Beats By Dre Re-imagines E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” video with Golden State Warriors Forward Draymond Green
The Commercial Re-films the Seminal Video in Original Locations and Marks 10th Anniversary of 40’s Hyphy-Indoctrinating My Ghetto Report Card Album
05.20.2015
The Commercial:
Ten years ago, Bay Area legend E-40 released “Tell Me When To Go,” the Gold single that brought Bay Area Hip-Hop and the Hyphy movement to an international audience. Now, Beats By Dre released a commercial featuring the song, starring E-40 and Golden State Warriors star forward Draymond Green, which aired during Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference Finals between the Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder on TNT. Depicting Draymond Green’s pregame head space, the commercial also features appearances from Green’s teammates Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark and Brandon Rush, and recreates the classic video beat-by-beat. According to E-40, the commercial was filmed at the same West Oakland locations the original “Tell Me When To Go” video was, with Green taking the place of Keak Da Sneak.
Says E-40, “The advertisement demonstrates the symbiotic bond between the Warriors and the Bay Area community–the players feed off the strength and support of the city and the city celebrates the success of the team–and the close knit relationship between the NBA and Hip-Hop.” An enthusiastic fan of California sports teams, E-40 demonstrated his Warriors pride with last year’s championship remix of hit single “Choices” and by coining the hashtag #WarriorsMane.
The advertisement marks the ten years since the Bay Area invaded national airwaves with the Hyphy movement, highlighted by the release of E-40’s landmark My Ghetto Report Card album, which debuted at Number 3 of the Billboard 200 and topped the Billboard Hip-Hop/R&B charts. “Tell Me When to Go,” featuring Keak Da Sneak, reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold enough to be certified Gold by the RIAA. The song’s status as a Bay Area anthem makes it the perfect soundtrack to the commercial, with NBA All-Star Draymond Green representing the city’s rawness and toughness. “Draymond is a very intelligent dude,” says E-40. “He knows how to take control of an interview. The way he handles the press is something he learned from his mom. He’s an all-star and a team spirit. I’m a real fan of Draymond and the team. ‘Tell me when to go’ means ‘I’m gonna show up and show out.’ Draymond walks into the statdium, he plays the song on his iPhone, and he shows out on the court.”
The commercial airs during a creative renaissance in the Bay Area Hip-Hop scene, with artists like E40’s own Nef The Pharaoh, and also Iamsu!, G-Eazy, Bobby Brackins, Kamaiyah, Nef The Pharaoh, Mozzy, Philthy Rich and more making themselves heard on a national scale. The vibrancy of the Bay Area’s music echoes the unprecedented success of the 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors. The 30-second TV advertisement will air regularly throughout the rest of the NBA Playoffs with a 90-second extended version of the advertisement available on YouTube.
Watch the 30-Second TV Advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23cchXZnEdY
Watch the 90-Second Web Advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G_9RPyF6nE
Watch “Tell Me When To Go”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZbaXdK8Js
Buy My Ghetto Report Card on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/my-ghetto-report-card/id129020572
Please contact Michelle for more info.
E40 Background:
Synonymous with Bay Area rap, E-40 garnered a regional following, and eventually a national one, with his flamboyant raps, while his entrepreneurial spirit, embodied by his homegrown record label, Sick Wid’ It Records, did much to cultivate a flourishing rap scene to the east of San Francisco Bay, in communities such as Oakland and his native Vallejo. Along with Too Short, Spice 1, and Ant Banks, E-40 was among the first Bay Area rappers to sign to a major label, penning a P&D deal with Jive Records in 1994. They’d spent years releasing music independently, going back as far as 1990 when Sick Wid’ It released Let’s Side, a four-track EP by The Click, a group comprised of E-40, his cousin B-Legit, his brother D-Shot, and his sister Suga T. Throughout the ’90s and into the early 2000s, E-40 and his Sick Wid’ It associates released a series of albums on Jive, and though they weren’t big sellers nationally, they were well received regionally and proved highly influential, not only on the West Coast but also in the South, thanks in part to Master P, who began his No Limit Records empire in the Bay Area (i.e., Richmond) in the early to mid-’90s before relocating to New Orleans. E-40’s ties to the South became more direct in the mid-2000s, when he partnered with Atlanta rapper/producer Lil Jon and his BME Recordings label, in association with Warner Bros. The first album to be released as part of this partnership, My Ghetto Report Card (2006), was E-40’s most successful in years. Concurrently, the Bay Area rap scene, with its so-called hyphy style, was growing in popularity nationally, and there was no bigger champion of the Bay and its style than E-40, whose innumerable guest features helped foster the scene and whose son, rapper/producer Droop-E, had grown to become one of hyphy’s foremost practitioners. ~ Jason Birchmaier, Rovi
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30-Second Beats By Dre Advertisement featuring E-40 & Draymond Green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23cchXZnEdY
90-Second Beats By Dre Web Advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G_9RPyF6nE
“Slappin'”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nZ-R2wdO-0
“Choices” (Warriors Remix): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfYvtz3NbKE
“Function”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsDyZNIkO6Q
“Tell Me When To Go”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZbaXdK8Js