Too Short

I could see how artists like Parliament would revisit the same music and kinda change it a little bit, change the words and hook, and it'd still be that same flavor. A lot of groups back then would make another song that sounded very similar to a song they already had. Ohio Players used to do it.

I was a child coming up in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

Oakland had a lot of pride attached to the Panthers. A lot of people were connected to it in some kind of way and a lot of people who weren't Panthers supported the Panthers. You'd see Huey P. Newton around, and people would be like, 'That's Huey right there.'

The only way I'll ever get married is in a business-friendship-relationship. It's gotta be like, 'This makes sense.' I'd marry for money.

I would never marry for feelings and love.

Somewhere around the fifth, sixth album, we got this little formula together where we knew how to record Too $hort songs. You need the bassline, a good drum pattern, call in the keyboard, the guitars - it's just a way we mixed it all together.

I've been around for a long time.

I've been taking it in stride, man. I'm not the kind of person who goes around bragging to everybody, 'I did a song with Lady Gaga!'

While I was young, getting money, a hustler, I was sharp. But I never thought I was too smart to learn something new. Keep your receptors open, and don't get too egotistical to think you know more than everybody else in the room.

In 1979, I was in ninth grade. Before I started tenth grade, I was already rapping myself. I didn't wait around to see what hip-hop was doing before I jumped in; I did it immediately. When I first heard it, I said, 'I can do this.'

If Too $hort and Freddy B DJed your party, you were gonna get a rap show during the party.

I've never thrown away a rhyme book.

My engineer on the 'Life is Too $hort' album was Al Eaton. Al Eaton had a studio called One Little Indian Studios, and he was a pretty good guitar player. He would suggest certain songs. Al was the force behind 'Life is Too $hort' and definitely the force behind songs like 'The Ghetto.'

Rappers have always thought they were better than me. And the media has always thought that I was not relevant to hip-hop, so therefore, they didn't have to mention me.

I think the first big chance I ever got was I was one of the opening acts for UTFO and 'Roxanne Roxanne,' that whole thing. And I come on stage, it's like 5000 people in the Oakland convention center, I'd never had a record in my life, I'd never had anything in a record store.

Jive never saw any value in me as a long-term artist. Even as I was doing it they were like, 'You're not really the kind of artist that we'd spend our money on.' They never saw the value of Too $hort and E-40.

All I can tell you is, all of the good product you got from E-40 with all the good product you got from Too $hort - it's almost impossible for us to make a terrible album together. We're both opinionated, so I damn sure am not co-signing a song that I think is wack.

I don't know what they had against collabos. I have no idea, but I look back on it and a lot of Jive artists have really never collaborated with each other.

It's not a passion of mine to follow politics. When I deal with political issues in my songs, I just say stuff that's current, only as a songwriter.

If I'm around a bunch of people that's sad, I gotta try to make them laugh or come up with something positive out of the emotion that's making you feel negative. I'm not a negative person. I don't hang around negative people.

I don't see a problem with looking at women as beautiful objects. I'm an artist. I don't know how to paint, but I know how to make music, and women are art.

I think the whole world is one big misogynist. Even a lot of women are.

I have four favorite places for womanizing: L.A., Miami, New York, and Vegas.

New Yorkers never really liked Too $hort.

You can be in the Bay and sell 10,000 copies of independent records and make 50 grand and that's your job for the year. The shows you do off of that and them 10,000 sales is gonna feed you and your homies.

I did not dream of being an entertainer in the sense of being the one out front. I dreamed of being in the band. As a child, I'm like, I'm going around the world, I'm gonna be in the band. That was my dream.

I could not have been a rapper in 1985 and thought, 'I want to be a millionaire.' That was not a realistic dream.

Hip-Hop is a voice.

Executives are convinced that a rapper has a certain lifespan as far as being a hot emcee. When you start to approach your 30s, pretty much stereotypically it's over.

Hip-hop is not one thing. There are 50 different approaches to making it and showing it.

There have been numerous times when my career was supposed to be over because of mathematics, you know, age and numbers,' he says. 'How many times can you go platinum? How many times can you rap about the same subject? How many times can you say, 'Oakland?'

The only thing that private school did for me was give me this foundation where, if I choose to, I can speak proper English, or I switch to Ebonics, or I can edit myself and not curse.

I actually flunked the 10th grade on purpose.

In '88, '89, '90, '91... When I was making these albums, it would be four or five songs that didn't have any curse words, that were about social issues in the community.

I've always had opinions on what was going on in my community. I always knew a lot of people listened to me, so why don't I speak on police brutality and things like that?

Everything in New York ain't always what it seems.

By the time I'm 25, I want to be financially stable.

As a child, I did not dream of being a rapper.

This is the biggest misconception about the Bay - people think that we're L.A... Very different stuff. L.A. has its swag.

Most of my fan mail is from women, and if people want to judge me, then they should consider how I treat the women I know.

I don't have to defend what I do for a job. Who cares what people say? If people don't see the humor in it, too bad.

I've learned to accept all criticism.

I read a lot and some of the things I read are blaxploitation books, things by Donald Goines or Iceberg Slim. The books are filled with a lot of street knowledge; they really recall an era.

I'm a businessman. Making records is my business. I have a big operation and I employ a lot of people.

Too Short is a character.

My goal is to be successful, so I do what works.

Everybody knows rappers don't do all they say they do.

I make songs all the time, I make 'em really fast, and I really felt when I made 'Don't Stop Rappin' in '85 that I could do this forever.

When I make a song, I actually literally talk to one person on purpose... I don't focus on, are people in Chicago gonna like this? Are people in Atlanta gonna like this? I think of one person who's a Too Short authority, who thinks I can't do any wrong, because I've customized all these songs for this one person.

The media tends to put the artists with the hottest single on a pedestal. And as soon as that single goes away, you're kicked off the pedestal.