‘Practice Looking Hard’ came from a song that Boots [Riley] had. He said a line in there, ‘I got a mirror in my pocket and I practice looking hard.’ So I called Boots up. I said, ‘Boots it’s a part of a song that I want to use off your record. Is that cool?’ He was like, ‘Man, it’s cool, 40.’ So I did it and I made sure that Boots was in the video with me shining, cause Boots is a good type of dude, and to this day he a good dude. I was like, lemme pay homage and have him in there, and I called Tupac down and got him in the video.

And ‘Practice Lookin Hard’ was pretty much, back in them days one of those situations where everybody in the videos wasn’t smiling too much. I mean we wasn’t doing that much smiling in the late ‘80s, early '90s, because we really didn’t have too much to smile about. It was ghetto children with attitudes. They have something to prove. We was going through it. I was much younger. I smile now because I’m living much better, and my life is not as crazy as it used to be. But back then, we would be mean mugging… See so now what I say is 'I used to practice looking hard but now I practice being solid.’ That’s my new little thing. I didn’t really have to practice hard; I just used to look hard. Back in them days you’d look in the mirror and just be mean mugging, like, ‘OK, lemme get my mean mug on.’ I used to burn rubber at every light, mean mugging everything there was, cause that was my attitude. That’s how we did back in them days. So I wrote the song to it.

- E-40, [Source]

In an interview with Complex, E-40 spoke on the meaning of “bring the yellow tape”:

So basically ‘Bring the Yellow Tape’ was a way of saying something went down on the block and the streets is blocked off. Yellow tape, they got the white chalk, the body outline, all that, you know it’s a crime scene. I was just imagining that, and I turned it into a story, like this is how it really go down though. My lyrics complimented the music and the music complimented my lyrics. I got a great imagination, and I pay close attention to my surroundings and I’m very observant. When I was young I was a student of the game.

[Source]

In an interview with Complex, 40 Water spoke on why he rapped about Carlos Rossi, and what the liquor means to him:

My momma was working very hard, doing three jobs…she just worked her butt off, man. On the weekends she started to play this song called ‘Living for the Weekend.’ She’d sit down and reminisce. She was a single parent, even though my daddy never left our life…and her stress reliever was always drinking wine. She would have [Carlo Rossi] Rhine, she didn’t have the Burgundy. She would have the Rhine and as I got older, she would drink that and relax her mind and live for the weekend. So that’s how that came about.

On one of my songs on Down and Dirty, the album with The Click, was a song called “Let’s Get Drunk.” And I have a line where I say, “Perkin' off some of that top of the line wine, Carlos Rossi.” So I told Studio Ton, take that part and sample that. Take my voice and let’s sample it and slow it down—and this is before Screw music was out. DJ Screw and them, they used to listen to me, in Houston. And this is 1992, and you gotta remember, it was screwed. It was like [in slowed and throwed voice] “tooop off the lliiine winnne carlos rossi"—see what I’m saying! It was slowed up. So what happened was, we took that and turned it into a song, like painted a picture. Me, B-Legit, and Studio Ton took that beat and made the slap. And there it is: classic music.

[Source]

Mr. Flamboyant is also an early E-40 EP.
In an interview with Complex E-40 elaborated on the meaning of flamboyant:

How the song came about was, first of all [flamboyant] was a word that we always used to say in the neighborhood and around Vallejo, and throughout the Bay. You know…flamboyant means somebody that’s flashy, love to showboat, ya understand? Lightweight arrogant, but at the same time—ya understand me?—solid.

In an interview with Complex, Pete Rock spoke on working with Large Pro on this track:

We collaborated on that. I came up with the bass line and the drums, and he came up with all the other stuff you hear on it. The ‘in the world’ and the person screaming. I had a good feel for the beat, so I was intrigued to rhyme on it. We went back and forth. I thought it would be a good idea to do it like that.

We never performed together a lot out there like that. We just did the song because we were having fun with the music. It was more of a hang out thing.

[Source]

P.R. stands for Pete Rock, who recalled producing this track in an interview with Complex:

That was actually first an interlude on The Main Ingredient. Putting beats between records, I always thought that was something nobody really did before. And The Main Ingredient, being that it was such a classic album, Sadat reached out to me and was like, ‘Yo, what’s up with that beat?’ I ended up giving him the beat and putting Deda on it. We recorded that in Greene Street, [my home base studio at that time].

[Source]

In an interview with Complex, Pete Rock spoke on producing the beat for “Rather Unique”:

‘Rather Unique’ was ill because I had it perfected, with the beat ready with all these nice little fill-ins and drum stuff going on. And the assistant engineer stepped on the plug by accident, and I didn’t save it, and I had to re-make it. I had it going better than what you hear now. It was crazy. I had it going really dope before. I just did what I could, but there were certain things I did that I couldn’t remember from when I was programming it. I was mad.

[Source]

Pete Rock on the beat? ok. Rapping? Alright. But Pete Rock singing? How, you ask?:

[Nas had the idea of me singing in the chorus on it. He told me, ‘I want you to sing it.’ I told him, ‘Nah, I’m not singing, I’m not a singer.’ But he made me do it, and it came out the way it is now.