Hip-hop’s E-40 celebrates new album, and cookbook with Snoop Dogg

Rapper E-40 poses for a portrait in Los Angeles earlier this month, to promote his new album “Rule of Thumb: Rule.” (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES — E-40 built a three decade-plus career on the foundations of an unorthodox rap flow, schooling listeners with life lessons through his streetwise perspective.

With a heavy dose of Bay Area slang, E-40 created a lane for his unique hip-hop vernacular that has made him one of the genre’s most revered artists. As a savvy businessman, he’s leveraged his connections in the rap world to the wine, ice cream and food brand industries, including a Filipino food business inside Oracle Park in San Francisco.