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When things are pure, they tend to make the biggest impact. It’s true with love and with music. That’s why Mack 10 named his seventh album Soft White.

“That’s when dope is raw and uncut, when it’s soft white,” Mack 10 explains with a sly smile. “This album, there wasn’t no gimmicks. I was just being me, just having fun. You also get a chance to see a little bit of a different side of me.”

Longtime Mack 10 fans -- the ones who have been following the charismatic Inglewood, California rapper since he exploded upon the scene in 1995 -- will appreciate such street-certified cuts as “Clack Clack” and “Dope Boy,” tunes that highlight Mack 10’s ability to pen hard-core lyrics that contain equal portions of menace, wordplay and style.

Mack then shifts to baller mode on lead single “So Sharp,” which features standout boast-heavy verses from fellow rap titans Lil Wayne and Rick Ross. He keeps stunting on the block-rocking “Big Balla,” which includes guest turns from Birdman and G. Malone.

Mack mixes two of his loves -- cars and women -- on the creative “Pushin’.” Here, he turns a drive home into an entertaining tale involving a fiery lover and his premium ride. Treating his lady well is the focus of “Hood Famous.” Featuring J. Holiday, this bright, uptempo cut showcases Mack flaunting his wealth in the midst of our current economic downturn. “That’s really how it is for a lot of guys out here,” Mack says. “A recession can’t stop a hustler from getting it.”

The heart of Soft White shows on “It’s Your Life.” Featuring Anthony Hamilton, this reflective cut showcases Mack 10 at his resilient best, inspiring his listeners -- especially his younger ones -- as he details the unrelenting focus and determination that he possesses. “I don’t feel that I could lose,” Mack says matter-of-factly. “I could be down, but I’m not going to lose. I’m not going to accept it. I’m just not that type of person. The first thing about it is that you’ve got to believe. Once you put it in your head that you can’t be stopped, then you won’t be.”

On “Dedication (To The Pen),” Mack offers encouragement to another portion of his fanbase: the incarcerated. While he is disappointed he knows so many people who are locked up, Mack tries to lift their spirits through song. “A record like that means a lot to a dude that’s got life or who’s on Death Row and is never coming home,” he says. “I’m letting them know that they’re not completely forgotten about outside those walls. A lot of these dudes are good dudes and they just might have made the wrong turn once and got caught up.”

Fortunately, Mack 10 never got caught up. Ever since he debuted on the Friday soundtrack in 1995, Mack 10 has been the focus of the hip-hop nation. Each one of his first five albums -- Mack 10 (1995), Based On A True Story (1997), The Recipe (1998), The Paper Route (2000), Bang Or Ball (2001), -- has gone gold and has served as a snapshot of West Coast rap. In 1996, Mack 10 (along with Ice Cube and WC) formed the Westside Connection, hip-hop’s first supergroup, proving that gangster rap, especially from the West Coast, was alive and well, despite naysayers in the media and within hip-hop itself.

Indeed, Mack 10’s ability to infuse his gritty lyrics with wit, insight and realism makes him one of the best -- and most influential -- hard-core rappers the genre has ever seen. “I always had money music and talked about hustling,” Mack says. “Hustling on a record now is probably one of the most popular things you can do on a record. One O’s been doing that a long time. A lot of these dudes at the top of the game, I can hear a lot of Mack 10 in them. I invented some of that. If I made it, I don’t care how you try to disguise it -- I can feel it.”

Despite Mack 10’s lofty status in the rap world, the last few years of his life have been filled with turmoil. He had to settle his divorce and endure the breakup of Westside Connection (which he addresses on “Hoo-Bangin’II”). Thus, after the release of 2005’s Hustla’s Handbook, Mack decided to take the necessary time to rid his life of distractions and conflict.

“I had to get all that behind me,” he says. “You can’t concentrate on this, be in it with both feet and compete at the level that you need to in order to win if you can’t really focus. I had to put things in the right perspective. Now that it’s behind me, I’m so focused right now that it’s unreal. I feel like it’s my first album again.”

It sounds like it, too.