"I'm trying to see what kinda angle I can hit the people with, being that I'm up one because I'm brand new. I think it's real important that first time around you give em your real essence.and make people say, `Who is this mother f******?'"

He is a rapper who wants to touch people the way music first touched him. He is a man looking to redress youthful mistakes that closed the door on one lifelong dream, yet burst the door to another wide open. His forthcoming debut album on Snoop Dogg's Doggy Style Records marks the first step in a new journey for E White, a high-school basketball talent whose early bad decisions derailed a sure path to NBA stardom. With heat from producers Ric Roc, The Alchemist, and Doggy Style regulars Battlecat, Fred Wreck and Meech Wells, Eric White is now ready to kick through all you thought you knew about hip hop with a new style, fresh 26-year old energy, and the pit bull determination of a man who appreciates the precious gift of a second chance.

E White was first introduced to Snoop through The Twins, his cousins who charted with "Round and Round" on Warren G's "G-Funk" label. "They came up and hung real tight with Snoop," E remembers. "By the time I got old enough to hang and kick it with them, Dogg was already Dogg, you know, worldwide. He didn't have to start fuckin' with me, I understood that, but Dogg was always cool with me. I'd be out at his house on the weekend, but I never told him I rapped because whenever I used to tell people, wasn't nobody coming up with no deal."

So E just sat in the cut and peeped game. "The whole time I laid low and got to see a lot of shit without even being in the game, without having to pay dues. I got to watch what other niggas in the industry are doing. The whole time, I was looking around thinking, "everybody's trying to do the same shit." I said if I come up with a tight demo package, and can get in the studio where I can put together some shit, I think I know what kind of music them niggas wanna hear."

E promptly got four songs together, as well as digitized publicity photos and slid the entire package to Snoop. In January of 2002, E got a phone call from the Twins. "Snoop heard your shit and he wanna get down," they said. "I said damn I guess I'm on a roll then," says E. "Let me start tightening up on my music and make some more of that shit."

E's original plan to become the next NBA superstar, was sabotaged by a series of self-destructive moves during his high school years. "I was a hard head," says E. "The first friends I ever had-all them in the pen right now. They turned out gang-banging. I'm hanging with them, innocent enough, but you know it's that whole thing-they got enemies, then they your enemies. I knew what I was fuckin' with, so I went ahead and made myself official for my homeboys."

Soon, E's chances of playing college ball would go up in a literal cloud of bud smoke. The 6'4 point guard, known throughout the state for his handles, was kicked out of school before his senior year over possession of marijuana. The blue chipper's hoop dream, his number one ranking in the state of California, his 88 basketball trophies and his over 2,000 college recruitment letters were all for naught. "I always said that I felt like I fucked off my one shot at life, which is why I'm so serious with my music and what I do right now because I understand that it can be fucked off. I got lucky enough to get a second shot. I work hard, but it takes breaks too. I feel like the breaks I didn't get in basketball, I'm getting right now."