E-40 Shows Off His Courtside Bona Fides in New ‘Front Row 40’ Video
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E-40 pointedly dropped a new song, “Front Row 40,” about his devotion to Bay Area sports just days after he accused Sacramento Kings security staff of “racial bias” for ejecting him from the team’s playoff game against the rapper’s beloved Golden State Warriors.
The song and accompanying video were recorded well before this weekend’s incident. The video is filled with old footage of the rapper at Warriors, Giants, and 49ers games, and — based on some high-tech video analysis — Rolling Stone is pretty confident that the main sequences were filmed at the Warriors’ March 13 game against the Phoenix Suns.
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Also, there are no direct allusions to what happened in Sacramento in the lyrics, with 40 instead rapping about his favorite teams, showing up on the Jumbotron, and comparing himself to other famous courtside denizens Spike Lee (New York Knicks) and Jack Nicholson (Los Angeles Lakers). The song and video arrives ahead of Game Three of the Warriors-Kings series, which returns to San Francisco tonight, April 20.
According to E-40, Kings security confronted after he confronted a heckler who’d been pestering throughout the game. “During the fourth quarter, I finally turned around and addressed one heckler in an assertive but polite manner,” 40 said. “Yet, shortly thereafter, Kings’ security approached me, assumed that I instigated the encounter, and proceeded to kick me out of the arena.”
The rapper called the incident “another reminder that… racial bias remains prevalent,” adding, “Security saw a disagreement between a Black man and a white woman and immediately assumed that I was at fault.”
Yesterday, April 19, E-40 and the Kings settled the matter with a joint statement that read in part, “After a series of thoughtful and transparent conversations, both parties agree that there was a miscommunication regarding the circumstances that occurred during the Kings vs. Warriors game on Saturday night.” The statement added that the Kings looked forward to “welcoming [E-40] back to our arena in the future.”
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