meets the slickest {\Dirty South} on {$E-40}'s {^My Ghetto Report Card}, the slang-slingin' rapper's first album for the {@Warner Bros.} family and his first with {$Lil Jon}'s Atlanta-based {@BME} crew. With past appearances on {$Master P} and {$Eightball & MJG} tracks, {$E-40} and the South have always been cool, and while {^Report Card} has {$Lil Jon} written all over it -- literally and figuratively -- {$E-40} isn't going to forget his beloved Bay Area and its ultra-enthusiastic audience. Actually, {$Lil Jon} seems to be adapting to the Bay more than {$E-40} is going South. The hooky thumper {&"Tell Me When to Go"} is a great example, with {$Jon}'s minimal club track getting Bay Area slanguage spit all over it by {$40} and the gravel-voiced great {$Keak da Sneak}. The way the track slides into {&"Muscle Cars"} -- which sounds like a dubbed {&"Tell Me When to Go"} with a Bay-loving freestyle over it -- is {$Lil Jon} in album-building mode. That's his biggest contribution to the rapper's career, giving the {$E-40} discography the rare solid album without trying to reinvent the man. Tying things to the past, longtime {$E-40} producer {$Rick Rock} gets plenty of airtime, including the opening {&"Yay Area,"} which brilliantly uses a tightly looped sample of {$Digable Planets}' {&"Rebirth of Slick"} to get this quirky, sleazy party started. Oh yes, it is sleazy, with unmentionable but entirely fun tracks keeping things moving in the album's forth quarter. Too bad the maudlin yawner {&"Happy to Be Here"} closes the album, too bad {$Mike Jones} uses his guest shot just to announce the street date of his next album, and too bad {&"White Gurl"} is as much an ode to pushing cocaine as it is to the suburban ladies. The street-loving Bay Area faithful will probably complain more about the sheen {$Lil Jon} lays on some of the club tracks or that {&"U and Dat"} is just {$Ciara}'s chart-conquering {&"Goodies"} all over again, but {^My Ghetto Report Card} is hardly a sellout and a little chart ambition can do a fellow like {$E-40} some good. He's come up with an amazing set of wry, snide, and provocative rhymes for the album, and even if he gives {@Warner Bros.} a shout-out on {&"Gouda,"} he's as unrestrained as ever -- if not more so -- everywhere else. First words out of his mouth on the album: "I got my second wind, pimp!" Indeed. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide