QLS Classic: Too Short

Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to QLs Classic Episode forty nine with the King of All Freaky Tales, Too Short, September twenty seventeen. The joys of doing the show, y'all, is being able to nerd out on our favorites and todd Too Short Shaw is no exception, y'all. He's an example of a self made millionaire upstart, literally starting his own empire, selling

Supremo, Supremo, Ro Supremo, Supremo, Old Call, Supremo, Son Son Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Sothing Son Supremo Roll Call, P B and J.

Yeah, it's my favorite Sandwitch.

Yeah.

What's my favorite word?

Yeah?

Newman or Michael Scottish Silicon sup Roll Car Supremo Roll Car.

Yeah. Yeah, it's fante Yeah. All in your world? Yeah, someone of the threesome. Yeah, I want a seventy five Girls.

Seven Supremo Role Car Supremo Supremo role card.

My name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm too fly, Yeah, I'm too sexy. Yeah, I'm too high.

Car Supremo Supremo roll call, Supremo Suck Supremo roll call.

I'm unpaid bill, Yeah, doing my part. Yeah, there's nothing I can say. Yeah, totally clips Supremo Road super.

So.

My name's Light. Yeah, Yo, the thistle. Yeah, I'm about to get turned. Yeah, you about to blow that whistle?

Oh capec Supremo roll came Supremo Supremo roll.

I'm too short, Yeah you know what's up? Yeah after the show. Yeah, I'm going to give my dick suck.

Okay, and your.

Supremo Supremo roll Suprivo Supremo roll.

Ladies and gentlemen, light, you're and too short coming up with men? Yeah, your brain is over. Okay. I would be remiss to say that in practicing for an hour the words the world's longest word, which is indeed new meno or microscopic silicon volcanic coneos and.

What does that mean?

I have no guy, a medical par or something like it is it is? Yeah, I looked up in the medical diction Yeah, like this is like that.

Yeah, suffixes something forty five letters and after the show, I'm going to.

Ladies and gentleman, Welcome to another episode of Questlo Supreme.

I think this is gonna go. I think this may uh rival Heath Hunters experts.

I cannot wait even get into it.

You can't wait.

This is oh god, no, what's she saying?

Her whistle or something?

Is that what you said? I said, blow it too high? Anyway? Anyway, so yeah, uh, we were here at U. Well technically are we in Live at Canem or do we call it? We're at the Village Recorders. Now it's the Village Recorders. I mean oftentimes studios changed titles and I don't.

Know what they were, but I think they've been the Village Recorders since nineteen sixty seven, really sixty eight something like that.

Why many?

Yes, I was looking at Short because he's been here.

I was just like, well, he's not sixty seven years old though, Oh that happened. But yeah, I'm in the history of this place.

Is yeah, you know Lost Steely, Dan Fleetwood, Mac.

And many many, a death Row classic created in these hallways.

Yeah, and Breakfast in America by Super Tramp and.

A former style I like, are we in a church? I don't said. Yes, wait, we even recorded here, right, this is where I've never been here in the nineteen twenties.

It was a Masonic it was a Massonic church in like nineteen twenties.

Then became a recording studio and the Rolling Stones did go toed soup here angie and all that.

Wow, well, let's thank.

You for face value.

Really, yes, this is what gave us the in the air tonight. I don't know Jesus it was this room, but yeah, it might have been. And and then the the orchestrations for wise up coasts were down here.

Hence didn't we record here once? Well, we weren't here.

We watched this twitter like via satellite.

Okay, well, thank you for the sorry anyway, Ladies and gentlemen, please uh uh welcome. Wait. I didn't even know my intro. I'll be honest. I spent so much time trying to pronounce the word that I forgot to actually craft an introduction. But uh, this young man needs no introduction.

Uh.

He has taught us all how to mac. Yes, yes, let's just get into it, ladies and gentleman. The legendary Todd shaw a ka too short, my fucking house. What's what's up? How are you today?

Man?

Doing good man and enjoying it? You know the journey of hip hop where it's taking me to join.

It a lot see to this day? Well, of course, I mean your your your story is never ending, you know. So it's it's it's probably you know, things are still happening today that we, you know, have yet to discover and and and find out. I gotta ask you, you know, it's in your daily life. How many times do people out of the word bitch to you?

Like?

Is that your I'm rick like, do you get tired of it? Like? Do you just want to just be touched on?

Just like?

Yes, it's the most random places, the most random people, at the most random times, and they yell it from blind size being whole foods or like in shurt or like a voice to go past the aisle, I won't even see who was just bitch? And then people think that they think it up and they're like, I'm gonna walk over to him and ask him what's his favorite word?

I'm like, are you siring of that?

Yeah?

Well, you know it's it's it's the thing, man, It's the thing. That if you if it goes away, you lose something, you know, So you'd be more worried if you know.

They didn't.

Yeah, no one said anything, and they forgot about the day passed without a bitch.

I would be remissed, all right.

So of course I know your history. But for our listeners that you know, for the two of our listeners that are unfamiliar with your folk word, uh tell us, where were you born?

Sir? I was?

What do we Okay, I'm about to ask the question I hate the most, like what do I call you? I call you mister to mister short mister, I'm from Oakland.

Man, you gotta have a multi multitude of names in Oakland, at least five.

So I go by short dog, I go by You can call me tired, all right, close, homies called me dog, any variation, all good, all good.

A couple of people call me two too. So you were born in Oakland?

I was born in LA.

I was born in LA and I moved to Oakland right after ninth grade. A lot of people don't know that. But the reason why it's so Oakland is because when I got to Oakland, that's when I started rapping. When I got to Oakland. That's when they started calling me too show. When I started rapping, I started rapping about Oakland. It never really had any connection to La at all.

Okay, Okay, So well I got to ask, because the Oakland of twenty seventeen is hardly what the Oakland of nineteen eighty seven was. What are you just your general views of what Oakland has become, which is now more Silicon Valley based, I mean, gingerf gentrified.

Yeah, you have to have your own personal opinions about that.

A lot of people, you know, it's not just happening, and the Oakland's happening in San Francisco right across the bridge, right, and it's happening in a major way because.

Of Silicon Valley is going.

It's going really fast, like neighborhoods being taken over, and you know, just people are being priced out.

And moved out.

So where are they moving to?

I think it's the reverse white flight. I think the suburbs are coming back to the city and then they're right, but.

Where are they putting Like for anyone that you grew up with.

Andy putting them out in them cheap ass houses they built twenty thirty years.

Ago, they fucking falled apart the little track homes is it? Yeah? Like where is it? Literally? Like you know, it's too excuge.

Okay, you had a city like Antioch, thirty minute ride from Oakland, and a lot of people dipped out the Antioch for the suburbs, you know, And from what I'm hearing now, it's some a little rough areas out there.

It's getting a little little shady because so that used.

To be the suburbs where people escaping.

Now that's because slowly but surely, you know what happened.

This is this is my theory.

You've got all the people who like people, you know, even even as the bubble burst. After the bubble, all this stuff, people like scramping up all their money. Man, I'm about to give me a house off the way. Man, I'm getting out this crazy see, I'm moving out the way. People been saying that. So at some point I feel like the bubble burst, the gasoline prices went up. Shit, just shit, just made suburb life real fucked up. You gotta sit there in a two hour traffic jam both

You go old.

You don't even know, they don't even know you.

So I think a lot of people decided to, you know, with the price of gas and the fucking stress on the highway, like fuck it, I'm just gonna go get me in back three three bedroom apartment. My kids like fuck, no more yard, you know what I'm saying, Like fuck it.

And it's.

That's one angle. But the other side is you from the city and now you're looking at neighborhoods where you're like, shit, this ship was a tough ass neighborhood five years ago, and now it's just like you know, horror books, blond hair, white chicks walking down the street, untouched, like safest, safest hell.

So, when's the last time you've been to your because I know you also moved to Atlanta, when's the last time you've been to Oakland like as you knew it, like where you grew up in that area, Like has it totally changed?

While from East Oakland And they're not.

They're not gentrifying East Oakland at this point, not yet, hadn't made that point.

There's always one area toast, but they jumped.

On West Oakland because it's the closest to San Francisco, and they took downtown Oakland because it's right adjacent to West Oakland and it's moving outward.

But I'm one of those people who.

I feel like.

People in places are going to progress.

You're not gonna You're not gonna say let's stay the way we are because you just can't.

You can't make hip hop stay away. You can't make anything stay away. It is changing.

So Silicon Valley was they were sitting out there in San Jose and Livermore and out there in the middle of fucking nowhere, and they decided one day, we're taking San Francisco and they took that ship.

And then it was just the.

Basic theory is that, which I guess is that the the the hidden message is that, of course it won't be like okay, no poor people, no brown people, no black people, low like. Their version of that is the rent will be five times high as it ever was, and you have to have nineteen jobs in order to you know, I mean, I know people now that work in tech worlds in which they're sharing a house with seven people made for four. So you know, I just

So did you invest?

Did you get a little piece of property?

So before the you know, for the blow up, Well, you know, I think it's a little too late to like get to get little areas because you get a twelve hundred square foot house the size of a tiny studio apartment or something in San Francisco for two point three million.

Yeah, it's the most expensive, Yes it is.

It is.

So you don't get a yard driveway, just get a little box two.

Million, two million for a walking Closses.

All right, so take us players like me, we moved to Vegas. Big.

I've always had a spot in Vegas. That's that's part of life.

But what do you do in Vegas besides everyone?

For for my perspective, quest love Supreme guest, Like literally, I don't know what it is about September. They're all like, yo, dog, I just moved to Vegas. Like when I missed that memo? When did Vegas become the new?

What is it?

Like?

Is it taxes?

Is it why?

People's probably the best value real estate wives.

On the West Coast more than Arizona. What Arizona does kind of same thing.

But but Vegas.

You get all these fucking world renown restaurants and all these big time production shows and fucking freaky ship every weekend and ships just Vegas.

That's good, all right?

So take us take us back to Oakland eighty five of Oakland. Wait, can you get a place in Vegas? Like, I'm not kidding around you, dog. I tried a residency out there. It's it's tough. I mean, you got to speak the language, you know what I mean.

And it's just like it's a certain a lot of the music that I like does not intail. Like I went to a club, no, I mean the manager. I went to a club to watch Steve Okie spinning. You know they're there. Modus operandi is every five minutes has to be New Year's Eve countdown. Oh wow, every five minutes,

Snoop will play Harold Melne and the Blue Notes at the Vegas Club in the morning.

Nobody would challenge. It was the most amazing thing I ever seen.

All Right, So Oakland nineteen eighty five, Yes.

What.

Can I say? Is that safe? Just assumed that eighty forty five is were the legend of too short? First of all, how did you pick your moniker? Too short?

Well, eighty forty five was the legend of crack, and it was that's what That's what happened.

Too short.

Too short came a little bit before that I appeared. I moved to Oakland nineteen eighty. The year I moved to Oakland is the moment I started rapping that same something I started rapping, and it was just like a novelty thing. Got to high school that year, my brother and his friend's nicknamed me short. And they gave me the nick name short because, uh, I was like the shortest person in the whole fucking school.

Like it was.

It was a dude named Shorty that was taller than me.

I mean, you're not that short. Everyone like six three.

I was five too when on my nineteenth birthday. Oh, I was five eight on my twentieth birthday. I don't know how to happen.

So in high school.

In high school, I was fucking.

Five too, Okay, you got a spurt huh.

Somewhere in there after I turned nineteen. But so because because I was shorter than somebody named Shorty, they just called me short. They're like, we can't even think of a nickname for you, we can't call you todd. Fuck that, like it can't be tired. So it came up with short And I fucking hated the ship because it was a joke.

Really.

So somewhere down the line, I saw the movie Penitentiary Too Sweet, Too Sweet, and I was like, too sweet, got oh damn he beat everybody up any all the pussy. I was like, I think I'm gonna be too short. I put it, I put a twist on it. Yeah, I see all right?

So what was how did how did hip hop culture even find its way to the West Coast in like what year?

Like so nineteen seventy nine, right before I moved to Oakland, Rappers Delight came across the airways. Now, before Rappers Delight, you would hear rap.

But not have a name for it.

It was sort of records like King ten third, certain Parliament records. George Clinton was always rapping, talking to rymen and I mean, there was a lot of records that have rapped in it. And when Rappers Delight came me, being a elementary school drummer, high school marching band type kid, I instantly heard the cadences and I related it to drum patterns, and I was like, you.

Told me when I first met it, you told me that you dabbled on drums, so you were serious.

I was in the elementary school band it was school fucking march in high school a couple couple of years that type of sh I was a drumm, snare, drum, tenor drum you know, all right, And I immediately recognized the patterns as something I could do, and I just tried it. It was it was nineteen eighty. Uh, singles were coming out left and right. It would be Curtis Blow, then it would be Spoony g. It would be grand Master Flash and the Fist five, it would be the sequence.

You know.

Just records were just coming out back to back, and I'm like, I can do this shit, I can do it. And I found a record. It was a jazz record, all instrumentals, and one of the instrumentals on there was kind of funky.

I can't remember what song is. It might have been a Grubb Washington track or something, but they were they were doing cover tunes.

And I wrapped to it and I just had like a remember those little recorders that that you might do an interview with U something you pressed the buttons down. I sat that ship next to the speaker to my mother's component set, got down on my knees and just wrapped some words and it was like it was, you know, ship.

I knew I could do it. It was it was.

It was one of those things like you look, you look at the roof and ship and you're like, I'm about to jump off the fucking roof.

So it wasn't It wasn't a thing where you know, there was like party jams in the park and this crew bat on that crewise.

I invented too short in my bedroom.

The whole ship.

Every every step of the way, it was always like my little home recording thing just kept getting bigger and bigger. My father had showed me how to take this little hand me down stereo. He gave me, you take the inputs out, you know, outputs, you run it the speakers you're running. So I said I would take that shit and loose and hook it back up and move it to the other side of the room. And I was

You know what I'm saying.

I really was trying to get my hands on a dual cassette player. I was trying to ge my hands on a microphone in the mixture. I knew, I knew what I needed.

I love everybody's stories from that era trying to figure out how to course with like a fucking two cassettes and a microphone. It's just like everybody's got that story of like how can I put together in a system where I can fucking record, you know.

A fucking home studio, Like I gotta get my voice onto a tape.

Can I ask you a question about the the Grover Washington was it is an Inner City Blues or do you remember what song it was?

I don't remember, I do. I can give you a clue. This was a jazz record. It had four songs on it. They were all instrumentals, and I want to say one of them was a remake, a replay of brick House, you know what.

Okay, so those records, no, no, no, well that's the thing. Shout out to jan Brown. All right, So okay, here's the deal. When you threw parties in the seventies and eighties, all think he's basically describing. There's a slew records that came out in the seventies. It's like their version of Now that's what I call music wow, where you don't hire DJ, but you have a record that just has all the hits. But the thing is that it's too expensive to license these songs, Like you don't go to

So so the next phase was rappers and you know disco records. They all had the B side of the twelve inch, so I would music always came out on Tuesdays. I got a little I got a little ingenious. I'm like, I'm going to the record store every Tuesday, and I'm gonna buy every new twelve inch that comes out of everything that grabs my eye. So I get these twelve inches and before they can get popular in Oakland, I'd flip it over and rap to.

It and get around the streets and claim it really and not just claim it just it is what it is, right right.

A few records people people people will come in and go, hey man, something like stow your record. I would get it out there first, but that was that was the trick, was to try to find it the dopest beat, and all the ship was coming out of New York.

It was New York hit popp.

It was those independent labels that were putting out all the twelve inches nineteen eighty eighty one, eighty two, of those years.

What did your folks do?

They like supportive of both of.

My parents are accountants. Wow, that that goes.

My mother graduated from Dillard, moved to the West Coast, met my father, and she kind of put him through college.

You know, wow that situation.

So your money is right?

She mean she used to say shit like I fucking did all his homework.

I took his chest.

That's my damn degree.

No, but seriously, your money is right, right, like more than the average.

I'm the child of two accounts.

Exactly.

All right, Aunt, you have.

To be because I mean the way that your hustle at least when you started. Was it Up All Night Records? Was that your first label? Or was it seventy five? Uh?

Start?

We started with seventy five Girls.

Then we then we did a label called Dangerous Music, right, and then that evolved in the up All nineties?

So seventy five girls?

Was that you?

Or who?

Who's behind?

A guy named Dean Hodges and he was a very colorful street character, played a low key He wasn't like, he wasn't a loud guy, but he you know, he was nineteen eighty five and he drove an eighty five bing.

So he was, you know, he was doing his thing, and he he wanted to be not physically but mentally. He wanted to be a fucking rock star. Does that make sense.

He didn't want to be on stage playing guitar, but he wanted to want the walk and be a fucking rock star. He wanted to look like a rock star, and he wanted to be around rock stars all day.

The aspiration of the rock star lifestyff.

So he provided us with I was friends with his little brother. Little brother brought me around.

I'm popular all in the streets and ship and he just provided us with the best equipment.

Man.

He had all the best ship, the Lynn drum and fucking all kind of rolling ship and all his guitars and shipping modules and ship and ship that you never seen it.

And he was booking sessions nightly.

We do.

We did eleven PM six am sessions for to get the half half price of Graveyard Shift, and we go, we go to the studio and just every night.

To me, I look back at those years like that was college. That's what it did for me.

It really gave me the opportunity to when I got to a major and when I started making records, I had tons of experience. I've been in studios, I've been in mixed sessions, I've been working with musicians and punching shit in and out and learning recording techniques.

So with the history of the Bay Area and its relationship to music, which you know, I'll say next to New Orleans, next to I mean at the time in the seventies, Philly was still immersed in Chicago. Also, were you rolling with actual musicians and like, what was your internet?

First musicians that I worked with through seventy five girls had all been affiliated. It was guys like Marvin Holmes and Greg Levias, and these guys had played all around with cast like Rick James.

And just you know, uh like Minor Williams.

These these dudes were like in the Bay Area, musicians have always been connected with musicians everywhere, and it's.

Still like that to this day.

It's still they still breed that out there, right now, Get your skills together in church, you know, get learning the jazz. You know what I'm saying, it's still you know, young Cat's playing jazz out there.

Because I was going to say, because the choi is kept, especially when you listen to your catalog. Now, I mean you you really didn't even pimp the fact that, you know, live musicianship was a big part of your musical presentation.

Yeah that was sort of a secret.

And yeah, well but I'm saying, like the level of musicianship, especially like with uh like on on life is Too Short and all that stuff, Like I could tell like these are cats that have actual professional.

My engineer his name was out Eaton and he he he's a guitar player and he played keys, and he would I'm sitting here relating to him as an engineer, but honestly we're sitting here co producing songs together. We're like making shit happen. Like he's the kind of engineer who you leave out the room and come back. He put a little riff on there and then and then looped in and shit.

You're like, what the fuck? Like I come to the student.

He literally gave me Life is Too Short the basis of the track, which was you know says and and the ghetto Donny Hathaway he started those off. He called in the guys and totally no, you gotta there good something to say, Like he was, you know, super super engineer.

Didn't you do some work with Bohannan. Uh No, no, it wasn't. No, I don't think it was that him.

Which one was it?

The Bohannans in my life are uh street guys. Okay, let's clear it up, big Tad in a little tea. They're pretty popular around around the town.

But okay, okay, so I gotta ask. And this is not even playing the stereotypes. But I mean, if you're coming from a two parent household and both are accountants, I mean, it's almost like the basis of the Cosby Show. Now, I came from a two parent household and got called out immediately on the screech because the motherfuckers knew I was not street, you know what I'm saying? Like I was, I was No, I was adwep and knew it. How did you balance, Like, did you keep your your home life well?

To make something like this happen?

You have to have uh the cars have to line up, and then certain shit has to be organic and sh just it just can't. You can't just show up from l A walking to a city like Oakland, go hey, I'm too short the wrapper and they're like, okay, help me.

It doesn't work like that, So what did you do?

What did you do to get their respect?

My brother and my mother moved to Oakland a year before I moved there. Okay, So the high school I went to in tenth grade, I had an older brother who was in twelfth grade and he had already went there for a year.

That makes shit.

I mean the first day of school, they're like, hey, you gotta see this little dude right here. Don't fuck with him. I got that my brother and his friend. So I was crazy ass school, wild as hell. Motherfucker's getting ass kicked every day. I was told people all were told not to fuck with me. So little ass motherfucker, don't fuck with me. So I got that part.

And then.

Around uh, my eleventh grade year, I had I met this guy named Freddie b. And he's born and raised in West Oakland, grew up in East Oakland. Always was a little kid that got in trouble. So he's been to juvenile hall, he's been to the little camp, he's been to the senior camp. He knew every motherfucker in the city because of his where he lived and what he'd been through. So when I started rapping with him, for one, it was cool to have an older brother.

You can't.

You can't just go from hood to hood like that.

You can't.

So here, my rap partner know it's everybody in the whole fucking city. So it was his idea for us to start to start selling tapes. He was the one who said we made a few tapes. He's like, let's go sell this shit. I'm like, sell it to who. He's like, this calls just go sell it.

So he start.

We first went to a spot where they sold weed and asked them if they wanted to buy the tape and they're like, you want to buy a tape for We're like, just listen to it. So somebody put in the car and they listened for about ten fifteen minutes and one dude we only had one.

Tape, and one dude was like, I buy it how much? Like five dollars?

As soon as he bought it, that started the whole ship because somebody else said I want one too, and we were like, we'll only got one, but well, we'll be back tomorrow, and then we came back. We sold all the drug dealers tapes, and then we said what next. That's there's more drug dealers three blocks over.

You customize it one tape at a time, and would you dup and doep and doep and deeper.

So we go to my little home studio and we make a what are you working with? By this point I had acquired a radio or radio shack set up. I got the realistic hole, the mic, the mixer, and the little effecting put a little little, little little double effe and a nice cassetteler. So it's going through the right channels. Depending on the quality of the cassettes you use is the playback. So we selled I can make

Realy ship figured out and what kind.

Of did you use for the cheap customers?

Anything Maxelle memorys TDK.

It was all together with the cheap ship we used to use. Everything was a was a radio shock, all the cheap ship radio shack. So three thirty minute concepts for a dollar dollars ninety nine for three cassettes and fifteen minutes on each side, and we seld them for five dollars each, every two dollars, making fifteen dollars. That was our hustle. And then and then we started doing

He couldn't have a name like hot lists.

Not be tough.

But I'm not laughing, you might be listening.

I'm just saying that it was his specialty. Was the one punch that was a special.

So King D runs up on us and custs us the funk out like straight, like I'm going to funk you up.

You both of y'all fucked up. If I don't get one of the tapes like he got and.

Not the cheap tapes from radio shot tell next day Bam.

So ship would happen like this.

We'd be sitting on the bus stop and a fancy car pull up and go, hey is it you too short and Freddy B. We're like, yeah, like get in the car, like what They're like, big Sonny wants to meet y'all. Take us some nameborhood and he's like, yeah, I want one of those tapes too. So then we spread around the city. We went to all the kingpins, everybody.

Am I the only one that's thinking he needs to pitch that story to Netflix. I would even want I don't even want to shorts careers. I want.

It is it's like a snowfall cousin, Yeah, it was.

It was the same years. Wow, this story is pre crack and.

You're out of high school or you're still inside school.

In high school.

That story to me is like I need to see this happens no one that has no one I want to tape, like I want to tape tape. Are you able to want assuming that these are one of the ones, did you keep like a version for yourself in case they popped it or my tape mess up.

We did not know we were future stars. We did not know we were any kind of famous we were.

It was the hustle.

We were like out, have you found anyview joints on the eBay?

Or it would be a fun thing to do. People in the bay always coming in and go, man, I still got my tape. They have the customized tapes, they have the ones they copy there you need.

It's a guy. Have you ever heard of Mike Mosley?

Yes?

Yeah, he uh he personally got had had was on a mission back in like the nineties and he was taking all the two shirt tapes he can find and put them on real real to reserve them.

And he's like, I still got those reels bro.

Hot to hear these joints, and it's at an hour. It's like a half hour each side.

Or fifteen minutes on each side most of them.

Oh, you did the thirty minute joints. You really did use the radio seck joints.

And it was all I was an expert at the polsmics. I could stop on the on the fore and hit the AM and you'll get no noise when you let it back up on the ant.

So you weren't looping shit and none of that stuff.

No, we just we were wrapped to the record ends, pose it and jump back in.

So making a transition to studio work, how hard was that for you in terms of just like leaving your comfort zone, leaving your hustle.

Wait, no, look, let me tell you how.

This was the drum machine. It's nineteen eighty four, eighty five. It's the drum machine. It's like, you know, heavenly music. If you see one, it's like, right, right, right, it's a drum machine. If you let me touch one of them motherfuckers. First, they just had that one with the time. That's cool, that's cool. But when they came with the drums like Len drums like drug, Like if you could touch that shit, that ship was like, I mean, yeah, you're not gonna get me in the studio with a

How did you go from seventy five girls to job? When did they come into the picture?

Well, seventy five girls. Uh, we never did any contracts, We never had any agreements. It was like a family thing.

It was.

It was the best shit that could ever happen to me in the world, because, uh, the guy who ran the label, who owned the label, he would literally go to the studio, pay for the studio time, he would pick up the mix down, you know, pay somebody to mix it, pick up to all the shit, take it over to a manufacturer, and he'd get the ship manufactured. Then he all these boxes and ship and drop them

Whims were going good, I presume, but that was that was.

Not his hustle, that was not his money. So I guess at some point he just was like, I don't want y'all in my house anymore, because you know, that's what all the fly equipment was, that's where everything gravitating around his house, and you know, it was it was a hell of expres It's the kind of guy who you know, you just walk in the house and it's three chicks sitting on the couch and then underwear topless and dancing over there, and somebody's at the table smoking cocaine.

Somebody over there is snorting the line and all kind of shit. And it just was that house. It was that place.

Now as you're coming up, is there is there competition?

You know?

Are you? I don't know how, Like I know E forty was born in the nineties or whatever, but I'm just saying that, surely you're not the only horse on the on the on the track.

That's like, so what me and Freddy B did in the early eighties put us way ahead of anybody that could ever claim any kind of hip hop legacy in the Bay. Nothing happened before too short and Freddy be nothing. So Freddy B, you know, he's he's a preacher now, but he had to go through his journey, right and his journey took him right out of high school and in the prison. And that's when I started making records on a larger scale. So he kind of missed the

That's Freddie.

He was, he was, and he fucking Eddie has school y'all as so fast. And then we're going, like, do they fucking know who this guy is? We got to keep the pass key to every lock at the school, every gate, really fucking with Freddie beat And that was my rat partner. So he was that guy man, and and you know, it was just a no brainer to get in the studio and make hits. After the legacy that we built, the foundation that we built.

I mean as you're making this stuff, I mean, eventually you're gonna where's the idea that you're going to actually start have to perform?

And well we were getting we had another element. All this shit happened by accidents, so we did not plan the shit out we were. We taught ourselves to be DJs, like we just that's nothing to do, right, teach yourself to be a fucking DJ in the early eighties, so we wanted dj the house parties.

We net rhythm, so it couldn't have been that hard.

So we knew all the fucking gangsters who are our customers, and people would throw these house parties in Oakland. You know, the index card such and such address, dollar for a drink, dollar interurance, all this stuff, those type of parties, and we DJ for a hundred bucks something like that. And at every house party when midnight hit, we tell everybody to come around the turntables and we're gonna rap. And

Or the bar. You know what I'm saying.

You know that shit right right. If it's a fight, I got to stop the music. Everybody goes outside. We watched the fight and then we come back in those parties, take y'all go take that shit outside, you know. So most DJs who really were DJ's couldn't go there. They probably take your ship, they get your ass whip, you know what I'm saying.

It was DJ wise.

We probably had two guys who did the hood parties too, because they had, you know, the past. But I think doing those parties of people who are at those parties are like, fuck you know that fuck that shit, like you really got a rocket so but you.

Were protected and so. But I mean, like how rough were these were these parties.

But it was no protection at a random ass house party. It was just like you just in that shit.

Man, ain't no you know, shit bullets and shit start flying on a protection. But it was you just got the past to beat amongst the amongst the crowd. But that was I just I feel like, man, all this shit happened two for a reason. We're sitting here rocking these house parties all over the city. The first time I ever did a show in the city, the whole fucking crowd knew the worst of my songs. I never had a record out. I've never had a record out there.

Bill Graham.

Yeah, because you know he had a oh he controls all. Yeah, he had a black division called Barrier Productions.

Y'all tell us Bill.

Bill Graham is the legendary promoter with he he I mean, he is the He was the taste maker of the whole hippie love movement.

So he was the Grateful Day, a never ending concert that last till.

Yeah the fell More East. So he's he made stars out of Hendrix. You went through him, then you became an international store. So the doors, Hendrix, Jopplin, they all had to go through Bill Graham and too Short. Yeah, I mean he controlled, he controlled like he's the original Al Hayman.

So I get on a Bill Graham show. It's UTFO their headlining Roxanne Roxanes. The head is early nineteen eighty five, and it's probably like five thousand people, Oklaudatorium. I've never seen a crowd more than one hundred two hundred people at the most I've ever seen my life.

And I mean, I don't care, man. I went out there.

I put on a black leather suit. I went and brought a hat like I can look like rendiems some shit, and I got some instruments. I remember one of the instruments I did was Friends from Houdini. I can't remember what the other one was were it might have been. I think I did something off of Rapping Duke instrument. And I went out there and sang the lyrics to the songs that I would sell on the tapes in the streets, and the whole crowd for fifteen minutes sang

Words, so can I ask? I'm in retrospect. I'm trying to figure if there's another example of someone that has variety in their in their own hometown where they go national. It's almost like that Go Go act, you know, like Chuck Brown can control the whole d m V area between.

The Yeah, but even he started out in Richmond.

Oh yeah, But I'm just saying, like a cat like ghetto boys in Houston.

Yeah, they were, They were famous in Houston doing shit and then it broke out and then Houston loved them, Like that's the birth of Houston hip hop?

Is scarfacing Willie Dan.

Now, usually the narrative is that once someone ramps up their situation, the same thing we look at Miami, look at Miami. But I'm saying that usually if someone tries to ramp up their situation, usually like that's when well, no, I'm like, usually, I mean that's when that's the tipping point or that sort of diminished returns. But I mean that's not that way with you, Like, were you intimidated at all? Like Okay, now I gotta take this formula and make it national.

So that.

I knew I was told in the early days in eighty five eighty six, when I got in the studio, they were like, you can't do the stuff that you do in the streets. You can't curve in the records because you can't market them and sell them and give them the record store. There's only only people that can curse on records are comedians.

And I took it.

I was like, okay, I made two albums with no cursing, and the two first albums on seventy five Girls, and then it came time for us to do our own thing. And I had always had this song called Freaky Tales. I always had it, I had wrote. I had been writing Freaky Tails since I was sixteen. It started off with like ten girls and it ended up Yeah, it was with seventy five and the official version has like

Oh, forty girls, Yeah, your Freaky Tails records.

And then yeah, I said, just let me record this song, Freaky Tails.

If I record this, I already had the baseline, had the drum pattern, I had the lyrics. Just give me the studio and record this and watch what happens.

I knew it.

I knew it, and I knew it, and we just everything that I'm living on right now is started off, like financially, started off.

With Freaky Tails.

So was that when job came into the picture.

Joe picked up that album Freak eachaels on the album called Born Max and released. We recorded the whole album before we released the single. We recorded the album, we did the artwork, we had the ship ready to go, and we said, we're gonna take this song, Freaky Tails. We're gonna press up two thousand cassettes. When we sell those, we're gonna press up two thousand more. We're gonna sell

Sell us for five dollars a pop.

So the first wat we get, you know, the first time fifteen thousand is gonna make a sixty grand and then we're gonna take that and we're gonna flip another fifteen And.

We did the ship like woo woo woop.

I mean, Jibe got wind of us. We were probably up to about, I don't know, a few hundred thousand, and we just kept flipping the ship like because we were we were from drug dealers.

Why stop a good formula where like you own it? And I mean did you? Because that puts you in the category of being Barry Gordy and Smokie Robinson at the same time.

So I signed up with Jive because Barry Wise called me personally.

I didn't. I didn't.

I wasn't listening for no dollar amounts, no nothing. I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about what it would be like to get the music to the whole world. And then I was thinking like like people signed the Jive because Too Short was on job pemp c and like they're like forty ike one, Like I'm too short of I'm signing. So I signed a Jive because who didn't even on that motherfucking right mod was on that motherfucker.

I was like, I like jib you know, so.

You could you could call it the Gift in the Curse, but it would I would not be too short the megastar without Jive Records, but also, you know, the independent run would have probably been a lot better to do it with those albums I gave Jive, But at the same time, we never stopped our independent hustle. I put Too Short on Jive, but we kept selling independent ship.

We never stopped, and.

You know it was it was not I think I think we did the right thing.

Did they still let you do your own thing? You still recorded in Oakland and all that.

Yeah, Jive is a very controlling label.

Back in those times, they were very controlling with the artists, trying to get you to record at Battery studios, and then they fucking walking in the back door watching.

Looking over your shoulders to London over there.

Never never never never know.

So this is how I asked you.

At least never. I never even talked to the job that much. We didn't really communicate a lot in the early days. Okay, this is how I handled jib. Born in Mac was the album that they called me and they were like, we wanted to take over this album. So they picked up Born and Mac sold a few hundred thousand copies and and you know, we got to deliver a new album. So when they got Born in Mac, it was already an album, so they obviously got it all in one, one one delivery.

Here here's the album. Take over.

But the next time they were like, okay, we're ready to make the new album. We're gonna send you the upfront budget to start the album. And I'm like, shit, the album's already recorded, everything, we got the artwork, everything's done. Yeah, So we sent it to him and they just send the front and in the back end at one time, just here you go. So I was like, I would record an album before the one that's I would play out. I'd record the next one. Get the artwork together, and shit, Prince,

Here's everything. Because they said they had a thing called delivery.

What is delivery?

Right? This the fucking delivery.

We didn't have to We didn't have to do any clearances or any We never sampled nobody's shit. We never fucking you know, even even if we did like replays or some shit you know less. But a lot of our shit was like we were motherfuckers in the studio hitting the ship and shooting from scratch.

So it wasn't a lot of So.

For the songs that you had to do interpolations on like say what life is too short? Or you know the ghetto, like how was that handled? Was it just like we did the average white band get there on the later like wait a minute, that's our shit.

You know, Like no, we did an advanced job drivers on point.

Oh okay, well, I mean that was just unprecedented. Well, I mean, but that also came out like eighty seventy eighty.

One of the best things happened to me music wise was Donnie had to his wife thanking me. I was at a Leila halfway concert and it's like her mother wants to meet you. She was like, I just want to thank you.

Oh you probably came through like.

That was college the problem.

She said, thank you.

That was a big deal because I remember when that record came up on the auction block and I was like, I don't I like to take all the publice.

I don't want another ship.

I'll take it.

Have you ever gotten tonight?

Like hell yeah, hell yeah.

I can't think of who but who but someone? Yeah?

Two shirt is not about to butcher my fucking music. It has been, it has been said so.

In promoting I know that you were on the was was the n w A tour like your first national tour? Like were you ever on any of like the Deaf Jam tours or those?

Nope, nope, nope.

Got a couple of little opening at spots through once again Bill Graham and Barrier predictions and where I opened for uh could have been like who DEENI, and some of it wasn't ever fresh Fellow.

Or none of that stuff, like were you were you mixing and chopping it up with your contemporaries of eighty six, eighty seven, eighty eight Like.

In the early days. I remember the show I got to open up for.

It was when it was uh when a check out, My melody was the hottest shit, and it was Public Enemy had one song and it was you know, Russell sent them all out young.

They were all young.

I'm not sure if Slick Rick was was there yet, but it was the eighty seven eighty seven, eighty eighties crew that was under a rush management and it wasn't run DMC. Probably who Deni was headlining with run DMC was bigger than all that shit. But I remember it being Public Enemy Ariban rock camp in the city, just being excited to see them for the first time.

So I probably got to go out and do like two songs.

But I remember back then, motherfucking rappers didn't talk to each other a lot, like if you're on the show, it another rapper. It wasn't like what's up, homie, Like you see the motherfuckers, you just look, you look and look away. And don't say shit like.

No matter where you're from, like no matter where I was figuring public in me like they're very diplomatic.

I was about to say, the only ones to talk to you is like Houdini and Chuck d. I wouldn't not even flavor fla. Nobody was talking, nobody was saying you can't EPMD was on those stewards too. Me and Eric Certinon became really good friends. I was like, do you realize we used to stand next to each other and don't say ship?

Wow?

I No, I don't know.

No.

If you ever want to embarrass the funk out of yourself back in the eighties, walk up to ll cool J And say hey, what's up man?

And watch him ignore the funk out of you.

Damn he's been a niggas for a long Was he just aloof like, oh I didn't see you there?

No, no, No, L practiced that ship how to stare the funk at you and not say ship look at you like you are you really talking to me?

Like you got some nerve niggas.

I never did it, but I watched people do it.

Don't don't don't so by.

The time, the whole time your your accounting parents are down with your new endeavors.

Oh well, that's that's another story. So think about So my parents were the last ones to find out I was.

I was not the only one on this. I knew I was not. No one believes me when I told my dad found out about the roots, like on our second.

Album, when did they find out about your about you?

I probably was album. I hadn't made any albums yet, but I probably was. I think I was working on the first album and it was that time. They're like, all right, college time, and I'm like, I think I'm gonna make a few records first.

Oh my god, I wasn't going to Juilliard.

Out of record deal props gave me the speech about man, it's great what you do. I heard some of it is you know it's great, but it's not. But you're going to make a living off doing that. I'm like, all right, So I had I lied.

I lied.

I lied a lot.

My mother found out I was a rapper by she found this this rap book that I had written, and she never came to me and said, like, do you wrap it? We didn't have a conversation about the rap She slipped a note into my rap book.

It's like a nine.

Page guilty ass letter.

Like that's worse.

She's like, I didn't raise you like this. I didn't like I know.

She was a shock.

It was like finding the Player's magazine. Yeah, she found your lyrics.

She was disappointed, found freaky tales. She was hurt. When did they finally like that house? When did they finally be like okay good? When did they finally let up? Well, my mother.

Watched she often. I never talked to her about this, but I think that she knew I was full of shit.

Around nineteen eighty six, I had been fucking with seventy five girls and it was it was the time when his brother, the owner of the label, Dean, kicked me and a little brother out and we had a struggle. Man, We struggled for like we went from in the big house to like, you know, just can't even fucking afford food and shit. Like we was doing bad for about six months, really, man. And during that time, I was good. I was I was real shabby, man. I was like,

Get some damn clothes. Wait, So you know, the struggle was was real.

And then later on when I finally could call home, because I had called home many times and lied and said I'm doing great, like that ship's on the radio. I'm balling like I lied like a motherfucker. So when it really did do good. I I remember doing the show in Phoenix, and of course my mother had to come. But then when she really got there because I'm like trying to be all proud and ship. But when she got there, I was like, fuck, I can't do the

In five minutes, she's out there like it ain't gonna be no show. Somebody to do something.

I'm not.

I can't do this in front of her, So we got her backstage. It was that type of ship.

Wait, what was it just on a regular spot date or was it like it was w A, I think we're on tour. Wait she was backstage and it was safer.

Well, I'm saying she couldn't. She could not ever see me perfom ever.

I couldn't.

I can't yet to see a two short show.

Nah, ye know?

Wow?

Had she heard the music?

You've seen TV stuff, She seen videos. She's seeing the clean version.

Okay, okay, look this is my mother.

They're like missus Shaw. You know, do you know your son is like the dirtiest rapper out there. She's like, I never heard him cuss.

I don't.

People people say that, People say that, I'm sure he does it, but I haven't heard it. And she just she wouldn't play it. She had every album I ever made in plastic.

What about your pot? He has heard?

See your father don't have that conversation with you, you know what I mean? Like he he's, uh, we don't. We don't talk to you, short man.

We just don't. Like he's.

He couldn't come to me and go, you know, I'll be bumping that one song.

He couldn't. This is the long thirty year version of the White Olph in the room.

When I was talking about what about your your brother, your older brother that you my older brother is uh this is his He's like, I'm like, man, people like my music.

He's like, it's cool, but you'll never be run DMC. I'm like, I'm like, well, I ain't trying to be run ding Like I'm just saying you ain't never gonna be shipp because he's like these little people around here like it. Man, it's like this ship's whacked. He's like, I'm bumping l I'm bumping like you ain't.

Like the East Coast playing on the load. He was just to this day.

He would just destroy your dream. If you walked in and said I'm gonna be the greatest drummer the world. He's like, you're a good drummer, but you're never gonna be the greatest. What's that motivation for you? Years later we talked ship. I'm like, I'm like i should talking right now. It's like I'm your fucking big brother. Like I'm the big brother. I'll be looking out for you.

And he's like he's like, uh, all those years I put you down, I was I was making you. I was making you strong.

Man.

He's like I knew he was dope, like ship he was.

Hey.

We used to walk down the street arguing like a motherfucker, arguing about everything in the world.

Me and my brother.

We would argue to the death.

That's crazy to this day. Yo. So what was tour life like during that period?

I mean nineteen eighty nine, straight out of Compton, first chour I ever went on.

Tell me about it.

First start was Nashville, Tennessee.

I had my.

Girlfriend take me to the airport in Oakland. I'd been with her for like about a year and a half. I was really did love her. She was beautiful and she was beautiful man. I was so in love it with my younger love likes to be with my girlfriend every day, and I was like, Babe, I'm about to go on tour. When I get there. Every day the first night Pandemonian. First night, I didn't call home. The first day, I never from called home.

It's like some shot I've never I had, never coming home.

And then you know, I did that tour with NWA and the very next year Ice Cube quit and he went on he did America's Most Wanted and me and him, me and ice Cube is right.

He went on another tour the very next year. So for two years, for the ice Cube Tour and the NWA tour, everything you could think about young rock star young, that was me I did.

It was that when five thousand girls y'all did the nothing but a Word to Me record.

That was the secondary gotcha, that was my record.

I love that joint.

So okay, it would be remiss to say that as a Philadelphian growing up on the East Coast, I'll say that at least between like in the early nineties, the idea of opinions and cultural differences between the coast. I mean, it was definitely a thing. What were your feelings like when you would read the sort like the critical claim or any that stuff being anything to.

Okay, so early on, I made money early on, I'm famous as fuck. Early on, I'm rocking crowds. My self esteem is way to fuck up there, I'm rapping. I've considered myself nothing of sexy sex symbol, nothing, I'm me, I've I got money, and I won't even fix my fucking teeth. I'm like, fucking, I'm just I'm just doing it, and you know, I'm just doing it. Man, it didn't bother me at all to be on TV with a fucked up grill. I was like, I had a pool in my backyard. I don't give a fuck out of

I'm like, like, hai, motherfucker.

But but I would also watch the media take the New York guy and you probably can relate to this as a Philly guy, the one guy with the one fucking song that we fucking love and make this motherfucker make it start for that one song, like he can't even proved itself yet, Like and they're like, he's our guy, blah blah blah for the whole year, and I just I watched that shit over and over again, I'm like, I'm like they they to me, they just didn't get it.

See it's all right. So and I think it was when did I come out. I came to California, probably the summer of nineteen ninety, and I specifically remember Tarik had Short Dogs in the House album and now he's he's very particular about like a zimcs or whatever. And I was like, well, wait why because I remember like something in the Source or whatever and they giving you like to two mics or whatever, and I was like, well, why would you buy this because it's got a bad

He which wasn't a bad album, no, it was yeah.

And that's the thing like he like Tik just because he watched yom TV raps. He just purchased everything that was ever on yom TV raps, and it's like it's like you're you're, you're what I call the flat footed approach to him seeing to me, that's like a tuxedo or jeans and t shirt like some ship or you know, like or chuck easy, which I mean, that's that to me is the hardest thing to do now, more than any sort of rhyme scheme. Yeah, any iambic pictameter decide.

Like a microphone and a cassette was all I ever needed to make my hip hop world successful.

Just a blank the set and a microphone.

But it's weird because when money enters the photo, then you start people start switching up. These ship start.

My counterpart, the first person you know, E forty is my homie forever from day one, we've ben hommies. So E forty's up the street doing his thing. But when we talk about Oakland, my counterpart was Hammer mc hammer. Uh, if you let me tell it was going around Oakland.

Uh.

He was very famous for dancing. He was popular for his run with being, you know, around the A's organization and stuff. He's popular and a lot of his friends were went to high school with me. I knew, I knew his whole crew. But Hammer had a dude named Ace that they used to dress alike and be at the clubs doing the same dance moves and shit. And then they get a crowd around him and people like, you know, he was. He was popular, So I knew who he was as a dancing dude. I knew that

Somebody was like, who fuck is that? I don't know who fuck that is?

Like, you know, I'm popular, I'm famous, We mob deep, We like in this motherfucker everywhere we go.

I don't know who the fuck that is.

I don't know.

I heard it a few times. Who are they?

They like coming through the crowd, bodyguard, skut and skut apartment. Then one day somebody said, man, who is that? And somebody else said that's Hammer. I was like this, Nick ain't got a record nothing, He's like like it became more famous for that circumstance and for the music, and then the music came with it at the same time.

Like he was.

He walked in the fucking door with the Anthize and four bodyguards and his first single was just coming out and he just that was so having him as an example, I'm like, Shore not doing that.

Can I ask a question, who were you thinking about when you wrote short of Funky Well?

I was doing lines of Hammer.

We all.

But a lot of songs that had had Hammer references, But it was between me and him, all of.

Our out right this stuff, like what was your relationship? Like, like did you guys?

Ever, so I'm saying ship like that in the record we walking were down the streets and ship talking a little shit about each other to our mutual homies, never gonna ever be any friction because they thugs and we thugs, and we all know each other. But Hammer would do shit like sit on the fucking couch with our sineo or something and say, like where you from? Hammer from Oakland? Oh, how's hip hop about that? Well, you know, I'm the only rapper from Oakland, Like, I'm never going on our senio.

So he poked.

I poked back, and it ain't got to a point where we were like, man, we should just let's just let's just go there with him. Let's just go there and just all out go there. And Louis Barrell, Hammer's big brother, he called us. He said, man, I heard you know, I know what's going on. I know I know who y'all know, I know all the ship. He's like, man, we just got off to r we come, you said, we're just getting off to her. Were coming home. We've been through hell out here on the road. Somebody had

Man, why couldn't I have it with Search?

What was the record for for you when you were with Jive, which was the biggest selling record, Like when did it?

Kind of because Life is bigger seller one, but it's sold I think a lot because of rumors.

That's that was you get your the rumor where you're dead in your young career. I got.

They thought you were dead.

The album drop and so three hundred thousand copies out the gate. We jump on the tour at three hundred thousand sales, and we get off tours at eight hundred thousand.

So the tour did a lot in that in that case.

And.

Get off tour and the sales go up to like about maybe like one point three. It's just hot. It's just going and then they killed me, they.

Said to.

Two Shirts got shot in the in the head in the crack house.

Wow, And I was having I was having memorials in Texas and I was going for real, I was I was dead to a lot of people.

And you know, you can't.

You can't social media back then like you died. And it's slowly the story goes slowly. You couldn't put a k back calling, you know, to kty wire.

Sales went out the room.

Who's going to stop?

Whos gonna stop?

The rumor went to two million, But the crack out of damn yeah, man.

Two Shirt is funny.

Man.

I've had people walked up to me.

It's me and my boy standing there, and the dude walk up and say, damn man, that's fucked up about two Shirts, Like what happened? Like, man, my uncle said, was that as a dope house last night? Two Shirts said the kitchen table on smoke coke all night. And then my boy like do you know what?

You know what he looked like.

You're like, man, I don't know what I'm just saying.

Uncle.

I'm standing right there, like knowing my uncle so much ship.

What led to the uh your the retirement. I think I guess your first retirement.

Get short to pimp out short?

Oh man, we ain't short, we ain't get what the pimp?

Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm sorry.

I just.

Can you tell about the I don't know. I felt like that to me is the least where you even got more.

Man.

I got on board, you know, early, because it's trek, but with with with making Jordan the pimp and and I guess so getting where you fit in came after that.

Getting it.

Shorty the pimp started some new ship with me.

I had been working with Al Eaton, who was my guitar, playing keyboard, playing engineer, and Al It's really good friends with Felton Pilot.

Felton Pilot was Felton Pilot was mc Hammer's guy.

So they they got got all that money and sold all those records and they built this whole compound over in Freemont, California. That's when Hammer bought the big house up to Hill. They was like, you know, running running Freemont, California, and Al my guy. In between two short albums, he went over to visit Felton and when he came back, he was like, man, I've seen it. I got the vision, so I'm coming into our studio to make a new album. It's going to be the Shorty the Pimp album. And

You see what they're doing over there.

He's like, if you ain't making, you ain't making records with white people. Man, you gotta make I was like, man, how do you make records for white people?

Like? How do you do that shit?

And I'm all I can think about it like pop shit. I'm like, I'm not making no pop shit. He's playing these little beats, he's trying to be like felting and hammering them and trying to I'm like, so I called in.

That's what I'm saying, Like you, I know, the temptation was there and you watching by this point, Park's about the about the digital underground, like all these these big area cats are just coming up and you just tunnel vision. Just how did you resist that temptation?

So I got I had a guy on my team named and Banks, and Banks was part of a couple of crews. You know, in the early days he being around. I knew all about him. He worked at em An, then he worked with poor Man, and poor Man was to do everybody in the game had to have a drug dealer backing you. You had to have a money man. So Big Bruce was their money man. And Bruce was like my homie Homi because I knew all the kingpins.

And I was on Jive platinum balling. I saw Banks at the cable company and he was like, you know, he went for it. He was in a little little little hoopy whatever. He just went for it.

He was like, man, you know, I make beats or something. I was like, I know, I know you a man, and we decided he was gonna link up. This is the same exact time. I'm fucking at the cable company, probably hand my bill. I'm probably there because the ship got cut off or something, and I'm right, and you got to go there to get it cut back. Nigga wasn't paying bills on time back then. And then I'm at the present moment, mad in the fucking car by myself about this fucking ship with al and the fucking

Before Jerry shrind Uh.

So Shorty B was a student of Eddie and fucking Mike Hampton. So he fucking knew all this ship. He could play Parliament anything inside out. He was like, I knew he was a drug dealer. I knew the crew he was, you know whatever. He's like, come over to the Acorn Projects. I know it's an Acorn niggas, So I'm not wasn't scared to go to Acorns, he said,

Uh.

I come back to make a new album. He keeps saying shit, his dog short, Shit the fuck down.

I'm like, this is.

We're about to kill this nigga up in here.

So on top of that, he's doing this new thing and he's going He's like, ah, fuck the fucking computer rebooted.

And then he says there and does like this. So he did that ship to me for like two days.

I come back with and Banks and Shorty b and Banks is like, hey, how you worked this shit and something something, And I was trying to resist, and Banks is like, look, just sit over here and just I'm gonna ask you whenever I can't work. So I'm ask

Like in terms of.

Which one Al, I heard rumors that Al passed away.

I'm not sure I've had you guys lost contact with each.

I really.

I can't remember the reason why I was so fucking mad at him, But there was a time where he was coming back, going, man, let's work together, and I was like, fuck that. And I'm still salty about I'm still salty about the old ship man. So is that still Okand and Banks is in Arizona.

No, when I met you when we first started coming out, I think you were living in Atlanta at the time, Like, why would you choose Atlanta? Like what makes It's just a change of pace or scene areas.

Nineteen ninety two, nineteen ninety three. Checked the stats. Those were the most violent years in the history of Oakland as far.

As murders go.

And it's wild as hell. It's been wild as hell some years lately.

It was so wild.

At one point I told the young homies. IU was like, man, it was way wilder back then. There's like no fucking way. So we sat there and looked up the murder stats.

So for self preservation reasons, you like, I gotta get out. I got out of here.

But you picked Atlanta out of any place.

Well, ninety ninety three, it was a whole lot of money and a lot of king pins getting put away. So when the king pins get put away, second in charge might not be the same leader. Third in charge might not be the same kind of leader. And then you start fighting for leadership and it gets it just the little armies break off in the little factions, and who once were homies are now knocking each other down.

Huh.

I'm like whatever, we all used to be homies, Like when nigga ain't the homies now and I'm taking right now, Nigga, I'm not trying to miss you.

If you with them, I ain't trying to miss you. So this is my friends telling me that whoa.

Okay, So just saying that once you get established, do you still stay in the same area that you were, I mean, by the point you were too short.

I bought a house sixty miles outside the city with the pool and all that shit. But then we had a house in the city with the studio in it, and you know, right on the corner right and the open everything, you know, and then I fucking I every day of my life was just in the streets. Even when I was platinum, I was standing on the corner with the drug dealers and I hadn't.

It took a long time. Kind of Atlanta kind of got me out of that.

Like before I moved to Atlanta, I knew for a fact, in the midst of the drug war, which was a major drug war, in the midst of it, I was so close to it that it is no way I could I could have avoided it. Well, you know, what was a everything to happen. I was gonna either be real close to something or it's gonna happen. And I didn't pick Atlanta. I didn't choose to move. I didn't say I'm leaving this ship. You know, we all played it like it's supposed to play it.

During the war.

You kind of play it low key and watch your fucking back as much as possible. But I went to the Freaknik. The Freaknick is the time that Freaknick was my birthday weekend, So I get to Freaknik.

What is college is a black college? Marty Gry Yeah, in Atlanta, in.

Atlanta, but this already used to me.

I think the last year was what ninety five they tried to bring it back in like nineties. Ninety five was terrible, ninety six was vacant, and yeah, they tried to bring it back.

And so the Freaknik in.

Nineteen ninety two, which I didn't go, was this big ass picnic that just was the best picnic anybody ever fucking went to.

So in ninety three the word was out, you gotta go to Freaknik.

It got to me.

I'm like, we're going to see what this shit is.

And it shuts Atlanta down, like it's shut the certain pockets. You just you can't drive.

Yeah, So I leave violin ass Oakland and pop up in Atlanta. And Atlanta is so much different. In Oakland and Oakland. If I see a police officer, if we just make eye contact, we're gonna have it.

We gotta have a conversation. He's got to pull me over, fuck with me, right, fake ticket, real ticket, whatever ticket, and we just just fuck with you. In Atlanta, you pull up next to the cop, he's like, man, Wow.

So I'm like experiencing all this fucking shit that ain't happening at home, and it's like parties and shit, with people really partying. Ain't nobody getting shot, and it's like people in the streets just having a good time at all these college campuses and shitting.

And I was just like, fuck, well, the freaknik ended. I didn't leave.

I stayed for another two weeks, and then I told one of my homies who is from Oakland living in Atlanta. I said, man, I'm about to go buy a house in Oakland, probably gonna spend sid I'm probably spending about five hundred thousand and get something up in the hill somewhere. And he was like, let me show you what you get for five hundred thousand in Atlanta.

So in a state.

We just looked at the houses and shit. And I went back to Oakland. Funerals, shootouts, all this shit. Not mean, but I'm saying, but it's just going down.

Man.

I'm like literally, like the homies that I know, like we all were a big click of homies. They're killing each other. And it's a small as city, so it's real easy to kill them, motherfucking the small ast city

And just.

Southwest Atlanta, So I snuck and bought a house. It just was like I gave him three thousand, picked out my live picked out the house I wanted, and started the processing ship and didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell nobody until the ship was like really gonna happen and I started putting my crew together. Man, I was like telling y'all, fuck with me. With me, I helped a lot of people Relokay.

I was gonna say, were you rolling in your Oakland years? Like how deep were you rolling? As far as like when there's a too short show? Whatever are you you never heard? I mean, were you ten deep? Nine hundred deep?

You're like, I bring like two hundred niggas everywhere I go.

I'm everywhere.

Why too short?

Why we would go to shows and I would like we would do shows like maybe like drive an hour outside of Oakland, and I'm like, all right, look man.

How would you get them there? We all drive overhead.

How do you remember everybody's name?

I have homies I've been knowing for twenty five years. I don't know they fucking name Homey, Homey Homie.

I'm like, you can't.

So look, everybody had cars, everybody had money, and a two short shows like a field trip. It was like, We're gonna drive fast on the freeway. The highway patrol aint gonna catch us because they gonna see fifty cars speeding.

Who's gonna get caught?

Not me?

That was that was our thing.

To get on the freeway, do one hundred something miles an hour and lawless and just we were all twenty three years old and fucking with a bunch of crack money.

I was.

I was the rapper selling a million records, and I was the brokenst one in the crew. So I was, you know what I'm saying.

I was.

I wasn't nothing. I was nowhere up in status in the crew. I was the rapper, like the mascot. So we go to the show and I'd be like, look man, and one thing about our crew is we didn't have a leader. Nobody could ever say they was a leader. So everybody was fucking just like I'm gonna do the fuck I want to do. You could reason with some people, but you can't. Nobody could boss anybody. So I'd be like, look, man, we're going to do this show. These people, look at

I'm like stop.

And then I was the promoter.

I give the promoter hell, like I didn't even say some shit like, man, let us all in this motherfucker.

We don't have to all be backstage. Let my guys in the crowd. That was my thing.

Just let them all in because I was like I can't go in, like it can't happen. And then to be crying, oh blah blah. I'm like, dude, okay, man, just check a thousand off my prices and we're all going in.

We're going in.

I used to push push security out the way all that ship just like this, like guess the.

Funk out the way we're going anyway, and we just walking. I had a bad rap at.

First, Yeah, cause y'all took up all the space in the club.

I had a bad rap at first. It was bad.

So how did they take you? Just not being there?

So look at this.

So when I moved to Atlanta, I literally I was. It was not a move, it was a movement. I rallied up a whole bunch of motherfuckers. I brought a whole I brought my immediate staff. I had everybody relocated. I helped everybody get you got a place, you gotta move, we gotta get your car, like whatever the fuck you need to do.

And banks came.

We all came, We we came. We showed up literally literally with like a mob. And then we recruited a bunch of our college kids who were out there already. We found the homies that have been living out there already. We just started a whole click. We linked up with the l A crew because you know, I got a bunch of cousins and family. Man vill tell you how Deeple was in Atlanta. We had a we had a fucking army Johns from day one.

So so.

I mean, I showed up in Atlanta with a cause, man, like you know, I was fucking I had already been coming out there since like eighty nine and shit, doing shows and signing autographs and records, record in stores and ship and coming back to go to Magic City when I when I get when I do the show, we go to Magic City after the You know, I knew that Atlanta style.

I had friends in Atlanta. People don't even know I lived in Atlanta for a year.

Wait, so can we talk about that right there though, right just right there to being in Atlanta, the strip culture and the difference between that and in the Oakland scene.

We didn't have no strip clubs.

I mean, I figured so when you got to Atlanta, clubs.

And strip clubs in San Francisco are like really just for prostitution, right.

So, but when you got to Atlanta, it was like, I mean, I know from living in Atlanta different I.

Got to Atlanta.

You get a table dance of five dollars, and fucking uh, you can go to spend one hundred dollars bill all night and get dances all night for five dollars.

Them days over though, days over days over.

When I got that, you could be like every strip club had a photographer with a polaroid and you could be like, I want a picture with that bitch, and then she would come over and she'ld be butt ass naked and he's like, just put one hand on her vagina or something.

Take a picture.

That's like before NIS before gentleman club.

All right, look, no, bend over and spread your pussy for my picture. Wow, And they do it. That was that was like normal.

How much? How much?

Okay, I'm just pricing things out, he said, how much?

For the say about it.

Back then, the pussy was uh, some caliweed and some probably like some food.

It's not like another country.

Wow.

Strippers used to tell me I heard you got that caliweed. I'm like, yeah, we're going to kick and smoked. I used to keep something on me, let him smell the bag, like nigga, where are you going after this?

Wow?

Not anymore.

Now. I mean Month was made about the album number ten, getting it record as a retirement record. And if we know anything about life, black people.

Don't ever time, especially that rappers, especially not rappers.

But of course, my sucker, I think that might be my favorite record. That's my I love that record. I was like, oh man, it's this last record. Damn. But I mean, what made you start that campaign knowing that you weren't gonna get out?

It was it was a numbers It was my tenth album, right, it was. I was thirty years old and at the time, thirty something year old rapper was like, oh.

Last nigga rapper that was.

That was like, man, you're really about to be a granddadd rapp. So it was just a play on the numbers. I felt like at that time, in nineteen ninety six, you could not find rappers that had ten albums, even your favorite rappers and have ten albums and then just to make that statement album number ten.

That's why I named it that.

It was like I was just sitting there saying, you know, look, man, I've been and out of the ten I got plaques. I was really just bragging. And the whole retirement was like some big willy shit, you know, cigar shit, yah retired, throw the retirement party. We thought it out as a promo thing that the retirement party would be the dopest album release party ever, you know, and it was. It got a lot of fucking attention. Like I've heard about it.

I ever had.

What was your deal with job? How many albums did you have on your contract?

I had like one album after that, And part of the reason was to wake the motherfucker's up too. I was like, if I'm hanging around, I want a whole lot of more money.

And this it was.

You know. But I fucked up though, because at that point I could have got the funk out of there, and I had no idea that in a couple of years the jive was gonna fucking.

Stick that Dick and Britney Spears and forget all about.

Hip hop wow for a long time.

And they stole in sync from R C A Records and they was like, fuck hip hop.

I remember an a n R guy, a n R lawyer.

I'm gonna say what was like dealing with Barry Wiss and just in general.

I remember a n R lawyer.

I think his name is Peter Thea.

Peter. I hated Peter the Peter. They tried to sign us. They try to sign a little brother.

Okay, Peter THEA told me one day.

R C Now, well, he's he's our status of person like he knews.

Every Jive was selling tons of in sync Backstreet and Britney Spears, and they were totally neglecting R.

Kelly and everything R and B and hip hop. And I'm sitting there having a.

Conversation with Peter Thea about the next thing, and you know, every everything, So uh us not in the budget. I know, mother fuck you guys got the biggest groups in the business. How do you have a budget? So Peter THEA said to me one day, it's today. I totally stopped liking Jive Records. I went from like just dealing with it and doing the business and like, I don't like you anymore. He said, we're getting back in the rap game. I said, when did you get out? Like, what the did that happen?

Wow.

So it's as far as like movement to concern and stuff. Well, first of all, I mean, first of all, buy you something, Yeah, man, I love that record, favorite joints ever. But I mean you've also done like historical collaborations with.

By you something as dope as fuck. Because we're at the studio, there's a felt like it was done just further move a drum set in the studio that only has and I always kept the set in there miked up because I like to get like a little feel or a little like a little snare the loop or something. No, that wasn't me, So I think I think we always had a lot of drummer around. Don't know if it could have been Tony t from DC, it could have been, could have been Pee we Pee. We played drums and

Yeah, so.

They start playing that beat and then fucking Eric Sermon freestyle diverse, which y'all know ha ha I no pen, no paper. So it was instantly that song, his first verse, that beat, that baseline, it was like, that's the ship that like, just leave that that that I wrote my rap and it was a song.

It was just it was two minutes and something long.

It was where did y'all recorded?

At my studio and Atlanta.

I literally always thought that song was too short night even being funny, but that's just funny that you said that.

Yeah, because it just happened like that.

And then we immediately we took the rough copy to the club, the fucking staticky copy, and it just instantly, just instantly did it.

You know.

Eric Simon played a trick on me too.

I never really had a lot of New York love, not a lot of a lot of fans or anything, like, not a sales or anything. And he asked me, would I come fly up to the Apollo and do that to do that song? During the show they were doing a Death Squad show, you know, not the ex sermon show with Death Squad with all him.

Yeah, so you're gonna.

Gonna bring you out, so you know, I'm cool, I'm I'm chilling, and you know, I'm just gonna do the ship whatever.

But he didn't tell me that the record had broke in New York and that they were loving it.

You didn't know.

I didn't know. I was in Atlanta. I didn't know.

Played the trick on me. Man put me out on stage. The motherfuckers. The song came on, they went crazy. I came out. They went even crazier, and I'm like, when did this time? I remember arguing with a dude on the elevator that I told him. He was like, he's the He's the bellman in New York City and he was like, so what do you do? I'm like, I rap, Like where you're rapping wrap everywhere. You're like, what's your rapp name? Too short?

Like oh yeah, you know.

He asked us a question.

Somehow it gets to I do shows with a big Daddy came. He's like the funk out of here. I'm like, I'm like, shit, Big Day can't open.

For me, and he's like out here now You're.

Like, now you bullshit?

Yeah, That's why I wanted to ask you because when you moved to Atlanta. That kind of makes sense to me because I'm from the South, from North Carolina, but like the South and the Bay always seem to have some kind of kinshit, like y'all some country niggas, and like we always got it. But like in the South, like your records always ran so like did you at the time when you w on job and just throughout your career, had you generally sell more records in the South than like in the North.

For I'm also one of them kids who spent every summer in New Orleans. So I'm there for the sound of New Orleans, the whole second line, vibe the mighty grass and buy you classics. I'm there for that ship to bellow the bands. I'm a kid looking at that shit the whole way. The marching band's going by Mardi Gras, Paris and all the shit. My cousin's marching the band. I'm marching the band. But we played and stepped and turned.

I was there from day one on the South Ship.

I was.

They had records that they had dances that just went with two short songs, you know, So I was. I fucking came to Myths Coliseum and came out on stage. The first song was I Ain't Tripping Them motherfuckers jumped out their seats and started dancing like ant Farm doing some shit called the gangster Walk. I'm like, what the fuck? That ship looks crazy?

To a performer?

Were you were? You genuinely shocked at as far as like the well the cameos that you later did.

Stuff, and the retirement also brought that. On the retirement announcement, they were like, well before you go, let me get averse. Let me get averse. And then it was Eric Sermon. It was me being on uh big East Biggie song, and then jay Z because I had this that was big, jay Z was like, you gotta do something. So then jay Z, I got on jay Z and then Foxy Brown,

Because they was out of the element too, so.

It's neutral ground.

So when I got to Atlanta, I started taking more trips to New York.

It started, you know, I'm hanging out in fucking Washington Heights and I'm doing different ship and it's not so isolated to me anymore. And Trench is taking me around New York to fucking crazy ass areas at four o'clock in the morning and ship, I'm.

Wrong?

When did how did the record?

You did call Me?

Record with Little Kim for the Booty.

Call Me was a Jives idea for they got the Booty Calls soundtrack. They're like, it'd be double if you did it. It's Booty called You used to do a record Little Kim. So they parlayd the ship, probably gave her a nice little chunck of chain started to come do the ship. We get in the studio in New York. We worked at Battery Studios, and we we came up

So Jiver is in on the play. I'm in on the ship.

We booked the flights for Kim and her manager, get them first class New York to Atlanta. I'm like, this little Kim, you know, I know, Biggie's my homie and Kim is his chick, So I'm respectful. I'm not gonna there's no plan to try to fuck little Kim. And I'm like, I'm gonna treat her like royalty. She's gonna get you know, to the help, to the studio, she's gonna get back home, sa nigga.

I'm there to pick her up. And Biggie comes walking out the airport. No Kim, Oh, And he's like, and so, what's up with you? And what y'all doing? Like we're doing what.

You know?

But he played it cool though. He's like they're doing a song for the Booty Calls soundtrack. He's like, Oh, yeah, she missed her plane. Shes gonna be in the next plane. He kind of screamed me if I had the right answers.

Wow wow. But she did finally come. She came in next fight.

I took him to my mama's house, fed him some some U some some some soul food dinner from that night. I had just got a shipment of two answers of some good ass California weed, which was really hard to get at the time, and I sold him one. I didn't give it to him, that's right, and everything was cool. She got on, She got on the next plane. We worked on the song and it was cool.

Another soundtrack question, the Juice soundtrack, mc pool, Who was that you? That's my artist? It was, but it wasn't.

I thought that's pooh Man and he was poor.

Man, yeah, and he he always I thought murder him. I thought it was you.

He tried to make my voices.

He was young.

He tried to do my voice like a lot of you know, he tried to do two short voices. Poor Man is a big motherfucker to to be trying.

To because I thought I saw pictures of him in the sores, but I didn't know if it was you know, I didn't know if that was covered thought.

That sucks bunny. Murder was damn, we're right here, right here.

So he was someone. He was a totally different guy.

Poor Man is he he's uh, he's still around, Okay.

I brought him on stage I did a thirtieth anniversary show my band and brought him out.

Gotcha, gotcha? So with with with the rise of Okay.

With with?

When I heard you on uh the Van's joint h and someone was like, I forgot who it was. It's like, yeah, man, you know short used to be in the skate parts and on you were just so.

The group that did the pack. So these were some kids that just were from Berkeley, Man.

So I was going to do a show up in the way up north cast somewhere where we had to leave from the Bay and drive three hours in. The promoter had a driver, you know, come get us in a van, and this motherfucker played the Pack on their little mixtapes and he played and I was like, I was like, what is that you listen to?

He said the Pack.

I was like, play it again. We had long ass ride. We listened to it two times. I was like, you know then he was like yeah, I know him, and uh. I was like, man, I need to meet them. So the van dude, he was like, I'm gonna hook you up with him. So we talking and ship and he's gonna hook me up with the Pack. So we were planning on meeting at a Hamburger stand and four dudes showed up, but they wasn't.

A pack and.

Screening you before.

So the dudes is like then it's like, so, look, man, we just want to know how we're gonna get paid and what you know when we're gonna get in the studio.

And I'm like, I'm like, dude, what the.

Fuck are you talking about? You got a Hennessy bottle in his hand. He's like, man, he's talking to you right. And I happened to borrow my Homies Bentley that day. I never buy Bentley's and Rolls, races and ship because I just I'm just like a Porsche of Mercedes with I mean, my homies Bentley. I'm pulling up like Big Willie at the Hamburger staying and these motherfuckers are barking out orders to me on how this relationship is gonna work.

And then he's like, I'm like, so, which one of y'all is the pack?

Who's the pack?

He's like, look, man, we're from Berkeley, like the pack, but we ain't the pack.

The pack first, before you can get to the pack, you gotta go through us first.

I'm like, how, what the fuck uh.

So I get a phone call from my homeboy from Frisco and he's like, man, I heard just looking for my son. I'm like the son. He's like, my son's in the pack. So I cut the middleman out. My homie is uh, little UNO's daddy. I get them to come over to his house. Then we get it going in and it's like like you know, the pack. I think two of them skate, l the producer, young l

A Little Bee is like the Dalai Lama of the internet round now, like no, he's he set the trends for all that ship, like Maconey and like all those guys made it cool to not.

Not be good and but you're not being good on purpose.

Yeah, he's definitely these motherfuckers are now wrapping off beating, rapping like they can't wrap and that's the style.

Yeah, it's.

But it goes, it goes.

So yeah, the Pack came to me.

They were were kind of like working the skater image a little bit, and I just, you know, I'm an opportunist man. When I met Little John, I was like, that's the wave and I knew that Little John had a sound that was hot, and I was like, I'll help you do everything.

You can in the world if you promise me that you keep giving me those beats you make.

Did you meet him more house days in Atlanta?

Or I met a Little John. He was already working for So So Deaf. He was doing some producing with the like Booty Shake music, and he was DJing a lot in Atlanta. I love the way he dj because he DJs and he worked the crowd up in a frenzy with what he's saying and the music. So I was like a little Johnt fan as a DJ, and I approached him. That's how I started working house. I was like, man, you need to let me wrap on your beats.

Like when you got on that Pack record. And suddenly just all these rumors I'm like, yeah, two Short, you used to skate back in the day and all that stuff.

I did the same thing with the pack. I knew Young L had these beats. I went over the house. I went over to Young L's house. He lived with his mind. He had the coke closet. When you first come in the house, they opened the coat closet and it's his studio microphone booth. Nope, not the mic.

It was the studio studio, the studio, the mic.

The microphone was wired from the coat closet to his bedroom closet. So you go in the bedroom and you wrap in there with his clothes. And I was impressed.

I was not impressed by the fact that they figured it out.

Did they know about the legend the too Short, that they knew who was amongst them? Or we heard about you? Okay? And I was really impressed that they had no track record.

But every time they would bounce down the song, it'd be a really good mix, like this shit sounded good, And I'm like, who's doing this shit for y'all? They like they took me to the setup. They're like, we do it ourselves. Like, man, y'all got some help from somewhere and they just elle just had that earround like some people just get it immediately, and a little beat would write the hooks l make the beat, and then the other two dudes just had to come with the twelve or sixteen word verse.

It was.

It was magic when I met him beat. When I met him, they had sixty songs. I'm like, what that fuck?

So it was almost like seeing you recontextualized for you know, the new arts, and then you know, like so when blow the Whistle comes along, then it's like, can you explain what the Hyphie movement was supposed to be or was it just okay?

So so now you got you got too short, you got forty, and you got mac Drer. Now nobody from the Bay with every dispute, all rap, all Bay rap comes from these three people.

Can you before you go, can you explain the legend of mac dre for those.

This is the part of it, him and forty from so I get ahead started everybody. I'm like, they never get me on sales, they never get me on who came first, They never get me on the biggest records.

I got them. I set the fucking tongue.

So now you got me and you got mac Dre and E forty and they come out of Valayo with all homies and mac Dre is to the bay. He's the one that gets up, does the dances. He's he's amongst the people. He's he touches them, he's one of them. He hugs him and he's They love and they like.

Man.

Dre's my guy. Forty is the kingpin. He's like, you can't get past the security. He lives in big gated house. He's always been his rap image. His real life image has always been I'm a boss and in me, I'm the Oakland nigga.

You know, I'm just you know, short dog. You know, I talk shit out do the pimp image.

I do all this shit and everything Bayry rap comes from the pimp that E forty the boss and Mac Dre clowning and just being, you know, really's hell.

So Oakland had a thing called the Side Show.

The side Show was just a bunch of people in their customized cars hanging out in Taco Bell parking lot that's adjacent to the East Oakland East myt Mall, and we just come out there Saturday night and.

Just hang out.

The side show evolved into the ship. You might have seen on DVD's when they're doing the donuts and shade up. Fuckers is racking allow and all this ship and jumping out the car and all that. So the side show evolved from one parking lot to the next generation was like probably like the early two thousands. They were like, wherever we're at, if we stop and we liked the music, were about to have a fucking party. And then they

It's dumb.

Motherfucker's on top of the public bus and the bus is ride and they just dance on top of the bus. So Mac Dre and the Vallejo Boys, how all these dances they do? They like, you go to Vallejo. They're very colorful, they're very originally they're very not o when they're very not san Francisco Valao is Valao always has been. So they do all these fucking dances and all this ship and they got their own slang words and they

For Leaho is original. So mac Drake brings that element to what a side show would be.

You know, I even want to say the ghost riding the whip park probably came from Dre and them like they they seem to be more like the ones that jumped out the car and knew that the car would go at a certain speed without you touching the gas or the break and then they dance at that same speed and you never lose car. That's whoever was and to like them, Yeah, I think I think not kick Sink Kickink from ok but uh, turf talk is that's

I might be wrong.

So the high fee movement starts. The high fee movement to me is what Kick the Sneak was doing in Oakland with the side shows and just the whole Oakland vibe of what Keith was talking about. And then mac dre with the pimp silly shit dancing and clown and shit and ghost riding and all this shit. So they took the ghost riding and dancing of v Leo, mixed it with the burning rubber and crazy car driving to Oakland,

Getting in the car, you gotta be drinking.

So it's d u I right off the rip, it's it's fucking a lot of lot of weapons, you know what I'm saying.

It's always a violent act to go with it. And then it's I'm wanting it right now?

Is you talking about it?

And then it's like extremely overall, it's just hell of disrespectful, just overall.

Yeah, yea some female stuff going on and you don't look like it might be right, but it looked like it's exciting, you know, to watch it's like some want to get free throwing in some dope they gonna get free thrown anyway.

You know, that's that's freakingin gone bad. That's like freaking that's Freaknik's fucked up cousin. So so the music was great, by the way. The music was hip hop, street ship, but it made you want to dance, and it was really big in the clubs. And the Hyphee movie was like, if it was just about the dancing the music, I think it would have been something for the world. But when you gotta be Yeah, And I talked to Big

Yeah.

I felt like they gave up too early on the joint exactly. It's almost like it was their Neil soul, Like they gave it a two year run and just like and.

You know, you know who picked it up right lest it on the meat. Yeah, got that tempo.

All his early beats was like straight Bay influenced Tiger came out on that bas sound right, Yeah it was.

It was oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because mostly it was more to tempo for it because like, just for me personally, I liked my hip hop somewhere between ninety one ten bpms just a little bit, you know what I mean.

He was one of ten.

I know.

It's like great energy. Wow, it's still it's still alive. It's just it's just it's just not named that anymore. It's still alive.

They still do the same exact dances, they still act the same guy. Damn way, it just don't call it Hyvey.

Did you ever have any do any work or have any any kind of deals with JT the Bigger Figure?

Well, me and j T we like minded, so you know, we we don't we don't do agreements together and ship and we work together and we uh you know, he's family like you talk to guys like Snooper Ship. We love j T mancause JT can make something out of nothing in a minute. He uh, he never comes with his hand out. And the last time I last time I heard the fig he was in Africa. He was in Africa buying up property or some ship. He put something out real yes for this is recently too. Then

I don't know.

He's the one.

When the game came out, he's like, oh, I got albums on the game, like yeah, figures, He's just He's just.

Who like who I mean? And now he asking journalists question, who do you still listen to? Like okay for for you even if it's ould shit whatever, like what is just your go to? You in the car are you driving? Like what what's what's in your well? I'm I'm I'm about the funk.

I was a I'm officially no doubt about it, one of the clones of doctor Fungustein And then when they were cloning him, I'm one of those and.

I hear the funk.

I hear it.

The funk is and the drums is in basslines, just in rap cadences, and the way people sing is it's it's, it's there.

It's in pop music, you know, the funk is there.

So I love a lot of that new funky ship that Mike will produce type ship that fucking you know, even if it's fucking uh, what's my man?

Who's been killing him lately?

Metro boom and he got this the funk like you hear that little funky The Migos as funky as fuck, like the way they work the auto tune. They bring the funk to a song that wasn't even funky. And I think that's another thing that autotune was misinterpreted about, was that it wasn't so much as how skillful is the person working it. It just they got these beats that they do that aren't very melodic. But then if

And what was I saying?

Because I smoke a lot of wead of the.

Funk.

So what I'm listening to now is I'm just the funk. I'm so prejudiced against all other music. Like I love the blues, the funky blues, I don't like all blues. I love jazz when it got the funking. I just I'm just that guy who. But I feel like I was so safe of me, so sad to have a career and say if it ain't funky, we can't it can't leave it, can't.

Leave out this room.

It's gotta be funky. I was in the studio with Puffy in the early days and he walked in the studio. I was in there, a whole bunch of motherfuckers in there. It was smoking, it was drinking, everybody's having a good time enjoying the song that was on. Puff walked in and said, I can't dance this ship. Scrapped, threw it off, killed the whole session. It was old reason I can't dance to that ship, and it was it ain't bad boy.

So how did the world is Fueled come about? Because I love that song, but it's not danceable, but I mean is a jam. It's a slow nice I mean, I'm thinking like Puffy dancing with the fucking.

I can tell you why I didn't get chopped off, the kicked off, the chopping block, whatever I'm trying to say. Okay, I can tell you why, because the beat had been made, the hook was on there. The hook is Carl Thomas, and Puffy's verse was already on there. He's on the first verse. So when me and Big went to the studio we did our versus the same day, it was already beat hook, Puffy's verse.

Already, he could already dance to it, so he was cool, so he.

Set it off.

So that's why he probably he probably conceived the concept of the song and you know, the world pencil House and all that.

But yeah, I don't know, like I used that was a song I used to always play on the album because I don't know. If you notice, at the end of the song you say bitch, crazy ass man, bitch, and it starts right back over.

If you put this song on repeat, it starts right back and rhythm is amazing, all right, which leads to my last question, Sure, Dunk, what is your favorite no, no, no, you have revolutionized the word bitch? Would not you make saying the word bitch the funnest thing on earth? I mean to the point where, like you know, even with Chappelle taking it to the next levels and all that he was and beyond. Yeah, I mean you, like, how

Bach is like.

It was exclusively uh, something that was only said by myself and Freddy B.

Freddy did you feel some way like once you heard death throwing those guys like taking and I.

Tell you, Freddy B went to jail, My career blows up. He kind of didn't get to have the glory.

Yeah.

And I carried it on and.

The first person I heard say it was uh, ice Cube said it on A bitch's a bitch at the end he goes bers And then and then a MG sampled it, well, DJ quick sample, that's the same thing. And that that opened up the like curiosity like, well maybe I can use the of it because you know,

I just got to ask, man, what made y'all say bitch?

Like too Short?

And Snoop told the story. He said, he said in front of you.

Yeah, he said, when I first time I got in the studio and they just put me in there, he was like, man, we grew up on two shows. We grew up listening too Shorts. Like, first time I got in the studio, they turned the mic on.

I just said bitch.

When he said that, I mean, there's no anger, there's no there's no bad vibe. So basically I look at.

It like this.

Cube opened the floodgates death ro They they kind of gave it to the world.

They did, because for a seconds I really thought it was there.

So they gave it to the world.

And then when I I heard an argument one day that too Short got bitch from Snoop what That's why I wrote blow to Ustle.

The way I wrote it, it was almost like just the taking back of it.

I was saying some things that nobody could dispute as far as the numbers, like the whole first verse is mathema is mathematics. And I'm like, when I just say I've been rapping for two hundred twenty five thousand hours, that was ten years ago, and anybody who would stopped and put that on a calculator and could even figure out how to would realize that average is about twenty years somewhere in there. And I was just like, I've been rapping longer than you, motherfuckers. I've been rapping more

Right, Well, sure do we cover everything I think we got? I'm trying to sure there's not an obscure, beastie. I know we're going to be like, why did we ask I got no movies?

Right? Yeah, oh, well, you know he was a mini cooking the ribs. You really know how to grill?

Really, no, And if you go back and look at in society, them fucking ribs was burnt. I did say so many cooking out that I'm the only motherfucker in Minn society. I'm the only mother fucking that. That pointed again that old dog. Old Dog was a savage, and they gave me the role where I got to put the shotgun on.

Yeah.

Yeah, And you know back then that was like folklore, like like people thought old Dog was real.

Somebody.

You're right, he was the hummy. But you know, fifty one years old.

Yeah, I was gonna say, yo, you you are no way going to convince me that you're fifty one years old right.

Now, because and you ain't tired. You ain't tired of the party.

But I mean not the last two nights, all know.

I mean it's a lifestyle, I know, but.

This is amazing to me. I take naps, okay, thank you, thank you for keeping it real. Thank you you say vitamin.

Suit or is that just yeah?

I do all?

I guess Okay, you listen, we want to be like semi healthy.

But you know, I'm fifty one years old, and I got a lot of new music coming out, and I just I feel like I'm not making records to compete in hip hop. I'm making records to compete with the definition of hip hop. People keep as as old as I keep getting. They keep saying that number, like, man, you can't wrap when you're thirty. Then I turned forty, They're like, man, forty old ast rapper. Like it's like, my age is the age they keep saying it's too old. So I'm like, I'm going to do this shit.

Barrier this year.

Yeah, I think, yeah, you might be the oldest in terms of like the competition to me right now is I want to know and I want to be in the race of who's going to be the oldest rapper to make a relevant hit record.

Oh it's hard and not be like this Nigga sixty two and they not be like, oh, that's old ass Johnny, Like no, like like that's my ship, Like.

Who's gonna be relevant?

I mean that's relevant though, like because.

I'm like four four four, But it can happen. It can happen. I feel like I feel like it definitely happened with him. Because you're again it's he's going proven formuly its flat footed tuxedo jeans and T shirt style will never ever go out of style. You know what I mean? It will never ever go on stop. Thank you too short for coming on Quest Love Supreme. Yes, sorry, we ain't done reflections in a minute. So Fran, take a look. What did you What did you learn to day?

I learned that pool Man was a totally different guy from straight up and we even made it.

We made a dis record about him called getting Away Fitting. It's on the hours on Really we ripped his ass because he went and made a record and talked about a few of us on a record.

So we did you not get him on job records? Like did you?

I got him to deal personally.

I was going to say, like these are cats on job.

He has a somewhat success and comes to us after one album, goes man, I think I'm want to get off the label.

We're just like, okay, damn, you're off here.

Okay, So two things I learned. Number one about your parents being accountants. That's banging and being together. That just says a lot about a man. Period. Oh have you been married before?

No wife?

No kids.

No, that's why. Yeah, that's.

Hold up.

No, No, it's a lifestyle.

But sty, I do have somebody that keeps putting on Wikipedia that I have a wife and kids, but I don't.

You have any kids. And I got something that I want to learn. You said you got a lot of stuff coming down the pike, and I know you've been doing like some interesting other kind of stuff. Can you just give us a little tat which.

I wrote a book.

I got a thirtieth anniversary documentary dropping just just highlighting the thirty year career. I got an album coming out called the Pimp Tape, and it is exactly what it says. It's a pimp tape. And then uh, preceding the Pimp Tape will be a mixtape called Hella disrespectful.

We're talking to Mark right now. You feel like we're talking to Mark right now.

Of all the of all the years of like stuff that you've done, and like all the ladies and everything, like how do you escape kids? How you make it by easy?

Little John said it in from the Window to the Wall. He said, I sk skap, not every.

Time everybody make a mistake and get lost up in sometime I've.

Been a skeater from day one. You know, see the strap up. We're aiming at something.

Well, look, all I asked you read your do your own audiobook. That's what I ask you for the people do your own audio audio.

Yeah, that would be please, Steve Sugar.

Steve you learn I learned the entire history of Oakland hip hop, and from the beginning it sounds like you could have been in the studio with me and you.

Are essentially the same age. Awesome, married, unmarried, no.

Kids, he's never been married, what I do, and in.

Atlanta, and a whole bunch of stuff I didn't know, but I like. I like your bounce as a person. I don't know if that sounds weird, but you you seem like you know the right percentages of things I've never.

Been in love with. Famous like that. I'm the first person you walk up to say are you too short?

I'm like, I look like that's you.

Man invest in Vegas. Hey, that's been going on for a long I mean, take your Hamilton money man. Yeah, yeah all that.

By the way, my book was written completely in jail.

Oh are some questions we didn't you were in jail.

Twenty fifteen June and July.

I went to court on June fifteenth to go show him the proof of my community service for a DUI I got, and the prosecutor lady bullied me and she was like, if you fucking present that paper to the judge, I'm going to make sure that he knows that there's some false entries on there, and I'm gonna make sure you do it. You're in jail, and don't charge you

Yeah?

No?

Or did the judge know who you were?

Yeah?

It was it was a high profile case. And he said she said thirty days.

He said, well, I'm gonna give him ninety and then said, bailiff take him right now, and I can't do it.

That's the fucked that he kept me in there five fucking weeks to the day.

And so you just finished your book that way started and finished your book.

Well, if jail was such so full of ship, with the fucking the ship that went on in there, like La County jail is like it's not humane at all, it's fucked up. So during the day it was so much bullshit going on that I would sleep all day and then I when they lights oute of night, I'd wake up and like write to like this little light, and I was just right all night. So I did my time away from everybody else, like I slept all day every day.

I'm so glad you were remind I would have been mad.

I was thinking about naming the books some ship I wrote in.

Jail where like you got love in there was we know it was good. I was.

I was man. I was in the high power section. Man. I was in the cell next.

Yeah you can't.

You couldn't come in contact any other prisons.

I was.

I was in the cell next to where they had Chris Brown, next where.

They had like, So, what was the meals like in that section? I know it was a little.

Different slice the garlic, real sin.

If you're not a snacker, if you don't like snacks, because they you will not eat the meals.

You will not.

They asked some ship in their common series, some ship in there called cal Rains. Wait what and you couldn't. They had this one thing that they gave it to me and I was like, I'm cool, I don't want that. And I was like, but just curious.

I was like, what is that? And the guard said it's ship. I was like no. I was like, no, for bro in the kitchen when they cooking it, what do they think they make it? What is it called?

He said ship?

No, that's sloppy Joe, right, they've started.

They started purple spaghetti.

Why would it be that color?

You asked these questions, there are no answers.

Purple spaghetti.

La County ain't right?

Man?

Wait? Why did our episode just get lit in the last.

No? I didn't know. I didn't know he was locked up. That's crazy.

Five weeks. I wrote every night down there. Every night I wrote and that wrote. It's all in pencil. It's about three hundred pages and I don't know what the fund I haven't read it back yet.

Wow, okay, has anybody read it?

I let one peris of reading there was like, it's pretty good. I don't know, but they might be gassing my people. I don't but I just feel like I don't give a fuck this good or not. It's some ship I wrote in jail, and I might I might even release it in the handwritten in pencil. It's in pencil, because you can't have a pen in jail.

Look, this is all I'm gonna say.

This.

This is all I'm gonna say as far as what you learned today that you really really should get an agent two for you to pitch to either Amazon or I can't even say that the N word Amazon. You really, I'm telling you there is an engaging, motherfucking story of your childhood hustling these tapes, and we.

Hear Disney has a new platform.

I do have a offer on the table to do a mini series, like like a three prime mini series.

I feel I think there's youth streaming.

Before the career.

Well, thank you very much for coming on like Snowfall by the way to It's awesome, uh on behalf of Boss Bill, Unpaid Bill, Sugar, Steve take Aloa and the Light here and our guest today to be sure as giving a lad.

But I'm something about the way you call me a fucking lady, sound old and I've got a birthday coming up. I don't like it.

Thank you.

We were born on the same day, so not in the same year and on the half of the Team Supreme. Y'all. This is Quest Love. See you next go around only one Pandora Thank You. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.