Too Short 2006
Too Short
Interview by Black Dog Bone
Continued from Murder Dog Volume 13 #2
When Federation first came out saying this is the New Bay somebody told me that we should address that issue. I didn’t really say anything right away to condemn it or condone it. I let it ride for a while. But I liked the way it sounded and I came to the conclusion that I’m from the Old Bay and the New Bay. I’m in it. I am the New Bay, I ain’t stuck in the Old Bay. If you are one of the fortunate few who are part of the old school movement and the new school movement, don’t deny it, just be of it.
With the Hyphy movement people have to recognize that if it weren’t for Too Short or E-40 none of this would have happened.
You gotta also take it back when you look at Atlanta’s Hip Hop heritage. With the Outkast/Goodie Mob, it was Arrested Development. It was that conscious Hip Hop with original music—that was the image of Atlanta. That’s why they all dress their own way and have kind of like a hippie feel the way they put the clothes together. Outkast kept it going and made it popular, but a lotta people down there were on that same vibe in the early stages of Hip Hop. And that’s so far from Crunk. It’s an entirely different world. That’s kind of equivalent to the Bay Area’s super lyricist back packer scene versus the super stupid Hyphy kids. It’s two different planets. We all gotta respect each other. I respect the ink pens and the backpackers. I also respect that some people gonna win just off the music. If everybody look and learn from each other you might get a little bit from each other.
If everybody came with that attitude it would be great. The problem comes when the intellectual lyrical Hip Hoppers look down on everybody else. Like Wu Tang Clan dissing D4L.
That ain’t cool. I read that too. A lotta people been dissing D4L and the song "Laffy Taffy" to criticize the new sound of Hip Hop. There ain’t nothing you can say about another crew of young Black men who probably didn’t have very many options to do positive things in life and they’re doin it and they’re hittin it. There ain’t nothing negative you could say about that. I know for a fact that whole movement over there with Snap came from one little area. And a lotta those guys are becoming businessmen because of that sound. Every area has a movement in the works. Don’t think you’re special because you got yourself in the position to be a part of the Hyphy movement. There’s a movement that came up outa Houston, the Screw movement and that shit had been goin on for years before anybody looked up and noticed. That New Orleans scene with Cash Money and No Limit—that was goin on way before we heard about New Orleans. They had the Bounce Movement they had been doin with the same kinda dancing and the same chants, repeating the same line 4 times in a row—New Orleans had been doin that stuff with the sing-songy Juvenile style. That comes from their heritage. They mixed what they got as children with what they got from Hip Hop and made their own blend.
That’s the way anything original comes up in music, because the roots are in a unique experience. The lifestyle of that place, the land, the weather, it all comes into the music.
Right! And even in New Orleans, it was all about dancing. The whole movement was about dancing. DC had Go Go, they’re still doin the Go Go. That’s their thing. Even though Go Go never went out to the world…you have to go to DC to find it.
Listen to all the old music that you grew up on, like Disco or Funk, what were they saying in those songs? They were hardly saying anything. It was all about the beat.
You can listen to all those old records that everybody loves, those records from they early 70’s, the Soul music—those lines they wrote were deep, they said a lot. But then when Disco and Funk came along and they were taking over the record sales and the airways, those artists with the meaningful lyrics, the Motown era was kind of phased out. The new stripped down Funk came in and a lotta people didn’t understand it. They were like, "They’re on drugs…." The older groups were in there with the orchestras and shit, but the Funk groups were comin in with 5 band members and a couple of vocalists, get rowdy and make some music. Then Disco came out and it was all about a party. Disco was only about getting you moving. They’d repeat the same fuckin line through the whole song for 15 minutes and it was classic.
What I see with Rap is that the same way a lot of older artists are looking down on "Laffy Taffy" or Hyphy, people were negative toward Too Short and all the West Coast Rap 15 years ago. They always want to stop the new. They still have not recognized your genius.
The whole time I went platinum, platinum, platinum, I never made a mention in the "What happened in Rap this year" articles. I was never recognized as in important force. I watched the media praise rappers who couldn’t go gold or platinum year in and year out as they totally didn’t recognize that I existed. I’ve so many read reviews that said that Too Short’s lyrics are wack, the albums got rated 3 outa 5. I’ve seen it time and time and time again. Right now they’re to the point where they’re passing out lifetime achievements to rappers and recognizing the legacy of Rap. I’m lookin at VH-1 Hip Hop Honors and none of them did what I did. None of them. You might be pioneers in your corner, but where I come from I’m the pioneer. I feel like we’ve always been considered a secondary market next to LA, next to New York, next to whoever. The Bay has always been on our own. Ain’t nobody shining the light on us, we gotta shine the light on ourselves. So right now my motto is "The Smash". If you want to take off you got to smash on the industry.
What do you mean by "smash on the industry"?
Make ‘em like it. Don’t ask ‘em to like it. Don’t wait for them to like it. Make ‘em like it. How you gonna do that? How would I do it? I would ride up with 30 cars to the next city over and jump out and go stupid, and leave some CD’s. Then go to the next city. Go on tour with 30 scrapers. What?! Jump out, leave ‘em some CD’s and bounce: it’s in your record store right now.
That’s more powerful than any TV or radio.
There’s a Hyphy train on tour coming to your town. Hey, they would remember you were there!
What are we going to get on your new record? Is it the old Too Short or a more Hyphy version?
The tempo is definitely moving fast. I’m obligated and I definitely want to present the Hyphy and be a part and show what it is. I was really brought into this. I stood on the outside and watched it develop, but regardless of what I did in the studio, the movement has been adopting my songs in recent years. Something that I rapped on, something that I did on my last 2 albums, something has always been interjected into the Hyphy movement. I got a few songs that were brought into this movement. Because I was adopted into it and because I’m from here and it’s in my blood anyway, of course I’m gonna get a little stupid in the studio.
All the key people in the Hyphy movement—Mac Dre, Keak Da Sneak—where do you think they got their influence? They all were listening to Too Short. Their roots are in your music. It all leads back to you in the Bay.
And whoever did the first sideshow in East Oakland or whoever started talking about going dumb, going stupid, that’s something that Vallejo boys been sayin for a long time coming outa Mac Dre. I done heard Mac Dre say it, I heard Lil Bruce sayin it. To me this is just a fusion of two areas of the Bay that have always gotten along really good, that’s Vallejo and Oakland. Vallejo’s always been really silly with the clowning and dancing. Then Oakland’s always been real wild with the cars and shit. It just met. We silly in Oakland with the dancing too and they drive crazy in Vallejo too. No disrespect to the rest of the Bay, but how could you deny it? It’s the legacy of E-40 and Too Short carried on. That’s what it is. What you’re getting from Hyphy is new improved, reinvented, brand new versions of Short and 40. Mac Dre and Keak. We ain’t limited to Vallejo and Oakland, it’s everybody’s thing now. I really want somebody in the Bay to stand up and say, "I’m a Hyphy artist. I don’t do nothing but that." Then I wanna hear somebody that ain’t from the Bay say, "I’m a Hyphy artist." I wanna see it move on. Who says that when somebody holler "get crunk!" in Atlanta that the Florida people couldn’t say it and Mississippi couldn’t say it and Alabama? They all sayin it. Did somebody in Atlanta run down there and kick their ass when they said crunk? Don’t be stingy with it, that’s all I’m sayin to the Bay Area. Give it to the world. Give it to ‘em, but make sure you make some money off of it in the process.
Really people like Snoop will steal it. He has been stealing Bay Area styles and for a long time and never giving credit to us.
No, no, no. Snoop’s a smart guy, now. Snoop called me. He called me and he called 40 and he said, "I want in on the Hyphy! I like that shit." He loves the Bay. He said, "I want in on this. I wanna be on a Hyphy song. I wanna be part." You have to see it as: Snoop’s an established artist, for him to complement the Hyphy or to embrace it is the same as E-40 and Too Short. We’re OG’s from the West Coast and this is West Coast music. I’m in on it! But what I’m talkin about is the new artists, the next artists who ain’t had an album out yet. The new cats that’s just gonna present it to the world for the first time. I don’t mind seein some little cats from LA goin stupid on every song. I wouldn’t mind. I don’t know if people from the out here might mind, but I don’t mind. When you go up to Portland and Seattle and Vancouver Canada and you holler West Coast they scream and they love this shit. It ain’t just here or LA, it’s from San Diego all the way to Vancouver and it moves over to Vegas and Phoenix. It’s a bunch of cities over. Even when you get up into the mountains like Montana and Wyoming and shit, they’re West Coast. Salt Lake City and Denver, they’re West Coasting it.
People call us from all over the country, Chicago to Florida, asking about Hyphy. They’re excited about this.
Chicago! I just had a female call me from Chicago out the blue, she said, "I just want to call you and tell you, I like the Hyphy!" That’s what she said.
When you look back at West Coast Rap there was one CD that changed everything, that was The Chronic. Most people consider that the great moment for West Coast Rap, but to me it was a disaster. So many great artists and different styles of music on the West Coast got overshadowed and killed by the success of The Chronic. It’s like nothing else had a chance of survival.
It’s kinda like what Benzino was tryin to say to me. He wanted to put a scandal on Jimmy Ivine and Eminem and Interscope. What I see is that Jimmy Ivine and Interscope are like superior marketers. They just know how to do it. Anything that comes outa Interscope and that whole team—50 Cent, The Game, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Death Row—they just know how to take over the Hip Hop. I’m not really into hatin. How can you hate them for doing that? It’s one little circle of people and they have the ability to take over the market and control minds. What you’re addressing is the Chronic, but when you come down to it it’s about Jimmy Ivine. He’s like cornered the West Coast market. More than him, it’s that whole machine, that Interscope machine. Even the Black Eyed Peas. That machine knows how to get big numbers. It knows how to pick artists that you love and it knows how to make you love the artists that it picks. That’s what we’re bein overshadowed by and it includes Dre and Snoop. You can’t go nowhere and say you’re from the West Coast and not hear "Dre and Snoop".
When people think of West Coast it’s Dre and Snoop. Nothing else from LA, nothing from the Bay touches Dre or Snoop. That’s the world we live in. I get in where I fit in and I fit in pretty damned good. I ain’t never had a problem with Dre or Snoop. And quite contrary to what you might believe, I would rather not be produced by Dre or released by Jimmy Ivine. I like being away from the automatic machine. That’s cool for them. Make your 50 million dollars, it’s cool. But I prefer to be the dude that’s walkin around. I’m walkin up to 7-11, get me a slurpy, go outside, jump in my car and go home. It ain’t no big dude gonna bodyguard me, cause I ain’t that super mega star. Anybody out there can wish they had it or tell me I should wish I had it, but that ain’t what I want. That’s just me. That’s why I can’t be upset about The Chronic or anything taking over the music. That’s not just LA, all the West Coast is being overshadowed by the Dre/Snoop/Jimmy Ivine/Interscope machine.
It’s just that there’s so much other music that’s just as good and better.
It’s like, do you have to shop at Neiman Marcus to look good? That doesn’t have to be your Hip Hop to be the sharpest, most blingingest look. That’s cool, I shop there but I go shop at the flea market too. My Hip Hop goes both ways. If that’s Beverly Hills then I’m at the little thrift shop too. Cause I like listening to real local underground music.
Tupac is considered a god of Hip Hop. I love Tupac too, but I think his importance has been overly exaggerated, saying the West Coast died when Tupac died. The truth is the Bay was never listening to Tupac and he was never a major factor here. The Bay was listening to Too Short.
My interpretation of that is that the West Coast, subconsciously we were blamed for letting Biggie and Pac die on our side. It’s like "it’s your turn to look out" and we let ‘em go. I don’t know if people would have regarded them as the gods that they do if we have seen more years of them living. I’m sure Pac woulda done a lot more beautiful albums and a lot more movies. I’m sure him and Big woulda continued to impress us. I don’t know their stories, but I do know that they both were really good. It coulda happened to practically anybody who died in the midst of a platinum career. It coulda happened to me, I coulda been like Mac Dre immortalized. I could see the genius in Mac Dre. He’s not considered like Tupac, but I could see the genius in his personality, in his style, in his vision. With Tupac, it almost seemed like he scripted his whole situation. It was all too perfect. To prophesize so many times that you’re dying and then to go out like a super thug and then the body was cremated and they never had a funeral…they don’t believe you’re dead. Like Elvis. Me personally, I’m still waiting for him to pop up one day. I’m lookin at Resurrection like: look at him, he put on some weight on, older age, look at him, he’s more mature and calm. That’s the new Pac, that ain’t the old Pac. I’ve been waitin on him to show back up. No, I don’t feel that the Bay or the West Coast died with Pac. I just feel like there’s an attitude change. It used to be that when you’re outa town and you see a cute girl, she says "where you from?" and you say you’re from California her eyes get big and she becomes an instant groupie. Not because you’re a celebrity but because you said, "I’m from California." That shit meant something in small towns and big cities across America. They’d nickname you "Cali" or "LA Mike" or something and you was cool as fuck. I think in later years since Tupac’s passing that changed. I’m not sayin it’s because of Pac, but that’s the timeframe. It’s not such a good thing to say you’re from California now. You ain’t getting no groupie pussy just cause you from Cali. That was part of the whole West Coast appeal. We came out with the wild tales of gunplay and Wild West living. It was fascinating. But we got so hard. At some point we missed something where people stopped wanting to be with all that hardness. They just wanted to have some fun. Music is about having fun. The fans aren’t gonna stick with something that don’t feel good. It’s like a sporting team. If that team fall off you’re gonna jump off the wagon sooner or later. A lotta fans are. The games ain’t gonna be that crowded. Even if they’re just watching on TV, they’ve picked a new team now. Everybody’s new team is the South right now. Everybody’s new team is Kanye right now. New favorite team. Do you want your area to be a new favorite team again? I mean, I’ve never quit the Raiders. I’ve been with the Raiders since I was 13 and I’m 39, about to be 40. I’m still with the Raiders. We done had two good droughts through my Raider years, 2 good ones! As much as I’m concerned about the Hyphy movement, that’s how I’m concerned about the Raiders. We gotta get this shit together! Let’s win, baby!
You were talking about genius. Do you look in the mirror and see the genius in you?
Yeah and it was all quite easy too. It was very well thought out. The secret is the simplicity. That’s my secret. I will never write a rap that I can’t recite. You got this incredible-ass rhymes that got so many words and phrases, but you can’t get it down. I’ll never write a rhyme that I can say live on stage. You got producers in there in the studio adding another sound, add another sound…I’m like STOP! "Too many fuckin sounds. The last 4 tracks you pulled up, drop them muthafuckas out and let me get in the booth." I never let the songs get overproduced. Keep it simple as possible. I was just listening to a beat—Traxamillion from San Jose gave me a beat yesterday and it’s just raw Funk. It’s so raw. I get instrumental CD’s from Lil Jon and Jazze Pha, just play each beat. It’s raw Funk. I got a young homie I just started workin with outa Berkeley, Young L with the group I’m workin with, The Pack. Same thing. When you play the instrumentals, push play and it’s that raw Funk. You don’t have to add anything except water.
You really got it right when you said simplicity is what makes the genius. That’s what I see in Rap right now, a movement toward simplicity with Crunk, Snap and Hyphy.
Snap is sim-ple. Just like the Hyphy movement. With the Snap movement I been seeing the kids doing it for a long time. Lil kids been doin the little Snap dance. I know it came from the grown ups, but I saw it first with the kids. It was like a little fun thing. Then they had certain records that went with the dance before "Laffy Taffy". Then all of a sudden "Laffy Taffy" ushered the movement. Just like "Tell Me When To Go" and "That’s My Word" ushered the Hyphy movement. I don’t know if you know but "That’s My Word" Keak Da Sneak, that’s been getting around the country. Then "Tell Me When To Go" is everywhere. Those two song describe it, they are it and with the E-40 video airing, now they get it. They finally get it. The get it, they get it. I’ve been tellin the record companies about the Hyphy for 2 years, but they don’t get it. Now they get it.
After so many years you are leaving Jive. What made you decide to make that move?
It’s not really a matter of me leaving Jive. I actually did two contracts with them. I did the early albums, up to number ten was the first contract. And Can’t Stay Away up until now was the second contract. A lot of artists have opportunities to break their contracts with a label and go to a new label or when your contract expires you have the choice to renegotiate or leave. It just so happens that when my contract expired last time I renegotiated. It was a decision that came up a couple of times over the year: do you want to be on another label? The people who I trusted—I have certain people who I consider as advisors, people who are in the industry established—and between my lawyers and everybody that I deal with it was decided that to ride it out was the best thing. My whole mission in these last two albums, Married To The Game and this new one I’m about to release Up All Nite, has been just to make the best albums I can make on my way out. Anybody that missed the last album, Married To The Game, if you go back and listen to that album you’ll see that it’s a nice album. And this new album Up All Nite, is a really nice album. The production, the subject matter, the rapping, it sounds really good. My plan is to be an artist on my own independent label. That’s the only motivation that I have. It’s not a matter of finding a new label. I’m ready to be independent for myself.
You’ve been with Jive for so long. Change brings new energy. We’ll be interested to see how that effects your music.
I really think that we should have parted ways before. I think the last good album that I did with Jive as far as business relationships was You Nasty. Even since then it’s been a little rocky over there with the whole Pop direction they took. All they were interested in doing was a lot of Pop music. But now since there was a merger with Sony, Arista, Jive, all the labels that were up under BMG—now they call it all Sony/BMG—they stepped up their game in the last year or so with the Urban Department. It’s not like a choice you have to make, like "I can handle my Urban division in 2006 like I handled my Urban division in 2001." It’s a lot more at stake when you have artists like Outkast now and you got Usher now. I’m feelin a whole lot better over there in 2006. The reception I’m getting as far as dealin with this next album—it’s cool. It’s actually the way it’s supposed to be. It’s actually good to see E-40 getting off of Jive and dealin with Lil Jon, who is a real tight homey of mine. The reason that they’re together probably has a lot to do with me introducing them. But to see him get a good look, to get that good push before his album came out. To see it all over the video, hear it all over the radio—that’s positive.
It’s almost like he got a new life.
And I feel that’s for all of us. It’s the Bay. We’re all breathing through 40 and Lil Jon. The same thing with me. I’m comin out the same exact way. I’m hollerin at my man, every week we talk and we really feel a responsibility for the Bay musically.
I was talking to Messy Marv yesterday and he was saying that the Bay was never gone, but the industry had gone from us. We were making good music throughout. It never dried up.
Right. You gotta realize that the music industry is very finicky. Like everybody’s talkin about the South, the South, the South, but you gotta realize there was a long period time there that everybody was sayin the West, the West, the West. The West Coast was all over the charts, hangin all the plaques on the wall. People on the West Coast at that time were pretty arrogant about our West Coast-ism. It’s the same thing with the South swagger right now. It’s the same thing when the East Coast brought the Rap to the world and they felt like, nobody can do it like us. They had that arrogant swagger. Now that we see Kanye’s and Nelly’s outdoing everybody and coming out the middle, and we see the whole South movement so big—that makes everybody in New York worry about their position. They’re sittin there right now, "What are we gonna do?" It’s the same thing out here in California sayin, "This can’t be happening, you can’t keep me out the game." What’s happening in the Bay right now is a collective attitude of people who’ve been in it saying: you can’t keep me from it! That’s the spirit of Bay Area music. It goes back way before Too Short, way before any rapper that’s out right now. The spirit of Bay Area music bein original and being important has always been here. It’s just manifesting itself again. You can’t stop it.
The Bay Area is almost like an island, separate from LA or any other urban center. We were isolated and developing our own sound here.
Always. My thing about the Bay Area sound is it always has an original quality. When you first hear Tony Tony Tony, when you first heard Too Short, it was something new to you, something that felt good. I’m pretty sure it was the same vibe when you got some Tower of Power or Sly and the Family Stone back in the day. It’s a certain emotion that we share out here. It reflects in the music, it reflects in the fans at a sporting event—the 49er fans or Raider fans, the Giants fans, the A’s fans—we really take pride in sayin we’re from the Bay. All the people I see across the country—they call the radio stations when I’m doin interviews, they work in all the different places I go—they say, "I’m from the Bay, I’m from San Rafael, I’m from Hayward, I’m from Oakland, I’m from the Town…." I get a lotta that. Every where I go it’s Bay love. It’s huge. That’s why you get so much originality in what we do. We never wanted to be like LA. We like LA, we love to go down there and party, see our families and our people. We like it down there, but we never wanted to copycat LA.
