Adrian Marcel and E-40 have tag-teamed to bring a new Bay Area-inspired sound known as “R&Bay” to the masses with their latest track, “Bip City” — check it out below.
Speaking to HipHopDX, the former Raphael Saadiq protegée said that this new sound is “a fusion of hyphy, soul, and R&B music” with a distinct underlay of Oakland’s nitty-gritty streets.
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“Where I’m from, Oakland, California — the Bay Area — we know all about bippin,” Marcel told DX. “And bippin is pretty much a quick snatch and go. Somebody bust a window, grab what they can, and get up outta there.”
According to the Urban Dictionary, bippin is described as “a smash and grab on cars, you just take anything sitting in the front or back seat, in and out in a minute or less.”
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But Adrian Marcel wanted to flip the meaning. “How we coming at it from the Bay Area, we like to put our own spin on things,” he explained. “We’re not bippin cars and windows, we talking about bippin your chick.”
Check out the track below:
Written by Adrian Marcel, Sonny B (who also produced the track), and Ryn Nicole, “Bip City” also features E-40 spitting a sweet 16 over a hyphy-style mellow beat wherein he affirms that “instead of bippin a window, he bippin a bitch.”
But Marcel said that despite being one of the rappers credited with the resurgence of the hyphy sound, he thought E-40 might be hesitant to hop on the track.
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“Everybody went to bat to get 40 just to listen to it and hear it through — and even him, when he heard ‘Bip City,’ I’m sure it was like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I wanna be a part of this talking about bippin.’ Again, it’s just so negative,” he said. “But once he listened to it, man, within 45 minutes he had recorded his verse and FaceTimed me like, ‘Yeah, this it.’”
But no hyphy-inspired Bay Area sound would be complete without a hat-tip to the originator — Mac Dre — whom Marcel cites as an inspiration for this latest evolution.
“We had to pay respect to Mac Dre, straight from Vallejo. He really curated this new wave, this new sound,” he told DX. “This whole hyphy movement really stemmed from him, and the greats like him, like the [E-]40s and the [Too] $horts, you know, the Keaks and whatnot. It was only right we made sure we talked our shit because that’s where we get it from.
“That’s how we learned it’s go stupid. It’s go s-t-u-p-i-d,” he continued. “If you don’t know what that is around the world, it’s been our culture and our ways have been around the world forever — our lingos, our style, and all that. That all started from Mac Dre.”
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Adrian Marcel is currently working on the follow-up to his 2019 album, 98th.
As for E-40, the Bay Area legend dropped off a brand new single last week titled “Bands”, which comes ahead of his upcoming album, which has yet to be named or given a release date.
