December 16, 2024 • 138 mins
Rapper, record producer and Hip Hip icon Too $hort talks about getting his start in Oakland, his legendary collaborations and breaks down the trinity/triumvirate of Bay Area hip hop from which all hyphy flows.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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
(00:23):
Shaw is no exception, y'all. He's an example of a
self made millionaire upstart, literally starting his own empire, selling
out the trunk of his car and the tails. He
is a tail boy man. This is one for the
record books. Please enjoy the great Too Short QLs Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Supremo Supremo, Ro Supremo, Supremo Old Call, Supremo, suck Son, Supremo,
Roll Call, Suprema socking Son, Supremo Roll Call, P B
and J.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, it's my favorite Sandwitch.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
What's my favorite word?
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, Newman or Michael Scottish Silicon sup Roll Car Supremo
Roll Car. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, it's fante Yeah. All in your world? Yeah, someone
of the threesome.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Yeah, I want a seventy five Girls.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Were seven Supremo Role Car Supremo Supremo role card.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
My name is Sugar.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Yeah, I'm too fly, Yeah, I'm too sexy.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm too high.
Speaker 7 (01:48):
Car Supremo Supremo roll Call, Supremo Suck Supremo roll call.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I'm unpaid bill, Yeah, doing my part. Yeah, there's nothing
I can say. Yeah, totally clips Supremo Road super.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So.
Speaker 8 (02:12):
My name's Light.
Speaker 9 (02:12):
Yeah, Yo, the thistle. Yeah, I'm about to get turned. Yeah,
you about to blow that whistle?
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Oh, Supremo roll came Supremo Supremo Roll.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
I'm too short? Yeah you know what's up? Yeah, after
the show. Yeah, I'm going to give my dick suck.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
Okay, and your.
Speaker 7 (02:44):
Supremo Supremo roll Suprivo Supremo roll.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
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.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, suffixes something forty five letters and after the show.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I'm going to ladies and gentleman, Welcome to another episode
of Questlo Supreme.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I think this is gonna go. I think this may
uh rival Heath Hunters as experts.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I cannot wait to even get into it.
Speaker 8 (03:44):
You can't wait.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
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.
(04:07):
Now it's the Village Recorders. I mean oftentimes studios changed
titles and I don't.
Speaker 11 (04:12):
Know what they were, but I think they've been the
Village Recorders since nineteen sixty seven, really sixty eight something
like that.
Speaker 8 (04:17):
Why many, Yes, I was looking at Short because he's
been here.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
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.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
Yeah, and Breakfast in America by Super Tramp and.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
A former style.
Speaker 8 (04:40):
I like, are we in a church?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
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.
Speaker 11 (04:54):
Then became a recording studio and the Rolling Stones did
go toed soup here angie and all that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow, well, let's thank you for face value.
Speaker 11 (05:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
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.
(05:40):
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?
(06:04):
How are you today? Man?
Speaker 10 (06:05):
Doing good man and enjoying it? You know the journey
of hip hop where it's taking me to join.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
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,
(06:33):
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?
Speaker 10 (06:47):
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
church or like a voice to go past the aisle,
I won't even see who was just bitch? And then
(07:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I'm like, are you siring of that? Yeah?
Speaker 12 (07:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
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
(07:42):
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.
Speaker 10 (07:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
A couple of people called me two too. So you
were born in Oakland? I was born in LA.
Speaker 10 (08:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
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
(08:50):
Silicon Valley based, I mean, gingerf gentrified.
Speaker 12 (08:54):
Yeah, you have to have your own personal opinions about that.
Speaker 10 (08:58):
A lot of people, you know, it's not just happening,
and Oakland's happening in San Francisco right across the bridge, right,
and it's happening in a major way because.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Of Silicon Valley is going.
Speaker 10 (09:06):
It's going really fast, like neighborhoods being taken over, and
you know, just people are being priced out.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And moved out. So where are they moving to?
Speaker 10 (09:14):
I think it's the reverse white flight. I think the
suburbs are coming back to the city and then they're right, but.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Where are they putting Like for anyone that you grew
up with.
Speaker 10 (09:23):
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?
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah? Like where is it? Literally? Like you know, it's
too excuge.
Speaker 10 (09:35):
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.
Speaker 12 (09:48):
It's getting a little little shady because so that used.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
To be the suburbs where people escaping.
Speaker 12 (09:52):
Now that's because slowly but surely, you know what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
This is this is my theory.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
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,
(10:16):
just shit, just made suburb life real fucked up. You
gotta sit there in a two hour traffic jam both
ways every day during rush hour. You don't get to
see your fucking kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And your family. You go old. You don't even know,
they don't even know you.
Speaker 10 (10:28):
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 on back three three bedroom apartment. My kids like fuck,
no more yard, you know what I'm saying, Like fuck it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And it's.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
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?
Speaker 12 (11:06):
While from East Oakland And they're not.
Speaker 10 (11:08):
They're not gentrifying East Oakland at this point, not yet,
hadn't made that point.
Speaker 8 (11:13):
There's always one area toast, but they jumped.
Speaker 10 (11:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
But I'm one of those people who I feel like
people in places are going to progress.
Speaker 10 (11:33):
You're not gonna You're not gonna say let's stay the
way we are because you just can't.
Speaker 12 (11:38):
You can't make hip hop stay away. You can't make
anything stay away.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It is changing.
Speaker 10 (11:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
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
(12:12):
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 visiting Oakland. I did a
show in Oakland like three weeks ago and it was
not the Oakland that I remembered.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
So did you invest? Did you get a little piece
of property?
Speaker 10 (12:35):
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.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
Yeah, it's the most expensive, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It is.
Speaker 12 (12:55):
So you don't get a yard driveway, just get a
little box two.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Million, two million for a walking Closses.
Speaker 12 (13:03):
All right, so take us players like me, we moved
to Vegas.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Big.
Speaker 12 (13:10):
I've always had a spot in Vegas. That's that's part
of life.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
But what do you do in Vegas besides everyone?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
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?
Speaker 10 (13:35):
People's probably the best value real estate wives.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
On the West Coast more than Arizona. What Arizona does
kind of same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
But but Vegas.
Speaker 10 (13:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That's good, all right?
Speaker 13 (13:56):
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
(14:16):
speak the language, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
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
(14:42):
to be New Year's Eve countdown. Oh wow, every five minutes,
the drop the cake and pressure you know what. Actually
I did a d J gig with Snoop once out there,
and this motherfucker actually played intimate from It was like,
(15:07):
but I mean he was snooped so he could get Yeah, celebrity.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
Snoop will play Harold Melne and the Blue Notes at
the Vegas Club in the morning Nobody challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
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?
Speaker 10 (15:35):
Well, eighty forty five was the legend of crack, and
that was that's what That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Too short.
Speaker 10 (15:40):
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
(16:02):
shortest person in the whole fucking school.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Like it was.
Speaker 12 (16:04):
It was a dude named Shorty that was taller than me.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I mean, you're not that short. Everyone like six three.
Speaker 10 (16:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So in high school. In high school, I was fucking
five too, Okay, you got a spurt huh.
Speaker 10 (16:24):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Really.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
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?
Speaker 10 (17:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
But not have a name for it.
Speaker 10 (17:30):
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,
(17:50):
I instantly heard the cadences and I related it to
drum patterns, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You told me when I first met it, you told
me that you dabbled on drums, so you were serious.
Speaker 10 (18:01):
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,
(18:23):
then it would be Spoony g. It would be grand
Master Flash and the Fist five, it would be the sequence.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 10 (18:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I can't remember what song is. It might have been
a Grubb Washington.
Speaker 12 (18:47):
Track or something, but they were they were doing cover tunes.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I knew I could do it. It was it was.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
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 this fucking roof.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
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 cruise I invented too short in
my bedroom, the whole ship.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
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
I was real big in that ship. So I started
(19:48):
getting parts, trading uh components with the homies, Like man,
I got an extra record player, let me get that
cassette player.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 10 (19:57):
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.
Speaker 14 (20:05):
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.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
A fucking home studio, Like I gotta get my voice
onto a tape.
Speaker 11 (20:23):
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?
Speaker 10 (20:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
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
(21:08):
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
Motown be like, yo, can I get break out? You
just get a local band to replay all them songs
and put on records. Like right now, that's my record
collecting obsession. I got. I got Gene Brown going through
(21:29):
every record store down South. Give me all them party records,
like I have at least like, you know, thirty versions
of various bands doing like you know, casing the Sunshine bands.
Let's get down tonight, weird things like various covers of
Billy Jean, like right now playing stupid covers. Yeah I heard, yeah,
(21:52):
you play some exactly like when I play Page yeah,
all that stuff like marching band versions. So yeah, more
likely that that was the investment, Like you just get
party records.
Speaker 10 (22:04):
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
(22:24):
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
(22:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It was New York hit popp.
Speaker 10 (22:51):
It was those independent labels that were putting out all
the twelve inches nineteen eighty eighty one, eighty two of
those years.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
What did your folks do? They like supportive of both of.
Speaker 12 (23:00):
My parents are accountants. Wow, that that goes.
Speaker 10 (23:04):
My mother graduated from Dillard, moved to the West Coast,
met my father, and she kind of put him through college.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, wow that situation.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
So your money is right?
Speaker 12 (23:15):
She mean she used to say shit like I fucking
did all his homework.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I took his chest. That's my damn degree.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
No, but seriously, your money is right, right, like more.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Than the average. I'm the child of two accounts.
Speaker 8 (23:27):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
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?
Speaker 12 (23:37):
We started with seventy five girls.
Speaker 10 (23:38):
Then we then we did a label called Dangerous Music, right,
and then that evolved in the Up All nineties.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Seventy five girls?
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Was that you?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Or who was Who's behind?
Speaker 10 (23:46):
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, was
nineteen eighty five and he drove an eighty five bing
So he was, you know, he was doing his.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Thing, and he.
Speaker 12 (24:01):
He wanted to be not physically but mentally. He wanted
to be a fucking rock star.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Does that make sense.
Speaker 10 (24:07):
He didn't want to be on stage playing guitar, but
he wanted to do 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.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
The aspiration of the rockstar lifestyf So he.
Speaker 12 (24:22):
Provided us with I was friends with his little brother.
Little brother brought me around.
Speaker 10 (24:26):
I'm popular all in the streets and ship and he
just provided us with the best equipment.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Man.
Speaker 10 (24:30):
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.
Speaker 12 (24:37):
And he was booking sessions nightly.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
We do.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
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.
Speaker 12 (24:50):
To me, I look back at those years like that
was college. That's what it did for me.
Speaker 10 (24:55):
It really gave me the opportunity to when I got
to a major and when I started making records.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I had tons of experience.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
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
(25:31):
you rolling with actual musicians and like what was your internet?
Speaker 10 (25:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And just you know, uh like Minor Williams.
Speaker 10 (25:50):
These these dudes were like in the Bay Area, musicians
have always been connected with musicians everywhere, and it's.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Still like that to this day.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
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
(26:35):
with uh like on on life is Too Short and
all that stuff, Like I could tell like these are.
Speaker 10 (26:42):
Cats that had 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.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
You're like, what the fuck? Like I come to the student.
Speaker 10 (27:05):
He literally gave me Life is Too Short. The basis
of the track, which was you know, schools and and
the ghetto. Donny Hathaway he started those off. He called
in the guys and totally no, you gotta the good
something to say, like he was, you know, super super engineer.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Didn't you do some work with Bohannan. Uh no, no,
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
No, I don't think it was that him. Which one
was it?
Speaker 10 (27:32):
The Bohannans in my life are uh street guys. Okay,
let's clear that up, Big Tad in a little tear.
They're pretty populard around town.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
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
(28:06):
was not street, you know what I'm saying? Like I was,
I was No, I was a weep and knew it.
How did you balance, Like, did you keep your your
home life well? To make something like this happen?
Speaker 10 (28:20):
You have to have h 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.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It doesn't work like that. So what did you do
to get What did you do to get their respect?
Speaker 10 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That makes shity.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
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
we're told not to fuck with me, so little ass motherfucker,
don't fuck with me.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So I got that part. And then.
Speaker 10 (29:06):
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
(29:29):
he'd been through. So when I started rapping with him
for one it was cool to have an older brother.
But even my older brother, his homies weren't connected to
Oakland like I ended up being connected. They weren't out
there in every neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You can't. You can't just go from hood to hood
like that.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
You can't.
Speaker 10 (29:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So he start.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
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 were like, just listen to it. So somebody put
in the car and they listened for about ten fifteen
minutes and one dude.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
We only had one.
Speaker 10 (30:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You customize it one tape at a time, and would
you dup and doep and doep and deeper.
Speaker 10 (30:39):
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
(31:01):
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
a low, a cheap ass fucking cassette sound good. I
knew how to set the levels, set them a little
bit into the red, you know, so it plays louder
than you know.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Realy ship figured out and what kind.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Of did you use for the cheap customers?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Anything?
Speaker 10 (31:30):
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
(31:51):
fifteen dollars. That was our hustle. And then and then
we started doing these customized tapes. We started customized the
tape to say, uh, your name is so and so
you drive this car, you from this block, These are
your homies this, you know anything you wanted us to
say out a pen and paper, like we'll be back
tomorrow almost like So, we sold those for twenty and
(32:14):
that's how I got in Oakland that those those tapes
were only purchased by at first by like the Kingpins.
It started with one guy. This one guy was he said,
I don't give a fuck about that rap shit. I
don't listen to no fucking rap shit like O g right,
he's like you, he said, if it ain't about me,
he listened to that ship and we would. He was
(32:35):
really like the kind of guy that we were scared of,
and out of fear we went and made him a tape.
So look so he never he never acknowledged. We just
like a handoff and then walk away. He never acknowledged
that he listened to it. He never said he liked it.
He never said Ship. One day, a guy comes up
(32:57):
to us and we were on I'll never forget. We
were on eighty like having it. He was like, do
you know what the fuck I am? My name is
King D, and I run this block. You on my block,
And he was like, if you don't make me one
of them fucking tapes like you made, like you made
hot lips, that's that's other hot lists, hoth lisps was.
It was a It was a tough guy.
Speaker 12 (33:15):
He couldn't have a name like hot lists.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Not be tough.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
But I'm not laughing, you might be listening.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 12 (33:26):
It was his specialty. Was the one punch that was
a special.
Speaker 10 (33:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Got and not the cheap tapes from radio shot.
Speaker 10 (33:44):
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. It
(34:06):
just started being a kingpin thing. All the bosses wanted
the customer tape, and that led to the trinkle down
of I remember I had a homi name YoY Yogi
drove us around all these little tough neighborhoods one day
and he was like, real scary dude. He's like, you
see this this too shortened Freddy B. If they come
over here selling tapes, buy him if you funk with
them or fucking you up to ship like that was
(34:27):
just like just because he liked the music. So it
was so it was just you couldn't. You couldn't plan it,
you couldn't make it happy, you couldn't. It had to
happen organically the only way time out.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
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.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
It is It's like a snowfall cousin.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, it was. It was the same years. Wow, this
story is pre crack and.
Speaker 8 (35:00):
You're out of high school or you're still inside school.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
In high school. That story to me is like I
need to see this.
Speaker 13 (35:08):
Happens no one that has no one I want to tape,
like I want to tape tape.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
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 tape up.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
We did not know we were future stars. We did
not know we were any kind of famous we were.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It was the hustle. We were like out, have you
found any of you joints on the eBay?
Speaker 10 (35:33):
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.
Speaker 8 (35:40):
It's a guy.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Have you ever heard of Mike Mosley? Yes?
Speaker 10 (35:44):
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.
Speaker 12 (35:57):
And he's like I still got those reels.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Bro, how to hear these joints? And it's at an hour,
it's like a half hour each side.
Speaker 12 (36:04):
Or fifteen minutes on each side most of them.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh, you did the thirty minute joints. You really did
use the radio seck joints.
Speaker 10 (36:10):
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 get no noise when you let
it back up on the ant.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So you weren't looping shit and none of that stuff.
Speaker 12 (36:23):
No, we just we were wrapped to the record ends,
pose it and jump back in.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
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.
Speaker 10 (36:42):
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
(37:03):
that shit, that ship was like, I mean, yeah, you're
not gonna get me in the studio with a drum
machine and not you know what I'm saying. And I'm
listening to everything hip hop, so I'm listening to those
records that are Len drum records and just you know
it ain't even know music and nothing. I'm like, I
can do this shit Like it was never ever a
(37:23):
moment of possibilities. It was like, this is definite, this
is this is it.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
How did you go from seventy five girls to job?
When did they come into the picture?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Well, seventy five girls.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Uh.
Speaker 12 (37:37):
We never did any contracts, We never had any agreements.
It was like a family thing.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
It was.
Speaker 10 (37:41):
It was the best shit that could ever happen to
me in the world. Because 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 off for the distributor.
(38:02):
Then he keep checking back the distributor, go back and
pick up some money, and keep doing the ship. And
he me and his little brother, we hung out with
him all the time. So I'm sitting there just watching
where you go, what you do, the whole process, just
watching him. He would even tell us and then y'all
go and pick up some boxes and drop off the distributor.
So I knew the guy's name. What's up, what's up man,
what's up? You know everywhere, even to the people that
did the graphics, the art, artwork and ship. So one
(38:26):
day he decided that he literally told me and his
little brother get the fuck out my house. Fuck out
my house, saying fuck just sick nor he's fuck out
of here, and just that was it. And then and
then we just sitting there like on a.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Whims were going good, I presume, but that was that was.
Speaker 10 (38:45):
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 the underwear topless
(39:07):
and dancing over there, and somebody's at the table smoking cocaine.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
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?
Speaker 9 (39:21):
You know?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
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.
Speaker 10 (39:34):
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 B 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
(39:57):
in the prison. And that's when I started making records
on a larger scale. So he kind of missed the
beginning of that. And you know, but fred Fred I
give him a lot of credit for my journey. He
was when he came to our school. He was coming
out of jail and had to go to continuation school
and earn his way back into the regular school system.
He gets back to the school, he becomes the fucking
(40:19):
editor of the paper. He becomes the principal's best fucking
student friend. He acquires the fucking keys to the entire
school through I don't know, I guess he's fucking stole them,
copied on the fuck he did. He stole the principals stamp,
signature stamp, as well as every pass that gets you
to leave campus, walk around campus, all kinds of ship
(40:40):
hall passed.
Speaker 12 (40:41):
He stole them all in the stamp and he just
he was.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That's Freddie.
Speaker 10 (40:45):
He was, he was, and he fucking Eddie has school.
Y'all as so fastive 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
(41:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
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?
Speaker 10 (41:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
We net rhythm, so it couldn't have been that hard.
Speaker 10 (41:48):
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
(42:09):
to come around the turntables and we're gonna rap. And
they wanted to see it. They was like two Short
and Freddy B. People wanted two Short and Freddy B
to DJ air parties. They wanted us to rap. They
wanted to see the ship. So we're rapping at these
house parties just in the living room. The fucking DJ
setups in the kitchen. The bedroom is the VIP of
some shit or the bar.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 10 (42:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You know.
Speaker 10 (42:41):
So most DJs who really were DJ's couldn't go there.
They probably take your ship, they get your ass whipped.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
You know what I'm saying. It was DJ wise.
Speaker 10 (42:51):
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, no, fuck.
Speaker 12 (43:02):
You know that fuck that shit like you really got
a rocket so but you.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Were protected and so. But I mean, like how rough
were these were these.
Speaker 10 (43:11):
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
(43:33):
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.
Asked me to open up for UTFO nineteen eighty five,
Rock Sand Rock Sand. I was like, Okay, I'll do it.
The promoter was a Lionel B. Bill Graham, and Lionel
B knew about me because he's from Oakland v.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Bill Graham.
Speaker 10 (43:53):
Yeah, because you know he had a oh he controls all. Yeah,
he had a black division called Barrier Productions.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
Y'all tell us Bill.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
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.
Speaker 12 (44:12):
So he was the Grateful Day, a never ending concert
that last till.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
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, Hendricks, 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.
Speaker 10 (44:36):
So I get on a Bill Graham show. It's UTFO
their headlining Roxanne Roxannes. 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.
Speaker 12 (44:53):
And I mean, I don't care, man. I went out there.
Speaker 10 (44:55):
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 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
(45:16):
songs that I would sell on the tapes in the streets,
and the whole crowd for fifteen minutes sang everywhere with me,
word for word. I get off stage and people are like,
who the fuck are you? Like, who the fuck are you?
And how the fuck did you do that? But that
that was just how That's how it happened, man, Like
everywhere I went from then on, everybody knew the.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
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
(45:53):
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.
Speaker 10 (46:06):
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?
Speaker 12 (46:16):
Is scarfacing Willie Dan.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
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 con
well no, I'm like, usually, I mean that's when that's
the tipping point or that sort of diminished returns. But
(46:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (46:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
And I took it.
Speaker 10 (47:08):
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
(47:30):
about forty something. But I was on seventy five Girls Records,
so I was gonna make a song about fucking all
seventy five girls. And by the way, that label was
named after a Johnny guitar Watson line, I can't take
the name of the song, but Johnny guitar sitting one
of his songs. I wrote up on a horse and
kissed seventy five girls at the same time, and my man,
Dean Hodges was like, that's me. Of course seventy five
(47:55):
girlst the same time. So I don't know, man, I
forgot what I'll saying.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Oh forty girls, Yeah, your Freaky Tails records. And then yeah,
I said, just let me record this song, Freaky Tails.
Speaker 10 (48:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
I knew it.
Speaker 10 (48:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
With Freaky Tails.
Speaker 5 (48:25):
So was that when job came into the picture.
Speaker 10 (48:27):
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
the cassettes until we get fifteen thousand dollars. We get
(48:50):
fifteen thousand, we're gonna buy albums and cassettes and we're
gonna press the whole album up and we're gonna.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Sell us for five dollars a pop.
Speaker 10 (48:58):
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.
Speaker 12 (49:07):
We did the ship like woo woo woop.
Speaker 10 (49:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
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.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
So I signed up with Jive because Barry Wise called
me personally.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 10 (49:36):
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 a
Jive because Too Short was on job pemp c and
like they're like forty ike one, Like I'm too short.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Of I'm signing.
Speaker 10 (49:55):
So I signed a Jive because who didn't even on
that motherfucking right mod was on that motherfucker. Karen's wanted
just signed up Will Smith with the Fresh Prince was
on that motherfucker, Like Billy Ocean was on that motherfucker was.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I was like, I like jib you know, so.
Speaker 10 (50:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
We never stopped.
Speaker 12 (50:35):
And you know it was it was not I think
I think we did the right thing.
Speaker 5 (50:40):
Did they still let you do your own thing? You
still recorded in Oakland and all that.
Speaker 12 (50:44):
Yeah, Jive is a very controlling label.
Speaker 10 (50:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Looking over your shoulders to London over there. Never never never,
never know. So this is how I asked you.
Speaker 10 (50:58):
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,
(51:20):
it was already an album, so they obviously got it
all in one one, one delivery.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Here here's the album. Take over.
Speaker 10 (51:26):
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.
(51:48):
I'd record the next one, get the artwork together, and shit, Prince,
I would send jibs without them ever calling me. I
was sending them before I even got the first the
upfront money to start the album. I would sending them
the artwork that all the songs mixed down, and I
send them handwritten by handwriting the fucking credits. I'm like,
send me the damn checks, here's everything. Because they said
(52:12):
they had a thing called delivery.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
What is delivery? Right? This the fucking delivery.
Speaker 10 (52:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
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.
Speaker 12 (52:48):
You know, Like no, we did an advanced job drivers
on point.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Oh okay, Well, I mean that was just unprecedented. Well,
I mean, but that also came out like eighty seventy eighty.
Speaker 10 (52:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Oh you probably came through like that was college the problem.
She said, thank you.
Speaker 10 (53:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
I don't want another ship. I'll take it.
Speaker 8 (53:22):
Have you ever gotten tonight?
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Like hell yeah, hell yeah. I can't think of who
but who but someone? Yeah?
Speaker 10 (53:29):
Two Shirt is not about to butcher my fucking music.
It has been, it has been said so.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
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.
Speaker 10 (53:52):
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 Denie, and some
of it wasn't ever fresh Fellow.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
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.
Speaker 12 (54:14):
In the early days. I remember the show I got
to open up for.
Speaker 10 (54:17):
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.
Speaker 12 (54:25):
They were all young.
Speaker 10 (54:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
So I probably got to go out and do like
two songs.
Speaker 10 (54:48):
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.
Speaker 8 (55:01):
No matter where you're from, like no matter where I was.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Figuring public in me like they're very diplomatic.
Speaker 10 (55:07):
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?
Speaker 8 (55:23):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I No, I don't know. No.
Speaker 10 (55:29):
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?
Speaker 12 (55:36):
And watch him ignore the funk out of you.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Damn he's been a niggas for a long Was he
just aloof like, oh I didn't see you there?
Speaker 10 (55:45):
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?
Speaker 8 (55:54):
Like you got some nerve niggas.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
I never did it, but I watched people do it.
Don't don't don't.
Speaker 9 (56:03):
So by the time the whole time, your your accounting
parents are down with your new endeavors.
Speaker 10 (56:07):
Oh well, that's that's another story. So think about So
my parents were the last ones to find out I was.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
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?
Speaker 10 (56:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Oh my god, I wasn't going to Juilliard.
Speaker 10 (56:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
I lied. I lied a lot.
Speaker 10 (56:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
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.
Speaker 8 (57:22):
She was a shock.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
It was like finding the Player's magazine. Yeah, she found
your lyrics. She was disappointed, found freaky tales. She was hurt.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
When did they finally like that house? When did they
finally be like okay good? When did they finally let up?
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Well? My mother watched she often.
Speaker 12 (57:43):
I never talked to her about this, but I think
that she knew I was full of shit.
Speaker 10 (57:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Man.
Speaker 10 (57:58):
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,
you know, I wasn't really like fly. And I remember
my mother came down for my birthday and I didn't
(58:20):
ask for shit. I was not like nineteen or something,
and she brought me all these fucking clothes and shoes
and shit, and I was like I needed it. At
the time, I was like cool, But I look back
on it now thinking like my mother probably seen how shabby.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Some damn clothes. Wait, So you know, the struggle was
was real.
Speaker 10 (58:38):
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.
Speaker 12 (58:48):
I'm balling like I lied like a motherfucker. So when
it really did do good.
Speaker 10 (58:54):
I I remember doing the show in Phoenix, and of
course my mother had to come. But then when 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 show in front
of her. So I I helped you pull it off,
(59:16):
I told her, But I was like, don't let my
mother go in the crowd. They're like, well you go on.
Speaker 12 (59:20):
In five minutes, she's out there like it ain't gonna
be no show. Somebody to do something.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
I'm not.
Speaker 12 (59:26):
I can't do this in front of her. So we
got her backstage. It was that type of ship.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (59:50):
Well, I'm saying she couldn't. She could not ever see
me perfom ever.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
I couldn't. I can't yet to see a two short show. Nah,
ye know, Wow, had heard the music.
Speaker 10 (01:00:04):
You've seen TV stuff, She seen videos. She's seeing the
clean version. Okay, she she 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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
I don't.
Speaker 10 (01:00:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
What about your pot? He has heard?
Speaker 10 (01:00:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
We just don't. Like he's.
Speaker 12 (01:00:42):
He couldn't come to me and go, you know, I'll
be bumping that one song.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
He couldn't. This is the long thirty year version of
the White Olph in the room when I was.
Speaker 6 (01:00:52):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:01:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Like the East Coast playing on the load.
Speaker 10 (01:01:21):
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
(01:01:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Man. He's like I knew he was dope, like ship
he was hey.
Speaker 10 (01:01:57):
We used to walk down the street arguing like a motherfucker,
arguing about everything in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:02:14):
I mean nineteen eighty nine, straight out of Compton, first
chour I ever went on.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 12 (01:02:20):
First start was Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
I had my.
Speaker 10 (01:02:24):
Girlfriend take me to the airport in Oakland. I'd been
with her for like about.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
A year and a half. I was really did love her.
She was beautiful and she was beautiful man.
Speaker 10 (01:02:38):
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. I
call you 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.
Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
It's like some shot I've never I had, never coming home.
Speaker 10 (01:03:02):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:03:18):
And the NWA tour, everything you could think about young
rock star young, that was me I did.
Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
It was that when five thousand girls y'all did the
nothing but a Word to Me record.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
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,
(01:03:53):
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 you.
Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:04:28):
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 a fucking Mercedes and you know. So I
would look at the media's interpretation of all of hip hop,
mainly like the Source or something I read the front
to back.
Speaker 12 (01:04:47):
I've been on the cover of the Source early on
one of the first sources.
Speaker 10 (01:04:50):
I wasn't like treated badly by the Source, but I
would I would look at the reviews that I would
get and it'd be like, you know, I can't rap,
can't rap, meat the beats and blah blah blah, and
then the shit would go platinum.
Speaker 12 (01:05:04):
I'm like, like, hai, motherfucker.
Speaker 10 (01:05:06):
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,
(01:05:28):
I'm like they they to me, they just didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
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
(01:05:54):
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
rate and the Source like whatever. And he was just
like you don't know, like that was his ship. And
(01:06:15):
I was like, all right, well if he says it usually,
I mean Tweek was always right. I was wrong about
n w A because that's another thing. Like Tweek had
straight out of Comps. He was like the only East
Coaster I knew that, like odd on West Coast stuff.
I mean he had Hammer's first record, Oh wow. But yeah,
I mean he which wasn't a bad album, no, it
was yeah. And that's the thing like he like Tik
(01:06:37):
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
(01:06:57):
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. You know, it's it's the tortois in the
hair shit. You know, you have a billion of them
seeds that do and you just stay flat footed. So
at no point is no one in your ear like yo,
(01:07:19):
you should get dancers like blah blah blah, or you
should you know, you just basically stayed on your path
and and tortoised and haired your way through everything hip
hop culture.
Speaker 10 (01:07:32):
Like a microphone and a cassette was all I ever
needed to make my hip hop world successful.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:07:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Uh.
Speaker 10 (01:08:09):
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,
(01:08:30):
you know, he was. He was popular, So I knew
who he was as a dancing dude. I knew that
was Hammer, not I didn't know his fucking name. I
just knew he was a dancing dude. Him and Ace
they be dancing, and then he came with these records
and it's like one day you see him. He's got
like four bodyguards, he's got like an entourager, like you know,
(01:08:51):
like twenty people, and it's like I remember the shit
clear as day.
Speaker 12 (01:08:55):
Somebody was like, who fuck is that? I don't know
who fuck that is?
Speaker 10 (01:09:00):
Like, you know, I'm popular, I'm famous, we mob deep,
We like in this motherfucker everywhere we go.
Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
I don't know who the fuck that is. I don't know.
I heard it a few times. Who are they?
Speaker 10 (01:09:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Like he was.
Speaker 10 (01:09:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:09:52):
But one had a lot of songs that had had
Hammer references, but it was between me and him, all of.
Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:10:05):
We walking, we 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,
Hammerock from Oakland? Oh, how's hip hop about that? Well,
you know, I'm the only rapper from Oakland, Like, I'm
(01:10:28):
never going on our senio. You're gonna sit on there
and tell the whole fucking world lie like he would
do ship like that, and he was just that was
that was his character.
Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
So he poked.
Speaker 10 (01:10:37):
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,
(01:10:59):
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
got killed. All kind of should have happened. He was like,
he's like like not asking, like, man, we're not coming
home this bullshit, like we're not.
Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
And it was it was so real.
Speaker 10 (01:11:14):
What he said was like all right, all right, it's
all getting so so basically where escalated the most. It
just took a phone call. It's like, man, we don't
want this bullshit. And it's because we all be We
all been from family and friends from day one.
Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Man, why couldn't I have it with search?
Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
What was the record for for you when you were
with Jive, which was the biggest selling record, Like when
did it?
Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Kind of because Life is.
Speaker 10 (01:11:49):
A big seller, 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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
I got they thought you were dead.
Speaker 10 (01:12:04):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:12:12):
So the tour did a lot in that in that case.
Speaker 15 (01:12:15):
And.
Speaker 10 (01:12:19):
Get off tour and the sales go up to like
about maybe like one point three, it's just hot, it's
just going.
Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
And then they killed me, they said to two Shirts
got shot in the in the head in the crack house. Wow.
Speaker 10 (01:12:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
And you know, you can't.
Speaker 10 (01:12:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Sales went out the room. Who's going to stop? Whos
going to stop? The rumor.
Speaker 12 (01:13:01):
Went to two million, but the crack out of damn yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Two Shirt is funny. Man.
Speaker 12 (01:13:08):
I've had people walked up to me.
Speaker 10 (01:13:10):
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 with smoke coke all night. And then
my boy like do you know 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
(01:13:33):
uncle so much ship?
Speaker 5 (01:13:36):
What led to the uh your the retirement?
Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
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,
(01:14:00):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:14:11):
Shorty the pimp started some new ship with me.
Speaker 10 (01:14:12):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:14:22):
Felton Pilot was Felton Pilot was mc Hammer's guy.
Speaker 10 (01:14:26):
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 brought 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.
(01:14:46):
He was like, man, I've seen it. I got the vision.
Speaker 12 (01:14:49):
So I'm coming into our studio to make a new album.
Speaker 10 (01:14:52):
It's going to be the Shorty the Pimp album. And
uh al, it's like, here's the new rules. That's the engineer, right,
here's the new rules. He owns the studio and he
got new rules. Can't say he got a white girlfriend,
so he can't say the word nigger in his house
no more. He's like, he's like, uh, I'm not really
(01:15:15):
trying to have any like profanity in my house. He's like,
he's like, and I'm ah, he's telling me, I got
the fucking deal. I'm the fucking artist. He's like, and
we're gonna start making records for white people because hammering them.
Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
You see what they're doing over there.
Speaker 10 (01:15:26):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Like? How do you do that shit?
Speaker 10 (01:15:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:16:03):
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.
(01:16:25):
So Big Bruce was their money man. And Bruce was
like my homie Homi, because I knew all the kingpins.
So Bruce got killed and then pooh Man and Banks
and all and they were just kind of like out
there a little bit, didn't have that structure. And I
was on jive platinum balling. I saw Banks at the
cable company and he was like, you know, he went
(01:16:46):
for it. He was in a little little little hoopy whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
He just went for it.
Speaker 10 (01:16:49):
He was like, man, you know I make beats or something.
I was like, I know, I know you ain't 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
(01:17:11):
myself about this fucking ship with al and the fucking
engineers fucking with me, and he won't fun. I'm trying
to make this music and he's fucking trying to get
me to work on these white cass tracks and be
like hammering. I'm like, so, I'm telling Banks the situation.
He's like, all right, I'm coming to the studio tomorrow.
Then I find a guy at the same time. This
motherfucker was riding a tense speed with a backpack with
(01:17:33):
a pistol in it, with a bunch of heroin, and
he fucking he's from d C's from Maryland, from uh,
from landover Maryland, and he fucking uh is really good
friends with George Clinton and and and and Michael Hampton
and all those guys. He's like, he's he's a student
of you know, he's he got to play with a
(01:17:54):
who is the who is the Problem's best fucking guitar player,
the other one.
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Before Jerry shrind Uh.
Speaker 10 (01:18:02):
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,
coming to Acorn Projects. He sits in front of his
(01:18:23):
fucking uh part projects where he lived, brings an amp
out on the guitar and the guitar and just sits
there and shows me all this ship he could do.
So I'm like, you need to come to the studio.
Let's go, because I knew the funk he's playing the funk.
So I get Shorty B and Banks to come to
the studio with me at the same time, and I'm like,
I walk in on al eating like watch this ship,
(01:18:45):
and I was at the time he was he was
fucking with me, man, because he I wasn't with the ship.
The niggas was just for more money or just he
wanted to be like them, man. Really, he wanted to
be like them bad. He named his fucking dog short Dog,
and he was fucking uh. I come back to make
a new album. He keeps saying shit his dog short,
shit the fuck down.
Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
I'm like, this is We're about to kill this nigga
up in here.
Speaker 10 (01:19:09):
So on top of that, he's doing this new thing
and he's going He's like, ah, fuck the fucking computer rebooted.
Speaker 12 (01:19:19):
And then he says there and does like this. So
he did that ship to me for like two days.
Speaker 10 (01:19:23):
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 gonna
ask you no more computer glitches, no more motherfucking working glitch.
We we made Shorty de PMP and I feel like
(01:19:45):
the next albums getting where you fit in cocktails getting
it were all a little bit better because we didn't
have that early fucking battle. And Shorty PP probably would
have been just as great because that's when we took
the journey on the fucking freestyle and the guitars and
the bass and and we and we bought a Digital
Underground keyboard player, pee Wee over cauld Shorty Be, my
(01:20:06):
guitar player, used to go do a lot of tracks
with shot too, and a lot of people don't know
that Digital Underground too. Short We were using the same
musicians during the same years, two pockeys coming around all
the time, hanging around with Shorty Be and Pee Wee.
It was just, you know, we were we were really
into the musicianship and we fucking we sat out. He
set him on the sidelines. So what what is he
(01:20:28):
doing now?
Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Like in terms of.
Speaker 12 (01:20:32):
Which one Al, I heard rumors that Al passed away.
Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
I'm not sure I've had you guys lost contact with
each I really.
Speaker 10 (01:20:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:21:13):
Nineteen ninety two nineteen ninety three. Checked the stats. Those
were the most violent years in the history of Oakland
as far.
Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
As murders go. And it's wild as hell. It's been
wild as hell some years lately. It was so wild.
Speaker 10 (01:21:26):
At one point I told the young homies. I 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.
I'm like, and y'all, y'all ain't we was up in
the numbers, like niggas, was getting knocked down a lot,
and it was a very violent city for the reasons
of That's when they started locking up the kingpins, right
and then all that, Like, you know, we got Port
(01:21:47):
of Oakland, and Port of Oakland is bigger than the
Port of San Francisco, So you know, wherever you got
those Baltimore type cities with the port that motherfucking duck
was finding his way.
Speaker 12 (01:21:56):
So you wonder why a city like Oakland is what
it is.
Speaker 10 (01:21:59):
It's because we had the army base, we had a
Navy base right in Alameda, right next door. We had
all this military shit, all this pimp shit, all this
fucking dope shit, and it just made this little ass town,
which was also part of a large metropolitan area. The
Bay Area is probably you know, seven million people or
some shit. So even though you like Oakland's population is
(01:22:21):
less than five hundred thousand, we're still in this big
metropolitan area. And Oakland is the place where if you
fucking thirty miles away you want to come get the
best dope. You're like, I'm about to drive down to Oakland.
A lot of times when you set up shops selling dope,
the customers aren't from the city. They come jumping off
the freeway from the suburbs, come get that get shit,
and go right back home. So Oakland was that city
(01:22:43):
where there was a lot, a lot, a lot of
fucking you know, just street money, all that shit and
all that type of shit.
Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
So for self preservation reasons, you like, I gotta get out.
I got out of here.
Speaker 8 (01:22:53):
But you picked Atlanta out of any place.
Speaker 10 (01:22:55):
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.
(01:23:16):
So I'm sitting here hanging with the homies. I'm getting
phone calls like you still hanging around the niggas.
Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
Huh. I'm like, whatever, we.
Speaker 10 (01:23:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:23:43):
I bought a house sixty miles outside the city with
the pool and all this 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.
Speaker 12 (01:24:00):
It took a long time. Kind of Atlanta kind of
got me out of that.
Speaker 10 (01:24:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
It that it's no way I could I could have
avoided it.
Speaker 10 (01:24:16):
Well, you know, what was anything 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
(01:24:43):
Freaknick was my birthday weekend, So I get to Freaknik.
Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
What is college is a black college? Marty Gry, Yeah,
in Atlanta. In Atlanta, but this already used to me.
Speaker 10 (01:24:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
And so the Freaknik in.
Speaker 10 (01:25:10):
Nineteen ninety two, which I didn't go, was this big
ass picnic that just was the best picnic anybody ever
fucking went to.
Speaker 12 (01:25:15):
So in ninety three the word was out, you gotta
go to Freaknik.
Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
It got to me.
Speaker 12 (01:25:20):
I'm like, we're going to see what this shit is.
Speaker 9 (01:25:21):
And it shuts Atlanta down, like it's shut a certain pockets.
You just you can't drive.
Speaker 10 (01:25:26):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:25:37):
We gotta have a conversation. He's got to pull me.
Speaker 10 (01:25:39):
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, t 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
(01:26:00):
people in the streets just having a good time at
all these college campuses and shitting.
Speaker 12 (01:26:04):
And I was just like, fuck, well, the freaknik ended.
I didn't leave.
Speaker 10 (01:26:08):
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 said 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.
Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
So in a state.
Speaker 10 (01:26:29):
We just looked at the houses and shit. And I
went back to Oakland. Funerals, shootouts, all this shit. Not
mean but what I'm saying, but it's just going down.
Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:26:39):
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
because they ain't nowhere to hide. So I wait till August,
and we prepped to go to were prepared to go
to Jack the Rapper in Atlanta, and it just was
(01:27:02):
I didn't I wasn't going out there to buy a house,
but I was just so in love with the freaking
experience and so looking forward to the Jack the Rapper experience.
When I get there, I just snuck off from everybody
and literally went and bought a house.
Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
And just.
Speaker 12 (01:27:20):
Southwest Atlanta, So I snuck and bought a house.
Speaker 10 (01:27:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
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?
Speaker 12 (01:28:02):
You're like, I bring like two hundred niggas everywhere I go.
Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
I'm everywhere.
Speaker 8 (01:28:07):
Why too short?
Speaker 10 (01:28:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
How would you get them there? We all drive overhead?
How do you remember everybody's name?
Speaker 10 (01:28:21):
I have homies I've been knowing for twenty five years.
I don't know they fucking name homey, Homie, Homie.
Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
I'm like, you can't.
Speaker 10 (01:28:27):
So look, we 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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
Who's gonna get caught?
Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
Not me?
Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
That was that was our thing.
Speaker 10 (01:28:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
I was.
Speaker 10 (01:28:49):
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
(01:29:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
These people.
Speaker 12 (01:29:18):
Look at the crowd is here. I'm like, let's not
beat up the.
Speaker 10 (01:29:21):
People that came to see too short because some shows
they'd be like, man, so and so got disrespected, and
I be on stage watching my guys beat up my fans.
Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
I'm like stop.
Speaker 12 (01:29:35):
And then I was the promoter.
Speaker 10 (01:29:36):
I give the promoter hell like I didn't even say
some shit like, man, let us all in this motherfucker.
Speaker 12 (01:29:44):
We don't have to all be backstage. Let my guys
in the crowd.
Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
That was my thing.
Speaker 10 (01:29:48):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
We're going in.
Speaker 10 (01:29:59):
I used to push push, security out the way all
that ship just like this, like guess the.
Speaker 12 (01:30:05):
Funk out the way, we're going anyway, and we just walking.
I had a bad rap at.
Speaker 8 (01:30:08):
First, Yeah, cause y'all took up all the space in
the club.
Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
I had a bad rap at first. It was bad.
So how did they take you just not being there?
So look at this.
Speaker 10 (01:30:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:30:36):
And banks came. We all came, We we came.
Speaker 10 (01:30:39):
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 deeples are in Atlanta. We had a
we had a fucking Army Johnson from day one.
Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
So so I mean.
Speaker 10 (01:31:06):
I showed up in Atlanta with a cause, man, like
you know, I was fucking I had already been coming
out there since.
Speaker 12 (01:31:12):
Like eighty nine and shit, doing shows and and.
Speaker 10 (01:31:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
I had friends in Atlanta.
Speaker 12 (01:31:26):
People don't even know I lived in Atlanta for a year.
Speaker 8 (01:31:28):
Wait, so can we talk about that right there though?
Speaker 9 (01:31:30):
Right just right there to being in Atlanta, the strip
culture and the difference between that and in the Oakland scene.
Speaker 1 (01:31:35):
We didn't have no strip clubs open.
Speaker 8 (01:31:37):
I mean, I figured, so when you got to Atlanta, clubs.
Speaker 12 (01:31:40):
And strip clubs in San Francisco are like really just
for prostitution, right.
Speaker 9 (01:31:46):
So, but when you got to Atlanta, it was like,
I mean, I know from living in Atlanta different.
Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
I got to Atlanta.
Speaker 10 (01:31:50):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:31:58):
Them days over though, days over, days over.
Speaker 10 (01:32:01):
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'd be butt ass
naked and he's like, just put one hand on her
vagina or something.
Speaker 1 (01:32:15):
Take a picture.
Speaker 8 (01:32:16):
That's like before NIS before Gentleman club.
Speaker 12 (01:32:19):
Allright, or look, no, bend over and spread your pussy
for my picture.
Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
Wo, 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 I was gonna say
about it?
Speaker 12 (01:32:42):
Back then, the pussy was, uh, some caliweed and some
probably like some food.
Speaker 8 (01:32:50):
It's not like another country.
Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
Wow. Strippers used to tell.
Speaker 10 (01:32:55):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Wow? Not anymore now. I mean Month was made about
the album number ten, the 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.
(01:33:33):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:33:46):
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
(01:34:10):
rappers that had ten albums, even your favorite rappers and
have ten albums and then just to make that statement
album number ten.
Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
That's why I named it that.
Speaker 10 (01:34:18):
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
(01:34:39):
got a lot of fucking attention, like I've heard about it.
So saying I retired was probably like the best marketing plan.
Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
I ever had.
Speaker 5 (01:34:47):
What was your deal with job? How many albums did
you have on your contract?
Speaker 10 (01:34:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
And this it was, you know.
Speaker 10 (01:35:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Stick that Dick and Britney Spears and forget all about.
Speaker 8 (01:35:14):
Hip hop wow for a long time, and they.
Speaker 10 (01:35:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
I'm gonna say what was like dealing with Barry Wiss
and just in general.
Speaker 12 (01:35:30):
I remember a n R lawyer. I think his name
is Peter thea Peter.
Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:35:52):
Every Jive was selling tons of in sync Backstreet and
Britney Spears, and they were totally neglecting R.
Speaker 12 (01:35:59):
Kelly and everything R and B and hip hop. And
I'm sitting there having a.
Speaker 10 (01:36:03):
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.
(01:36:25):
He said, we're getting back in the rap game. I said,
when did you get out? Like what the did that happen?
I was like, whoa they they got out the rap game.
I didn't even know.
Speaker 8 (01:36:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:36:59):
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
(01:37:20):
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 Shorty we played drums. They all
could play anything. So somebody saund the drums to start
kicking that beat and it's only like a little ass
set with like maybe one time one one crash and
I had snare, bass drum and fucking guitar.
Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
I only had like two strings on it.
Speaker 10 (01:37:47):
So somebody starts kicking the drum and then Shorty b
hiss the bassline right boom, hitting the chord. He like
to play the chords on the base. Got that from
a Eddie Hazel. So really that's the Parliament thing that
the base chorus, all soul, all blooesy and shit.
Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 10 (01:38:10):
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.
Speaker 9 (01:38:33):
I literally always thought that song was too short night
even being funny, but that's just funny that you said that.
Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Yeah, because it just happened like that.
Speaker 10 (01:38:39):
And then we immediately we took the rough copy to
the club, the fucking staticky copy, and it just instantly,
just instantly did it.
Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
You know. Eric Simon played a trick on me too.
Speaker 10 (01:38:50):
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,
(01:39:11):
I'm I'm chilling, and you know, I'm just gonna do
the ship whatever.
Speaker 12 (01:39:15):
But he didn't tell me that the record had broke
in New York and that they were loving it.
Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
You didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 10 (01:39:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
Like, so what do you do?
Speaker 12 (01:39:42):
I'm like, I rap, Like where you're rapping wrap everywhere.
You're like, what's your rapp name?
Speaker 1 (01:39:47):
Too short? Like oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 10 (01:39:49):
So 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.
Speaker 8 (01:39:59):
For me, and he's like out here now You're like.
Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
Now you bullshit?
Speaker 3 (01:40:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:40:17):
And like we always got it.
Speaker 3 (01:40:19):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:40:29):
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.
(01:40:52):
I'm marching the band. But we played and stepped and turned.
Then niggas marching the band. They danced and doing everything ready,
So so uh, I just think I when I started
making records, there was a bounce in New Orleans. It's
like to you swing the beat and they like do
a little different dance. And I made a song called
(01:41:13):
Iron't Tripping, just trying to do that New Orleans bounce.
And I would always go in there and try to
do something that on my rag. I'm like, they're gonna
like this in New or they're gonna like this in
in in Texas or something. I would know about certain
sounds in certain places my way on, not like not
like pandering exactly right. So I always like knew how
(01:41:33):
to just work the drums to you know, you know,
when you got go go drums, You're like, oh, that's
go go drums, you know what I mean. So that
was that I was in tune with the South, and
I think a lot of rappers who jumped on the
bandwagon later producers, rappers, whatever, they kind of adapted to
it as it became.
Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
I was there from day one on the South ship.
I was.
Speaker 10 (01:41:53):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:42:02):
The first song was I Ain't Tripping.
Speaker 10 (01:42:04):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
To a performer, were you were you genuinely shocked at
as far as like the well the cameos that you
later did.
Speaker 10 (01:42:25):
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
(01:42:45):
jay Z, I got on jay Z and then Foxy Brown,
so I don't have another fucking start car. And I
was like, but I also figured something else out to
living in Atlanta, we had a friendly East Coast West
coast rivalry on you know, play certain songs. We try
to see who turned up the most. And I actually
started making friends with New York people so.
Speaker 8 (01:43:08):
Because they was out of the element too, so.
Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
It's neutral ground.
Speaker 12 (01:43:12):
So when I got to Atlanta, I started taking more
trips to New York.
Speaker 10 (01:43:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
Wrong? When did How did the record? You did Call Me?
Record with Little Kim for the Booty.
Speaker 10 (01:43:36):
Call Me was a Jives idea for they got the
Booty Calls soundtrack and 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 with the idea to call me. It was
(01:43:57):
originally the sample actually you know if you that's where
it started, and we later determined we didn't want to
use the sample and we changed the melody a little bit,
but just kept calling me. We sat in the studio,
we got the vibe and we're like, cool, we owned something.
So this is what we're gonna do. I got a
dope ass studio in Atlanta. We're gonna fly you on
(01:44:18):
your folks down this this meet a little Kim, We're
gonna fly you on your folks down and we're gonna
finish the song up and get the money whatever.
Speaker 12 (01:44:24):
So Jiver is in on the play. I'm in on
the ship.
Speaker 10 (01:44:29):
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
(01:44:52):
gonna get back home, sa nigga.
Speaker 12 (01:44:54):
I'm there to pick her up. And Biggie comes walking
out the airport.
Speaker 10 (01:44:59):
No Kim, oh, and he's like, and so, what's up
you and what y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
Like we're doing what you know?
Speaker 10 (01:45:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:45:20):
Wow, wow, But she did finally come. She came in
next fight.
Speaker 10 (01:45:26):
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 ounces 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.
Speaker 5 (01:45:47):
Another soundtrack question, the Juice soundtrack, mc pool, Who was
that you?
Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
That's my artist? It was, but it wasn't. I thought
that's pooh Man and he was pooh Man. Yeah, and
he he always I thought murder him. I thought it
was you.
Speaker 10 (01:46:02):
He tried to make my voicees 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.
Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
Thought that sucks. Bunny murder was damn, we're right here,
but right here. So he was someone he was a
totally different guy.
Speaker 10 (01:46:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
Gotcha, gotcha? So with with with the rise of Okay.
Speaker 5 (01:46:43):
With with?
Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:47:04):
The group that did the pack. So these were some
kids that just were from Berkeley, Man.
Speaker 10 (01:47:12):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:47:20):
The promoter had a driver, you know, come get us
in a van.
Speaker 10 (01:47:25):
And this motherfucker played the pack on their little mixtapes
and he played and I was like, I was like,
what the is that you listen to?
Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
He said the pack?
Speaker 10 (01:47:32):
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
(01:47:54):
showed up, but they wasn't a.
Speaker 1 (01:47:56):
Pack and screening you before.
Speaker 10 (01:48:00):
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,
(01:48:21):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:48:29):
And then he's like, I'm like, so, which one of
y'all is the pack?
Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Who's the pack?
Speaker 12 (01:48:33):
He's like, look, man, we're from Berkeley, like the pack.
Speaker 10 (01:48:35):
But we ain't the pack the pack first, Before you
can get to the pack, you gotta go through us first.
Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
I'm like, how what the fuck? Uh?
Speaker 10 (01:48:43):
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
(01:49:05):
and uh and stunning. They skate and then Little Bee
was just when I met them, a little Bee. I
don't know what the fuck his little image is now
with the base guy crazy when I met him.
Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
When I met him, he was like a little thug.
He was like a little street category.
Speaker 10 (01:49:19):
We had to actually wait for him to get out
of jail to start the project. He was, Oh wow,
he was in Juni Hall when when I met him.
Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:49:36):
Cool to not.
Speaker 12 (01:49:39):
Not be good and but you're not being good on purpose.
Speaker 1 (01:49:46):
Yeah, he's definitely.
Speaker 10 (01:49:47):
These motherfuckers are now wrapping off, beating, rapping like they
can't wrap, and that's the style.
Speaker 1 (01:49:51):
Yeah, it's but it goes, it goes.
Speaker 12 (01:49:55):
So yeah, the pack came to me.
Speaker 10 (01:49:59):
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.
Speaker 8 (01:50:20):
Did you meet him more house days in Atlanta?
Speaker 10 (01:50:22):
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
(01:50:43):
was like, man, you need to let me wrap on
your beats.
Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:50:53):
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 cot closet. When you first
come in the house, they opened the coat closet and
it's his studio microphone booth.
Speaker 12 (01:51:06):
Nope, not the mic.
Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
It was the studio studio, the studio, the mic.
Speaker 10 (01:51:09):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:51:17):
I was not impressed by the fact that they figured
it out.
Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
Did they know about the legend the too Short, that
they knew who was amongst them? Or we heard about you, okay?
Speaker 12 (01:51:27):
And I was really impressed that they had no track record.
Speaker 10 (01:51:31):
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?
Speaker 12 (01:51:38):
They like they took me to the setup.
Speaker 10 (01:51:39):
They're like, we do it ourselves, Like man, y'all got
some help from somewhere, and they just elle just had
that ear round like some people just get it immediately.
And the 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.
Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
It was.
Speaker 12 (01:51:52):
It was magic when I met him beat. When I
met him, they had sixty songs.
Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:52:15):
So so now you got you got two 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.
Speaker 1 (01:52:29):
Can you before you go, can you explain the legend
of mac dre for those this is the part of it.
Speaker 12 (01:52:36):
Him and forty from so I get ahead started everybody.
Speaker 10 (01:52:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
I got them. I set the fucking tongue.
Speaker 10 (01:52:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:53:10):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:53:24):
You know, I'm just you know, short dog. You know,
I talk shit out do the pimp image.
Speaker 10 (01:53:28):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:53:36):
So Oakland had a thing called the Side Show.
Speaker 10 (01:53:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:53:53):
Just hang out.
Speaker 10 (01:53:54):
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 all wow 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
(01:54:16):
the music, were about to have a fucking party. And
then they would just block off main intersections, backstreets, freeways.
They didn't give a fuck. And it's like hundreds of kids,
you know, like not don't picture kids. These motherfuckers like gangsters,
like just wilding they got. If you want to if
you want to see it, go to YouTube and look
(01:54:37):
up go dumb Usa some Oakland ship. Go dumb Usa
is to it is what it says, 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
(01:55:00):
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
got their own they are. They're thirty miles away from
us and they're fucking They might as well be on
the island right because they are not copying anybody.
Speaker 12 (01:55:16):
The Laho is original. So mac Drake brings that element
to what a side show would be.
Speaker 1 (01:55:23):
You know.
Speaker 10 (01:55:23):
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.
Speaker 5 (01:55:37):
That's whoever was Andy to like all them.
Speaker 10 (01:55:42):
Yeah, I think I think not kick sink kink from
OK but uh, turf talk is that's the forties fan.
Speaker 12 (01:55:49):
I think I think turf is from Valeo, but I
might be wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:55:52):
I might be wrong.
Speaker 10 (01:55:56):
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
(01:56:19):
it with the burning rubber and crazy car driving to Oakland,
and they messed it into one thing. And I don't
know where Hypie came from, because it could have been
called anything, because you know, really it was a real
street culture thing, And the reason why it couldn't be
a hip hop, solid solidified movement is because the Hyphee
(01:56:39):
movement was you gotta be high. You gotta be fucking
high on the drugs. The drugs were was ecstasy and
cocaine and fucking them little niggas snort heroin and shit and.
Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
Getting in the car, you gotta be drinking.
Speaker 10 (01:56:54):
So it's d u I right off the rip, it's
fucking a lot of lot of weapons, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 12 (01:57:01):
It's always a violent act to go with it. And
then it's I'm wanting it right now?
Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Is you talking about it?
Speaker 10 (01:57:07):
And then it's like extremely overall, it's just hell of disrespectful,
just overall.
Speaker 9 (01:57:11):
Yeah, yea, some female stuff going on and you don't
look like it might be right. It's just 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.
Speaker 10 (01:57:23):
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
(01:57:44):
think it would have been something for the world. But
when you gotta be yeah, And I talked to Big
Vine over at the radio stations, she was like, man,
it was really hard to promote it on a commercial
level because it's not It was not commercial. So everybody
involved was expected and the next crunk movement, you know
what I'm saying that, and if it came short of that,
(01:58:05):
they weren't happy. And when they stopped doing it. The
music kept going. It was the same music. It's still
the same music right now. And I'm like, why are
y'all letting go of y'all ship? It's like, man, it
ain't blowing up like you.
Speaker 8 (01:58:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
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 year run and just like and.
Speaker 12 (01:58:25):
You know, you know who picked it up right lest
it on me? Yeah, got that tempo.
Speaker 10 (01:58:33):
All his early beats was like straight Bay influenced Tiger
came out on that bas sound, right, Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
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 it's like
(01:59:04):
great energy. Wow, it's still it's still alive.
Speaker 12 (01:59:07):
It's just it's just it's just not named that anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
It's still alive.
Speaker 10 (01:59:10):
They still do the same exact dances, they still act
the same guy. Damn way, it just don't call it Hyve.
Speaker 5 (01:59:16):
Did you ever have any do any work or have
any any kind of deals with JT.
Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
The bigger figure.
Speaker 10 (01:59:22):
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
(01:59:45):
was in Africa buying up property or some ship. He
put something out real yes for this is recently too.
Then I heard it got shot in Atlanta. That's the
last thing I heard.
Speaker 1 (01:59:56):
I don't know he's the one.
Speaker 10 (02:00:00):
When the game came out, he's like, oh I got
albums on the game, like yeah, figures, He's just he's just.
Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
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 old shit whatever, like what
is just your go to?
Speaker 10 (02:00:20):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:00:34):
And I hear the funk.
Speaker 1 (02:00:37):
I hear it.
Speaker 10 (02:00:38):
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 h what's my
man who's been killing him lately? Metro boom and he
(02:00:59):
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
(02:01:21):
aren't very melodic. But then if you listen to it
and why it's so catchy, it's that little melody that
they're dealing with. The auto tune, no matter how stupid
what they're saying could be shit, just it feels good,
and shit feels good.
Speaker 1 (02:01:31):
It's a good vible. And what was I saying? Because
I smoke a lot of wead of fun.
Speaker 10 (02:01:42):
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
(02:02:04):
can't leave it, can't.
Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Leave out this room.
Speaker 10 (02:02:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:02:23):
It was old reason.
Speaker 12 (02:02:24):
I can't dance to that ship. And it was it
ain't bad boy.
Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:02:37):
The fucking Yeah.
Speaker 10 (02:02:39):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:03:01):
Verse already, he could already dance to it, so he
was cool, so he.
Speaker 1 (02:03:05):
Set it off.
Speaker 10 (02:03:06):
So that's why he probably he probably conceived the concept
of the song and you know the world pimcil House
and all that.
Speaker 3 (02:03:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:03:25):
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
(02:03:47):
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 did you feel when people
started taking your inflections? I mean, yes, I know that
(02:04:09):
you know E forty can claim all this language or whatever,
but it's like you bach is like.
Speaker 10 (02:04:17):
It was exclusively uh, something that was only said by
myself and Freddie Breddy?
Speaker 1 (02:04:23):
Did you feel some way like once you heard death
throwing those guys like taking and I.
Speaker 10 (02:04:28):
Tell you, Freddy b went to jail. My career blows up.
He kind of didn't get to have the glory.
Speaker 1 (02:04:35):
Yeah. And I carried it on And.
Speaker 10 (02:04:41):
The first person I heard say it was h Ice
Cube said it on A bitch's a bitch At the
end he goes beers 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,
(02:05:01):
it just slid by. And then I had a friend
of mine who we were in the bathroom smoking some
weed at a party one night and with a dog
pound we there smoking with Dazz and Crup and Stop
were smoking at my Humby was like, man.
Speaker 12 (02:05:13):
I just got to ask, man, what made y'all say bitch?
Speaker 1 (02:05:16):
Like too Short?
Speaker 12 (02:05:16):
And Snoop told the story. He said, he said in
front of you.
Speaker 10 (02:05:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
I just said bitch.
Speaker 10 (02:05:35):
When he said that, I mean, there's no anger, there's
no there's no bad vibe. So basically I look at.
Speaker 1 (02:05:44):
It like this.
Speaker 12 (02:05:47):
Cube opened the floodgates death ro They they kind of
gave it to the world.
Speaker 1 (02:05:54):
They did, because for a seconds I really thought it
was there. So they gave it to the world.
Speaker 10 (02:05:59):
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 us the way I wrote it.
Speaker 12 (02:06:09):
It was almost like just the taking back of it.
Speaker 10 (02:06:12):
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
(02:06:33):
years somewhere in there. And I was just like, I've
been rapping longer than you, motherfuckers. I've been rapping more
and just talking shit. And then I put the what's
my favorite word in there, the bitch, And I'm like,
I'm just I'm reclaiming ownership of my shit. I'm like,
I leased it out when all around the world everybody
gets to say it, it's my gift to pop cultuler,
but it's mine and we know it now. So if
(02:06:55):
you notice, I love Snoop to death, hang out with
him a lot. But if you notice, you don't say
it that much anymore?
Speaker 1 (02:07:00):
Right, Well, sure do we cover everything I think we got?
I'm trying to think, sure, there's not an obscure beast.
I know we're going to be like, why did we
ask I got no movies? Right?
Speaker 9 (02:07:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:07:16):
Oh well, you know he was a mini cooking the
ribs you really know how to grill?
Speaker 1 (02:07:21):
Really?
Speaker 10 (02:07:22):
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 min 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.
Speaker 7 (02:07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (02:07:40):
Yeah, and you know back then that was like folklore,
like like people thought old Dog was real.
Speaker 8 (02:07:48):
Somebody.
Speaker 12 (02:07:49):
You're right, he was the hummy. But you know, fifty
one years old.
Speaker 1 (02:07:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say, yo, you you are no
way going to convince me that you're fifty one years
old right.
Speaker 8 (02:08:01):
Now, because and you ain't tired. You ain't tired of
the party.
Speaker 12 (02:08:04):
But I mean not the last two nights all. I mean,
it's a lifestyle, I know, but.
Speaker 8 (02:08:09):
This is amazing to me.
Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
I take naps.
Speaker 8 (02:08:11):
Okay, thank you, thank you for keeping it real. Thank you.
You say vitamin suit or is that just yeah, I
do all.
Speaker 1 (02:08:17):
I guess, okay, you listen. We want to be like
semi healthy.
Speaker 10 (02:08:21):
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,
(02:08:42):
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 gonna do this shit.
Speaker 1 (02:08:52):
Barrier this hit.
Speaker 3 (02:08:52):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:09:07):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:09:14):
Who's gonna be relevant?
Speaker 8 (02:09:15):
I mean that's relevant though, like that.
Speaker 1 (02:09:17):
Because I'm four four four, 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
(02:09:40):
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?
Speaker 5 (02:09:51):
I learned that pool Man was a totally different guy
from straight up.
Speaker 1 (02:09:56):
And we even made it.
Speaker 10 (02:09:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:10:07):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:10:14):
He has a somewhat success and comes to us after
one album, goes man, I think I'm want to get
off the label.
Speaker 1 (02:10:23):
We're just like, okay, damn, you're off here.
Speaker 9 (02:10:27):
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?
Speaker 1 (02:10:40):
No wife, no kids? No, that's why. Yeah, that's.
Speaker 8 (02:10:45):
Hold up.
Speaker 1 (02:10:46):
No, No, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 12 (02:10:48):
But sty, I do have somebody that keeps putting on
Wikipedia that I have a wife and kids, but I.
Speaker 8 (02:10:52):
Don't you have any kids? And I got something that
I want to learn.
Speaker 9 (02:10:56):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:11:00):
Can you just give us a little tat which.
Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
I wrote a book.
Speaker 10 (02:11:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:11:24):
We're talking to Mark right now. You feel like we're
talking to Mark right now.
Speaker 3 (02:11:29):
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?
Speaker 1 (02:11:35):
How you make it by easy?
Speaker 10 (02:11:37):
Little John said it in the From the Window to
the Wall he said, I sk skap.
Speaker 8 (02:11:45):
Not every time. Everybody make a mistake and get lost
up in sometime.
Speaker 10 (02:11:48):
I've been a skeater from day one. You know, see
the strap up. We're aiming at something.
Speaker 1 (02:11:54):
Well, look.
Speaker 9 (02:11:57):
All I asked you read your do your own audiobook.
That's what I ask you for the people do your
own audio audio.
Speaker 1 (02:12:04):
Yeah, that would be please, Steve Sugar. Steve you learn.
Speaker 15 (02:12:09):
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
(02:12:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
I've never been in love with. Famous like that.
Speaker 12 (02:12:45):
I'm the first person you walk up to say are
you too short? I'm like, I look like, yes, that's you.
Speaker 1 (02:12:58):
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
(02:13:21):
in jail twenty fifteen, June and July.
Speaker 10 (02:13:23):
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 I'm charge you
(02:13:44):
with felonies and all kind of shit. So I had
to go in there and lie to the judge and
say I didn't have the paperwork, and the judges like
you lied to me and told me that you weren't,
that you were bringing this paper and you didn't bring it.
And he asked the prosecutor what should we do with him?
She said, give him thirty days? Do you know who
he was the judge?
Speaker 1 (02:14:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:14:02):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:14:02):
Or did the judge know who you were? Yeah?
Speaker 12 (02:14:04):
It was it was a high profile case. And he
said she said thirty days.
Speaker 10 (02:14:09):
He said, well, I'm gonna give him ninety and then said,
bailiff take him right now, and I can't do it.
Speaker 12 (02:14:15):
That's the fucked that he kept me in there five
fucking weeks to the day.
Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
And so you just finished your book that way started
and finished your book.
Speaker 10 (02:14:24):
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 light side of night, I'd
wake up and like write to like this little light
and I was just right all night. So I did
(02:14:45):
my time away from everybody else, like I slept all
day every day.
Speaker 1 (02:14:48):
I'm so glad you were remind I would have been mad.
Speaker 12 (02:14:53):
I was thinking about naming the books some ship I
wrote in.
Speaker 1 (02:14:55):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:15:11):
You couldn't come in contact any other prisons.
Speaker 1 (02:15:13):
I was.
Speaker 12 (02:15:13):
I was in the cell next to where they had
Chris Brown, next where they.
Speaker 8 (02:15:16):
Had like so, what was the meals like in that section?
I know it was a little.
Speaker 1 (02:15:20):
Different slice the garlic, real sin.
Speaker 10 (02:15:26):
If you're not a snacker, if you don't like snacks,
because they you will not eat the meals.
Speaker 1 (02:15:31):
You will not.
Speaker 10 (02:15:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
I was like, what is that? And the guard said
it's ship.
Speaker 12 (02:15:47):
I was like no. I was like, no, for bro
in the kitchen when they cooking it, what do they
think they make it?
Speaker 1 (02:15:52):
What is it called? He said ship?
Speaker 8 (02:15:56):
No, that's sloppy Joe, right, they've started.
Speaker 1 (02:15:59):
They started purple spaghetti.
Speaker 8 (02:16:02):
Why would it be that color?
Speaker 1 (02:16:04):
You asked these questions, there are no answers. Purple spaghetti.
Speaker 12 (02:16:09):
La County ain't right?
Speaker 1 (02:16:10):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:16:18):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:16:26):
Wow, Okay, has anybody read it?
Speaker 12 (02:16:29):
I let one peris of reading there was like, it's
pretty good. I don't know, but they might be gassing
my people.
Speaker 10 (02:16:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:16:45):
Look, this is all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (02:16:49):
This.
Speaker 1 (02:16:49):
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,
(02:17:14):
I'm telling you there is an engaging, motherfucking story of
your childhood hustling these tapes.
Speaker 8 (02:17:24):
And we hear Disney has a new platform.
Speaker 12 (02:17:26):
I do have a offer on the table to do
a mini series, like like a three Prime mini series.
Speaker 1 (02:17:32):
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 Alo and the light here
(02:17:55):
and our guest today to be sure, always giving a lad,
but I'm something.
Speaker 8 (02:18:00):
About the way you call me a fucking lady. Sound old?
And no I've got a birthday coming up. I don't
like it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
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,
(02:18:32):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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
(00:23):
Shaw is no exception, y'all. He's an example of a
self made millionaire upstart, literally starting his own empire, selling
out the trunk of his car and the tails. He
is a tail boy man. This is one for the
record books. Please enjoy the great Too Short QLs Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Supremo Supremo, Ro Supremo, Supremo Old Call, Supremo, suck Son, Supremo,
Roll Call, Suprema socking Son, Supremo Roll Call, P B
and J.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, it's my favorite Sandwitch.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
What's my favorite word?
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Yeah, Newman or Michael Scottish Silicon sup Roll Car Supremo
Roll Car. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, it's fante Yeah. All in your world? Yeah, someone
of the threesome.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Yeah, I want a seventy five Girls.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Were seven Supremo Role Car Supremo Supremo role card.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
My name is Sugar.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Yeah, I'm too fly, Yeah, I'm too sexy.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm too high.
Speaker 7 (01:48):
Car Supremo Supremo roll Call, Supremo Suck Supremo roll call.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I'm unpaid bill, Yeah, doing my part. Yeah, there's nothing
I can say. Yeah, totally clips Supremo Road super.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So.
Speaker 8 (02:12):
My name's Light.
Speaker 9 (02:12):
Yeah, Yo, the thistle. Yeah, I'm about to get turned. Yeah,
you about to blow that whistle?
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Oh, Supremo roll came Supremo Supremo Roll.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
I'm too short? Yeah you know what's up? Yeah, after
the show. Yeah, I'm going to give my dick suck.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
Okay, and your.
Speaker 7 (02:44):
Supremo Supremo roll Suprivo Supremo roll.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
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.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, suffixes something forty five letters and after the show.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I'm going to ladies and gentleman, Welcome to another episode
of Questlo Supreme.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I think this is gonna go. I think this may
uh rival Heath Hunters as experts.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I cannot wait to even get into it.
Speaker 8 (03:44):
You can't wait.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
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.
(04:07):
Now it's the Village Recorders. I mean oftentimes studios changed
titles and I don't.
Speaker 11 (04:12):
Know what they were, but I think they've been the
Village Recorders since nineteen sixty seven, really sixty eight something
like that.
Speaker 8 (04:17):
Why many, Yes, I was looking at Short because he's
been here.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
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.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
Yeah, and Breakfast in America by Super Tramp and.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
A former style.
Speaker 8 (04:40):
I like, are we in a church?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
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.
Speaker 11 (04:54):
Then became a recording studio and the Rolling Stones did
go toed soup here angie and all that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow, well, let's thank you for face value.
Speaker 11 (05:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
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.
(05:40):
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?
(06:04):
How are you today? Man?
Speaker 10 (06:05):
Doing good man and enjoying it? You know the journey
of hip hop where it's taking me to join.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
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,
(06:33):
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?
Speaker 10 (06:47):
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
church or like a voice to go past the aisle,
I won't even see who was just bitch? And then
(07:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I'm like, are you siring of that? Yeah?
Speaker 12 (07:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
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
(07:42):
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.
Speaker 10 (07:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
A couple of people called me two too. So you
were born in Oakland? I was born in LA.
Speaker 10 (08:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
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
(08:50):
Silicon Valley based, I mean, gingerf gentrified.
Speaker 12 (08:54):
Yeah, you have to have your own personal opinions about that.
Speaker 10 (08:58):
A lot of people, you know, it's not just happening,
and Oakland's happening in San Francisco right across the bridge, right,
and it's happening in a major way because.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Of Silicon Valley is going.
Speaker 10 (09:06):
It's going really fast, like neighborhoods being taken over, and
you know, just people are being priced out.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And moved out. So where are they moving to?
Speaker 10 (09:14):
I think it's the reverse white flight. I think the
suburbs are coming back to the city and then they're right, but.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Where are they putting Like for anyone that you grew
up with.
Speaker 10 (09:23):
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?
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah? Like where is it? Literally? Like you know, it's
too excuge.
Speaker 10 (09:35):
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.
Speaker 12 (09:48):
It's getting a little little shady because so that used.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
To be the suburbs where people escaping.
Speaker 12 (09:52):
Now that's because slowly but surely, you know what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
This is this is my theory.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
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,
(10:16):
just shit, just made suburb life real fucked up. You
gotta sit there in a two hour traffic jam both
ways every day during rush hour. You don't get to
see your fucking kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And your family. You go old. You don't even know,
they don't even know you.
Speaker 10 (10:28):
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 on back three three bedroom apartment. My kids like fuck,
no more yard, you know what I'm saying, Like fuck it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And it's.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
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?
Speaker 12 (11:06):
While from East Oakland And they're not.
Speaker 10 (11:08):
They're not gentrifying East Oakland at this point, not yet,
hadn't made that point.
Speaker 8 (11:13):
There's always one area toast, but they jumped.
Speaker 10 (11:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
But I'm one of those people who I feel like
people in places are going to progress.
Speaker 10 (11:33):
You're not gonna You're not gonna say let's stay the
way we are because you just can't.
Speaker 12 (11:38):
You can't make hip hop stay away. You can't make
anything stay away.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It is changing.
Speaker 10 (11:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
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
(12:12):
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 visiting Oakland. I did a
show in Oakland like three weeks ago and it was
not the Oakland that I remembered.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
So did you invest? Did you get a little piece
of property?
Speaker 10 (12:35):
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.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
Yeah, it's the most expensive, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It is.
Speaker 12 (12:55):
So you don't get a yard driveway, just get a
little box two.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Million, two million for a walking Closses.
Speaker 12 (13:03):
All right, so take us players like me, we moved
to Vegas.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Big.
Speaker 12 (13:10):
I've always had a spot in Vegas. That's that's part
of life.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
But what do you do in Vegas besides everyone?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
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?
Speaker 10 (13:35):
People's probably the best value real estate wives.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
On the West Coast more than Arizona. What Arizona does
kind of same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
But but Vegas.
Speaker 10 (13:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That's good, all right?
Speaker 13 (13:56):
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
(14:16):
speak the language, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
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
(14:42):
to be New Year's Eve countdown. Oh wow, every five minutes,
the drop the cake and pressure you know what. Actually
I did a d J gig with Snoop once out there,
and this motherfucker actually played intimate from It was like,
(15:07):
but I mean he was snooped so he could get Yeah, celebrity.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
Snoop will play Harold Melne and the Blue Notes at
the Vegas Club in the morning Nobody challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
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?
Speaker 10 (15:35):
Well, eighty forty five was the legend of crack, and
that was that's what That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Too short.
Speaker 10 (15:40):
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
(16:02):
shortest person in the whole fucking school.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Like it was.
Speaker 12 (16:04):
It was a dude named Shorty that was taller than me.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I mean, you're not that short. Everyone like six three.
Speaker 10 (16:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So in high school. In high school, I was fucking
five too, Okay, you got a spurt huh.
Speaker 10 (16:24):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Really.
Speaker 10 (16:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
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?
Speaker 10 (17:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
But not have a name for it.
Speaker 10 (17:30):
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,
(17:50):
I instantly heard the cadences and I related it to
drum patterns, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You told me when I first met it, you told
me that you dabbled on drums, so you were serious.
Speaker 10 (18:01):
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,
(18:23):
then it would be Spoony g. It would be grand
Master Flash and the Fist five, it would be the sequence.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 10 (18:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I can't remember what song is. It might have been
a Grubb Washington.
Speaker 12 (18:47):
Track or something, but they were they were doing cover tunes.
Speaker 10 (18:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I knew I could do it. It was it was.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
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 this fucking roof.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
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 cruise I invented too short in
my bedroom, the whole ship.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
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
I was real big in that ship. So I started
(19:48):
getting parts, trading uh components with the homies, Like man,
I got an extra record player, let me get that
cassette player.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 10 (19:57):
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.
Speaker 14 (20:05):
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.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
A fucking home studio, Like I gotta get my voice
onto a tape.
Speaker 11 (20:23):
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?
Speaker 10 (20:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
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
(21:08):
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
Motown be like, yo, can I get break out? You
just get a local band to replay all them songs
and put on records. Like right now, that's my record
collecting obsession. I got. I got Gene Brown going through
(21:29):
every record store down South. Give me all them party records,
like I have at least like, you know, thirty versions
of various bands doing like you know, casing the Sunshine bands.
Let's get down tonight, weird things like various covers of
Billy Jean, like right now playing stupid covers. Yeah I heard, yeah,
(21:52):
you play some exactly like when I play Page yeah,
all that stuff like marching band versions. So yeah, more
likely that that was the investment, Like you just get
party records.
Speaker 10 (22:04):
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
(22:24):
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
(22:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
It was New York hit popp.
Speaker 10 (22:51):
It was those independent labels that were putting out all
the twelve inches nineteen eighty eighty one, eighty two of
those years.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
What did your folks do? They like supportive of both of.
Speaker 12 (23:00):
My parents are accountants. Wow, that that goes.
Speaker 10 (23:04):
My mother graduated from Dillard, moved to the West Coast,
met my father, and she kind of put him through college.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, wow that situation.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
So your money is right?
Speaker 12 (23:15):
She mean she used to say shit like I fucking
did all his homework.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I took his chest. That's my damn degree.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
No, but seriously, your money is right, right, like more.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Than the average. I'm the child of two accounts.
Speaker 8 (23:27):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
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?
Speaker 12 (23:37):
We started with seventy five girls.
Speaker 10 (23:38):
Then we then we did a label called Dangerous Music, right,
and then that evolved in the Up All nineties.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Seventy five girls?
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Was that you?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Or who was Who's behind?
Speaker 10 (23:46):
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, was
nineteen eighty five and he drove an eighty five bing
So he was, you know, he was doing his.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Thing, and he.
Speaker 12 (24:01):
He wanted to be not physically but mentally. He wanted
to be a fucking rock star.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Does that make sense.
Speaker 10 (24:07):
He didn't want to be on stage playing guitar, but
he wanted to do 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.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
The aspiration of the rockstar lifestyf So he.
Speaker 12 (24:22):
Provided us with I was friends with his little brother.
Little brother brought me around.
Speaker 10 (24:26):
I'm popular all in the streets and ship and he
just provided us with the best equipment.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Man.
Speaker 10 (24:30):
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.
Speaker 12 (24:37):
And he was booking sessions nightly.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
We do.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
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.
Speaker 12 (24:50):
To me, I look back at those years like that
was college. That's what it did for me.
Speaker 10 (24:55):
It really gave me the opportunity to when I got
to a major and when I started making records.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I had tons of experience.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
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
(25:31):
you rolling with actual musicians and like what was your internet?
Speaker 10 (25:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And just you know, uh like Minor Williams.
Speaker 10 (25:50):
These these dudes were like in the Bay Area, musicians
have always been connected with musicians everywhere, and it's.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Still like that to this day.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
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
(26:35):
with uh like on on life is Too Short and
all that stuff, Like I could tell like these are.
Speaker 10 (26:42):
Cats that had 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.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
You're like, what the fuck? Like I come to the student.
Speaker 10 (27:05):
He literally gave me Life is Too Short. The basis
of the track, which was you know, schools and and
the ghetto. Donny Hathaway he started those off. He called
in the guys and totally no, you gotta the good
something to say, like he was, you know, super super engineer.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Didn't you do some work with Bohannan. Uh no, no,
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
No, I don't think it was that him. Which one
was it?
Speaker 10 (27:32):
The Bohannans in my life are uh street guys. Okay,
let's clear that up, Big Tad in a little tear.
They're pretty populard around town.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
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
(28:06):
was not street, you know what I'm saying? Like I was,
I was No, I was a weep and knew it.
How did you balance, Like, did you keep your your
home life well? To make something like this happen?
Speaker 10 (28:20):
You have to have h 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.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
It doesn't work like that. So what did you do
to get What did you do to get their respect?
Speaker 10 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That makes shity.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
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
we're told not to fuck with me, so little ass motherfucker,
don't fuck with me.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So I got that part. And then.
Speaker 10 (29:06):
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
(29:29):
he'd been through. So when I started rapping with him
for one it was cool to have an older brother.
But even my older brother, his homies weren't connected to
Oakland like I ended up being connected. They weren't out
there in every neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
You can't. You can't just go from hood to hood
like that.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
You can't.
Speaker 10 (29:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So he start.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
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 were like, just listen to it. So somebody put
in the car and they listened for about ten fifteen
minutes and one dude.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
We only had one.
Speaker 10 (30:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You customize it one tape at a time, and would
you dup and doep and doep and deeper.
Speaker 10 (30:39):
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
(31:01):
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
a low, a cheap ass fucking cassette sound good. I
knew how to set the levels, set them a little
bit into the red, you know, so it plays louder
than you know.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Realy ship figured out and what kind.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Of did you use for the cheap customers?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Anything?
Speaker 10 (31:30):
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
(31:51):
fifteen dollars. That was our hustle. And then and then
we started doing these customized tapes. We started customized the
tape to say, uh, your name is so and so
you drive this car, you from this block, These are
your homies this, you know anything you wanted us to
say out a pen and paper, like we'll be back
tomorrow almost like So, we sold those for twenty and
(32:14):
that's how I got in Oakland that those those tapes
were only purchased by at first by like the Kingpins.
It started with one guy. This one guy was he said,
I don't give a fuck about that rap shit. I
don't listen to no fucking rap shit like O g right,
he's like you, he said, if it ain't about me,
he listened to that ship and we would. He was
(32:35):
really like the kind of guy that we were scared of,
and out of fear we went and made him a tape.
So look so he never he never acknowledged. We just
like a handoff and then walk away. He never acknowledged
that he listened to it. He never said he liked it.
He never said Ship. One day, a guy comes up
(32:57):
to us and we were on I'll never forget. We
were on eighty like having it. He was like, do
you know what the fuck I am? My name is
King D, and I run this block. You on my block,
And he was like, if you don't make me one
of them fucking tapes like you made, like you made
hot lips, that's that's other hot lists, hoth lisps was.
It was a It was a tough guy.
Speaker 12 (33:15):
He couldn't have a name like hot lists.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Not be tough.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
But I'm not laughing, you might be listening.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 12 (33:26):
It was his specialty. Was the one punch that was
a special.
Speaker 10 (33:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Got and not the cheap tapes from radio shot.
Speaker 10 (33:44):
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. It
(34:06):
just started being a kingpin thing. All the bosses wanted
the customer tape, and that led to the trinkle down
of I remember I had a homi name YoY Yogi
drove us around all these little tough neighborhoods one day
and he was like, real scary dude. He's like, you
see this this too shortened Freddy B. If they come
over here selling tapes, buy him if you funk with
them or fucking you up to ship like that was
(34:27):
just like just because he liked the music. So it
was so it was just you couldn't. You couldn't plan it,
you couldn't make it happy, you couldn't. It had to
happen organically the only way time out.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
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.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
It is It's like a snowfall cousin.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, it was. It was the same years. Wow, this
story is pre crack and.
Speaker 8 (35:00):
You're out of high school or you're still inside school.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
In high school. That story to me is like I
need to see this.
Speaker 13 (35:08):
Happens no one that has no one I want to tape,
like I want to tape tape.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
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 tape up.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
We did not know we were future stars. We did
not know we were any kind of famous we were.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
It was the hustle. We were like out, have you
found any of you joints on the eBay?
Speaker 10 (35:33):
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.
Speaker 8 (35:40):
It's a guy.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Have you ever heard of Mike Mosley? Yes?
Speaker 10 (35:44):
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.
Speaker 12 (35:57):
And he's like I still got those reels.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Bro, how to hear these joints? And it's at an hour,
it's like a half hour each side.
Speaker 12 (36:04):
Or fifteen minutes on each side most of them.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh, you did the thirty minute joints. You really did
use the radio seck joints.
Speaker 10 (36:10):
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 get no noise when you let
it back up on the ant.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So you weren't looping shit and none of that stuff.
Speaker 12 (36:23):
No, we just we were wrapped to the record ends,
pose it and jump back in.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
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.
Speaker 10 (36:42):
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
(37:03):
that shit, that ship was like, I mean, yeah, you're
not gonna get me in the studio with a drum
machine and not you know what I'm saying. And I'm
listening to everything hip hop, so I'm listening to those
records that are Len drum records and just you know
it ain't even know music and nothing. I'm like, I
can do this shit Like it was never ever a
(37:23):
moment of possibilities. It was like, this is definite, this
is this is it.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
How did you go from seventy five girls to job?
When did they come into the picture?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Well, seventy five girls.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Uh.
Speaker 12 (37:37):
We never did any contracts, We never had any agreements.
It was like a family thing.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
It was.
Speaker 10 (37:41):
It was the best shit that could ever happen to
me in the world. Because 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 off for the distributor.
(38:02):
Then he keep checking back the distributor, go back and
pick up some money, and keep doing the ship. And
he me and his little brother, we hung out with
him all the time. So I'm sitting there just watching
where you go, what you do, the whole process, just
watching him. He would even tell us and then y'all
go and pick up some boxes and drop off the distributor.
So I knew the guy's name. What's up, what's up man,
what's up? You know everywhere, even to the people that
did the graphics, the art, artwork and ship. So one
(38:26):
day he decided that he literally told me and his
little brother get the fuck out my house. Fuck out
my house, saying fuck just sick nor he's fuck out
of here, and just that was it. And then and
then we just sitting there like on a.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Whims were going good, I presume, but that was that was.
Speaker 10 (38:45):
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 the underwear topless
(39:07):
and dancing over there, and somebody's at the table smoking cocaine.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
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?
Speaker 9 (39:21):
You know?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
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.
Speaker 10 (39:34):
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 B 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
(39:57):
in the prison. And that's when I started making records
on a larger scale. So he kind of missed the
beginning of that. And you know, but fred Fred I
give him a lot of credit for my journey. He
was when he came to our school. He was coming
out of jail and had to go to continuation school
and earn his way back into the regular school system.
He gets back to the school, he becomes the fucking
(40:19):
editor of the paper. He becomes the principal's best fucking
student friend. He acquires the fucking keys to the entire
school through I don't know, I guess he's fucking stole them,
copied on the fuck he did. He stole the principals stamp,
signature stamp, as well as every pass that gets you
to leave campus, walk around campus, all kinds of ship
(40:40):
hall passed.
Speaker 12 (40:41):
He stole them all in the stamp and he just
he was.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
That's Freddie.
Speaker 10 (40:45):
He was, he was, and he fucking Eddie has school.
Y'all as so fastive 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
(41:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
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?
Speaker 10 (41:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
We net rhythm, so it couldn't have been that hard.
Speaker 10 (41:48):
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
(42:09):
to come around the turntables and we're gonna rap. And
they wanted to see it. They was like two Short
and Freddy B. People wanted two Short and Freddy B
to DJ air parties. They wanted us to rap. They
wanted to see the ship. So we're rapping at these
house parties just in the living room. The fucking DJ
setups in the kitchen. The bedroom is the VIP of
some shit or the bar.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 10 (42:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You know.
Speaker 10 (42:41):
So most DJs who really were DJ's couldn't go there.
They probably take your ship, they get your ass whipped.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
You know what I'm saying. It was DJ wise.
Speaker 10 (42:51):
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, no, fuck.
Speaker 12 (43:02):
You know that fuck that shit like you really got
a rocket so but you.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Were protected and so. But I mean, like how rough
were these were these.
Speaker 10 (43:11):
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
(43:33):
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.
Asked me to open up for UTFO nineteen eighty five,
Rock Sand Rock Sand. I was like, Okay, I'll do it.
The promoter was a Lionel B. Bill Graham, and Lionel
B knew about me because he's from Oakland v.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Bill Graham.
Speaker 10 (43:53):
Yeah, because you know he had a oh he controls all. Yeah,
he had a black division called Barrier Productions.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
Y'all tell us Bill.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
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.
Speaker 12 (44:12):
So he was the Grateful Day, a never ending concert
that last till.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
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, Hendricks, 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.
Speaker 10 (44:36):
So I get on a Bill Graham show. It's UTFO
their headlining Roxanne Roxannes. 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.
Speaker 12 (44:53):
And I mean, I don't care, man. I went out there.
Speaker 10 (44:55):
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 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
(45:16):
songs that I would sell on the tapes in the streets,
and the whole crowd for fifteen minutes sang everywhere with me,
word for word. I get off stage and people are like,
who the fuck are you? Like, who the fuck are you?
And how the fuck did you do that? But that
that was just how That's how it happened, man, Like
everywhere I went from then on, everybody knew the.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
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
(45:53):
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.
Speaker 10 (46:06):
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?
Speaker 12 (46:16):
Is scarfacing Willie Dan.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
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 con
well no, I'm like, usually, I mean that's when that's
the tipping point or that sort of diminished returns. But
(46:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (46:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
And I took it.
Speaker 10 (47:08):
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
(47:30):
about forty something. But I was on seventy five Girls Records,
so I was gonna make a song about fucking all
seventy five girls. And by the way, that label was
named after a Johnny guitar Watson line, I can't take
the name of the song, but Johnny guitar sitting one
of his songs. I wrote up on a horse and
kissed seventy five girls at the same time, and my man,
Dean Hodges was like, that's me. Of course seventy five
(47:55):
girlst the same time. So I don't know, man, I
forgot what I'll saying.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Oh forty girls, Yeah, your Freaky Tails records. And then yeah,
I said, just let me record this song, Freaky Tails.
Speaker 10 (48:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
I knew it.
Speaker 10 (48:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
With Freaky Tails.
Speaker 5 (48:25):
So was that when job came into the picture.
Speaker 10 (48:27):
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
the cassettes until we get fifteen thousand dollars. We get
(48:50):
fifteen thousand, we're gonna buy albums and cassettes and we're
gonna press the whole album up and we're gonna.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Sell us for five dollars a pop.
Speaker 10 (48:58):
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.
Speaker 12 (49:07):
We did the ship like woo woo woop.
Speaker 10 (49:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
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.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
So I signed up with Jive because Barry Wise called
me personally.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 10 (49:36):
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 a
Jive because Too Short was on job pemp c and
like they're like forty ike one, Like I'm too short.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Of I'm signing.
Speaker 10 (49:55):
So I signed a Jive because who didn't even on
that motherfucking right mod was on that motherfucker. Karen's wanted
just signed up Will Smith with the Fresh Prince was
on that motherfucker, Like Billy Ocean was on that motherfucker was.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I was like, I like jib you know, so.
Speaker 10 (50:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
We never stopped.
Speaker 12 (50:35):
And you know it was it was not I think
I think we did the right thing.
Speaker 5 (50:40):
Did they still let you do your own thing? You
still recorded in Oakland and all that.
Speaker 12 (50:44):
Yeah, Jive is a very controlling label.
Speaker 10 (50:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Looking over your shoulders to London over there. Never never never,
never know. So this is how I asked you.
Speaker 10 (50:58):
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,
(51:20):
it was already an album, so they obviously got it
all in one one, one delivery.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Here here's the album. Take over.
Speaker 10 (51:26):
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.
(51:48):
I'd record the next one, get the artwork together, and shit, Prince,
I would send jibs without them ever calling me. I
was sending them before I even got the first the
upfront money to start the album. I would sending them
the artwork that all the songs mixed down, and I
send them handwritten by handwriting the fucking credits. I'm like,
send me the damn checks, here's everything. Because they said
(52:12):
they had a thing called delivery.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
What is delivery? Right? This the fucking delivery.
Speaker 10 (52:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
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.
Speaker 12 (52:48):
You know, Like no, we did an advanced job drivers
on point.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Oh okay, Well, I mean that was just unprecedented. Well,
I mean, but that also came out like eighty seventy eighty.
Speaker 10 (52:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
Oh you probably came through like that was college the problem.
She said, thank you.
Speaker 10 (53:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
I don't want another ship. I'll take it.
Speaker 8 (53:22):
Have you ever gotten tonight?
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Like hell yeah, hell yeah. I can't think of who
but who but someone? Yeah?
Speaker 10 (53:29):
Two Shirt is not about to butcher my fucking music.
It has been, it has been said so.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
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.
Speaker 10 (53:52):
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 Denie, and some
of it wasn't ever fresh Fellow.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
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.
Speaker 12 (54:14):
In the early days. I remember the show I got
to open up for.
Speaker 10 (54:17):
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.
Speaker 12 (54:25):
They were all young.
Speaker 10 (54:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
So I probably got to go out and do like
two songs.
Speaker 10 (54:48):
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.
Speaker 8 (55:01):
No matter where you're from, like no matter where I was.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Figuring public in me like they're very diplomatic.
Speaker 10 (55:07):
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?
Speaker 8 (55:23):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I No, I don't know. No.
Speaker 10 (55:29):
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?
Speaker 12 (55:36):
And watch him ignore the funk out of you.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Damn he's been a niggas for a long Was he
just aloof like, oh I didn't see you there?
Speaker 10 (55:45):
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?
Speaker 8 (55:54):
Like you got some nerve niggas.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
I never did it, but I watched people do it.
Don't don't don't.
Speaker 9 (56:03):
So by the time the whole time, your your accounting
parents are down with your new endeavors.
Speaker 10 (56:07):
Oh well, that's that's another story. So think about So
my parents were the last ones to find out I was.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
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?
Speaker 10 (56:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (56:41):
Oh my god, I wasn't going to Juilliard.
Speaker 10 (56:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
I lied. I lied a lot.
Speaker 10 (56:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
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.
Speaker 8 (57:22):
She was a shock.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
It was like finding the Player's magazine. Yeah, she found
your lyrics. She was disappointed, found freaky tales. She was hurt.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
When did they finally like that house? When did they
finally be like okay good? When did they finally let up?
Speaker 1 (57:38):
Well? My mother watched she often.
Speaker 12 (57:43):
I never talked to her about this, but I think
that she knew I was full of shit.
Speaker 10 (57:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
Man.
Speaker 10 (57:58):
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,
you know, I wasn't really like fly. And I remember
my mother came down for my birthday and I didn't
(58:20):
ask for shit. I was not like nineteen or something,
and she brought me all these fucking clothes and shoes
and shit, and I was like I needed it. At
the time, I was like cool, But I look back
on it now thinking like my mother probably seen how shabby.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Some damn clothes. Wait, So you know, the struggle was
was real.
Speaker 10 (58:38):
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.
Speaker 12 (58:48):
I'm balling like I lied like a motherfucker. So when
it really did do good.
Speaker 10 (58:54):
I I remember doing the show in Phoenix, and of
course my mother had to come. But then when 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 show in front
of her. So I I helped you pull it off,
(59:16):
I told her, But I was like, don't let my
mother go in the crowd. They're like, well you go on.
Speaker 12 (59:20):
In five minutes, she's out there like it ain't gonna
be no show. Somebody to do something.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
I'm not.
Speaker 12 (59:26):
I can't do this in front of her. So we
got her backstage. It was that type of ship.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (59:50):
Well, I'm saying she couldn't. She could not ever see
me perfom ever.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
I couldn't. I can't yet to see a two short show. Nah,
ye know, Wow, had heard the music.
Speaker 10 (01:00:04):
You've seen TV stuff, She seen videos. She's seeing the
clean version. Okay, she she 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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
I don't.
Speaker 10 (01:00:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
What about your pot? He has heard?
Speaker 10 (01:00:31):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
We just don't. Like he's.
Speaker 12 (01:00:42):
He couldn't come to me and go, you know, I'll
be bumping that one song.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
He couldn't. This is the long thirty year version of
the White Olph in the room when I was.
Speaker 6 (01:00:52):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:01:03):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Like the East Coast playing on the load.
Speaker 10 (01:01:21):
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
(01:01:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Man. He's like I knew he was dope, like ship
he was hey.
Speaker 10 (01:01:57):
We used to walk down the street arguing like a motherfucker,
arguing about everything in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:02:14):
I mean nineteen eighty nine, straight out of Compton, first
chour I ever went on.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 12 (01:02:20):
First start was Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
I had my.
Speaker 10 (01:02:24):
Girlfriend take me to the airport in Oakland. I'd been
with her for like about.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
A year and a half. I was really did love her.
She was beautiful and she was beautiful man.
Speaker 10 (01:02:38):
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. I
call you 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.
Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
It's like some shot I've never I had, never coming home.
Speaker 10 (01:03:02):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:03:18):
And the NWA tour, everything you could think about young
rock star young, that was me I did.
Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
It was that when five thousand girls y'all did the
nothing but a Word to Me record.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
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,
(01:03:53):
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 you.
Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:04:28):
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 a fucking Mercedes and you know. So I
would look at the media's interpretation of all of hip hop,
mainly like the Source or something I read the front
to back.
Speaker 12 (01:04:47):
I've been on the cover of the Source early on
one of the first sources.
Speaker 10 (01:04:50):
I wasn't like treated badly by the Source, but I
would I would look at the reviews that I would
get and it'd be like, you know, I can't rap,
can't rap, meat the beats and blah blah blah, and
then the shit would go platinum.
Speaker 12 (01:05:04):
I'm like, like, hai, motherfucker.
Speaker 10 (01:05:06):
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,
(01:05:28):
I'm like they they to me, they just didn't get it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
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
(01:05:54):
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
rate and the Source like whatever. And he was just
like you don't know, like that was his ship. And
(01:06:15):
I was like, all right, well if he says it usually,
I mean Tweek was always right. I was wrong about
n w A because that's another thing. Like Tweek had
straight out of Comps. He was like the only East
Coaster I knew that, like odd on West Coast stuff.
I mean he had Hammer's first record, Oh wow. But yeah,
I mean he which wasn't a bad album, no, it
was yeah. And that's the thing like he like Tik
(01:06:37):
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
(01:06:57):
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. You know, it's it's the tortois in the
hair shit. You know, you have a billion of them
seeds that do and you just stay flat footed. So
at no point is no one in your ear like yo,
(01:07:19):
you should get dancers like blah blah blah, or you
should you know, you just basically stayed on your path
and and tortoised and haired your way through everything hip
hop culture.
Speaker 10 (01:07:32):
Like a microphone and a cassette was all I ever
needed to make my hip hop world successful.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:07:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Uh.
Speaker 10 (01:08:09):
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,
(01:08:30):
you know, he was. He was popular, So I knew
who he was as a dancing dude. I knew that
was Hammer, not I didn't know his fucking name. I
just knew he was a dancing dude. Him and Ace
they be dancing, and then he came with these records
and it's like one day you see him. He's got
like four bodyguards, he's got like an entourager, like you know,
(01:08:51):
like twenty people, and it's like I remember the shit
clear as day.
Speaker 12 (01:08:55):
Somebody was like, who fuck is that? I don't know
who fuck that is?
Speaker 10 (01:09:00):
Like, you know, I'm popular, I'm famous, we mob deep,
We like in this motherfucker everywhere we go.
Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
I don't know who the fuck that is. I don't know.
I heard it a few times. Who are they?
Speaker 10 (01:09:09):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Like he was.
Speaker 10 (01:09:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:09:52):
But one had a lot of songs that had had
Hammer references, but it was between me and him, all of.
Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:10:05):
We walking, we 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,
Hammerock from Oakland? Oh, how's hip hop about that? Well,
you know, I'm the only rapper from Oakland, Like, I'm
(01:10:28):
never going on our senio. You're gonna sit on there
and tell the whole fucking world lie like he would
do ship like that, and he was just that was
that was his character.
Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
So he poked.
Speaker 10 (01:10:37):
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,
(01:10:59):
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
got killed. All kind of should have happened. He was like,
he's like like not asking, like, man, we're not coming
home this bullshit, like we're not.
Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
And it was it was so real.
Speaker 10 (01:11:14):
What he said was like all right, all right, it's
all getting so so basically where escalated the most. It
just took a phone call. It's like, man, we don't
want this bullshit. And it's because we all be We
all been from family and friends from day one.
Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Man, why couldn't I have it with search?
Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
What was the record for for you when you were
with Jive, which was the biggest selling record, Like when
did it?
Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Kind of because Life is.
Speaker 10 (01:11:49):
A big seller, 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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
I got they thought you were dead.
Speaker 10 (01:12:04):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:12:12):
So the tour did a lot in that in that case.
Speaker 15 (01:12:15):
And.
Speaker 10 (01:12:19):
Get off tour and the sales go up to like
about maybe like one point three, it's just hot, it's
just going.
Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
And then they killed me, they said to two Shirts
got shot in the in the head in the crack house. Wow.
Speaker 10 (01:12:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
And you know, you can't.
Speaker 10 (01:12:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Sales went out the room. Who's going to stop? Whos
going to stop? The rumor.
Speaker 12 (01:13:01):
Went to two million, but the crack out of damn yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Two Shirt is funny. Man.
Speaker 12 (01:13:08):
I've had people walked up to me.
Speaker 10 (01:13:10):
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 with smoke coke all night. And then
my boy like do you know 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
(01:13:33):
uncle so much ship?
Speaker 5 (01:13:36):
What led to the uh your the retirement?
Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
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,
(01:14:00):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:14:11):
Shorty the pimp started some new ship with me.
Speaker 10 (01:14:12):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:14:22):
Felton Pilot was Felton Pilot was mc Hammer's guy.
Speaker 10 (01:14:26):
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 brought 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.
(01:14:46):
He was like, man, I've seen it. I got the vision.
Speaker 12 (01:14:49):
So I'm coming into our studio to make a new album.
Speaker 10 (01:14:52):
It's going to be the Shorty the Pimp album. And
uh al, it's like, here's the new rules. That's the engineer, right,
here's the new rules. He owns the studio and he
got new rules. Can't say he got a white girlfriend,
so he can't say the word nigger in his house
no more. He's like, he's like, uh, I'm not really
(01:15:15):
trying to have any like profanity in my house. He's like,
he's like, and I'm ah, he's telling me, I got
the fucking deal. I'm the fucking artist. He's like, and
we're gonna start making records for white people because hammering them.
Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
You see what they're doing over there.
Speaker 10 (01:15:26):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Like? How do you do that shit?
Speaker 10 (01:15:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:16:03):
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.
(01:16:25):
So Big Bruce was their money man. And Bruce was
like my homie Homi, because I knew all the kingpins.
So Bruce got killed and then pooh Man and Banks
and all and they were just kind of like out
there a little bit, didn't have that structure. And I
was on jive platinum balling. I saw Banks at the
cable company and he was like, you know, he went
(01:16:46):
for it. He was in a little little little hoopy whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
He just went for it.
Speaker 10 (01:16:49):
He was like, man, you know I make beats or something.
I was like, I know, I know you ain't 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
(01:17:11):
myself about this fucking ship with al and the fucking
engineers fucking with me, and he won't fun. I'm trying
to make this music and he's fucking trying to get
me to work on these white cass tracks and be
like hammering. I'm like, so, I'm telling Banks the situation.
He's like, all right, I'm coming to the studio tomorrow.
Then I find a guy at the same time. This
motherfucker was riding a tense speed with a backpack with
(01:17:33):
a pistol in it, with a bunch of heroin, and
he fucking he's from d C's from Maryland, from uh,
from landover Maryland, and he fucking uh is really good
friends with George Clinton and and and and Michael Hampton
and all those guys. He's like, he's he's a student
of you know, he's he got to play with a
(01:17:54):
who is the who is the Problem's best fucking guitar player,
the other one.
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Before Jerry shrind Uh.
Speaker 10 (01:18:02):
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,
coming to Acorn Projects. He sits in front of his
(01:18:23):
fucking uh part projects where he lived, brings an amp
out on the guitar and the guitar and just sits
there and shows me all this ship he could do.
So I'm like, you need to come to the studio.
Let's go, because I knew the funk he's playing the funk.
So I get Shorty B and Banks to come to
the studio with me at the same time, and I'm like,
I walk in on al eating like watch this ship,
(01:18:45):
and I was at the time he was he was
fucking with me, man, because he I wasn't with the ship.
The niggas was just for more money or just he
wanted to be like them, man. Really, he wanted to
be like them bad. He named his fucking dog short Dog,
and he was fucking uh. I come back to make
a new album. He keeps saying shit his dog short,
shit the fuck down.
Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
I'm like, this is We're about to kill this nigga
up in here.
Speaker 10 (01:19:09):
So on top of that, he's doing this new thing
and he's going He's like, ah, fuck the fucking computer rebooted.
Speaker 12 (01:19:19):
And then he says there and does like this. So
he did that ship to me for like two days.
Speaker 10 (01:19:23):
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 gonna
ask you no more computer glitches, no more motherfucking working glitch.
We we made Shorty de PMP and I feel like
(01:19:45):
the next albums getting where you fit in cocktails getting
it were all a little bit better because we didn't
have that early fucking battle. And Shorty PP probably would
have been just as great because that's when we took
the journey on the fucking freestyle and the guitars and
the bass and and we and we bought a Digital
Underground keyboard player, pee Wee over cauld Shorty Be, my
(01:20:06):
guitar player, used to go do a lot of tracks
with shot too, and a lot of people don't know
that Digital Underground too. Short We were using the same
musicians during the same years, two pockeys coming around all
the time, hanging around with Shorty Be and Pee Wee.
It was just, you know, we were we were really
into the musicianship and we fucking we sat out. He
set him on the sidelines. So what what is he
(01:20:28):
doing now?
Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Like in terms of.
Speaker 12 (01:20:32):
Which one Al, I heard rumors that Al passed away.
Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
I'm not sure I've had you guys lost contact with
each I really.
Speaker 10 (01:20:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:21:13):
Nineteen ninety two nineteen ninety three. Checked the stats. Those
were the most violent years in the history of Oakland
as far.
Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
As murders go. And it's wild as hell. It's been
wild as hell some years lately. It was so wild.
Speaker 10 (01:21:26):
At one point I told the young homies. I 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.
I'm like, and y'all, y'all ain't we was up in
the numbers, like niggas, was getting knocked down a lot,
and it was a very violent city for the reasons
of That's when they started locking up the kingpins, right
and then all that, Like, you know, we got Port
(01:21:47):
of Oakland, and Port of Oakland is bigger than the
Port of San Francisco, So you know, wherever you got
those Baltimore type cities with the port that motherfucking duck
was finding his way.
Speaker 12 (01:21:56):
So you wonder why a city like Oakland is what
it is.
Speaker 10 (01:21:59):
It's because we had the army base, we had a
Navy base right in Alameda, right next door. We had
all this military shit, all this pimp shit, all this
fucking dope shit, and it just made this little ass town,
which was also part of a large metropolitan area. The
Bay Area is probably you know, seven million people or
some shit. So even though you like Oakland's population is
(01:22:21):
less than five hundred thousand, we're still in this big
metropolitan area. And Oakland is the place where if you
fucking thirty miles away you want to come get the
best dope. You're like, I'm about to drive down to Oakland.
A lot of times when you set up shops selling dope,
the customers aren't from the city. They come jumping off
the freeway from the suburbs, come get that get shit,
and go right back home. So Oakland was that city
(01:22:43):
where there was a lot, a lot, a lot of
fucking you know, just street money, all that shit and
all that type of shit.
Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
So for self preservation reasons, you like, I gotta get out.
I got out of here.
Speaker 8 (01:22:53):
But you picked Atlanta out of any place.
Speaker 10 (01:22:55):
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.
(01:23:16):
So I'm sitting here hanging with the homies. I'm getting
phone calls like you still hanging around the niggas.
Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
Huh. I'm like, whatever, we.
Speaker 10 (01:23:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:23:43):
I bought a house sixty miles outside the city with
the pool and all this 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.
Speaker 12 (01:24:00):
It took a long time. Kind of Atlanta kind of
got me out of that.
Speaker 10 (01:24:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
It that it's no way I could I could have
avoided it.
Speaker 10 (01:24:16):
Well, you know, what was anything 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
(01:24:43):
Freaknick was my birthday weekend, So I get to Freaknik.
Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
What is college is a black college? Marty Gry, Yeah,
in Atlanta. In Atlanta, but this already used to me.
Speaker 10 (01:24:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
And so the Freaknik in.
Speaker 10 (01:25:10):
Nineteen ninety two, which I didn't go, was this big
ass picnic that just was the best picnic anybody ever
fucking went to.
Speaker 12 (01:25:15):
So in ninety three the word was out, you gotta
go to Freaknik.
Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
It got to me.
Speaker 12 (01:25:20):
I'm like, we're going to see what this shit is.
Speaker 9 (01:25:21):
And it shuts Atlanta down, like it's shut a certain pockets.
You just you can't drive.
Speaker 10 (01:25:26):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:25:37):
We gotta have a conversation. He's got to pull me.
Speaker 10 (01:25:39):
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, t 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
(01:26:00):
people in the streets just having a good time at
all these college campuses and shitting.
Speaker 12 (01:26:04):
And I was just like, fuck, well, the freaknik ended.
I didn't leave.
Speaker 10 (01:26:08):
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 said 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.
Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
So in a state.
Speaker 10 (01:26:29):
We just looked at the houses and shit. And I
went back to Oakland. Funerals, shootouts, all this shit. Not
mean but what I'm saying, but it's just going down.
Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:26:39):
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
because they ain't nowhere to hide. So I wait till August,
and we prepped to go to were prepared to go
to Jack the Rapper in Atlanta, and it just was
(01:27:02):
I didn't I wasn't going out there to buy a house,
but I was just so in love with the freaking
experience and so looking forward to the Jack the Rapper experience.
When I get there, I just snuck off from everybody
and literally went and bought a house.
Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
And just.
Speaker 12 (01:27:20):
Southwest Atlanta, So I snuck and bought a house.
Speaker 10 (01:27:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
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?
Speaker 12 (01:28:02):
You're like, I bring like two hundred niggas everywhere I go.
Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
I'm everywhere.
Speaker 8 (01:28:07):
Why too short?
Speaker 10 (01:28:08):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
How would you get them there? We all drive overhead?
How do you remember everybody's name?
Speaker 10 (01:28:21):
I have homies I've been knowing for twenty five years.
I don't know they fucking name homey, Homie, Homie.
Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
I'm like, you can't.
Speaker 10 (01:28:27):
So look, we 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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
Who's gonna get caught?
Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
Not me?
Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
That was that was our thing.
Speaker 10 (01:28:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
I was.
Speaker 10 (01:28:49):
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
(01:29:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
These people.
Speaker 12 (01:29:18):
Look at the crowd is here. I'm like, let's not
beat up the.
Speaker 10 (01:29:21):
People that came to see too short because some shows
they'd be like, man, so and so got disrespected, and
I be on stage watching my guys beat up my fans.
Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
I'm like stop.
Speaker 12 (01:29:35):
And then I was the promoter.
Speaker 10 (01:29:36):
I give the promoter hell like I didn't even say
some shit like, man, let us all in this motherfucker.
Speaker 12 (01:29:44):
We don't have to all be backstage. Let my guys
in the crowd.
Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
That was my thing.
Speaker 10 (01:29:48):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
We're going in.
Speaker 10 (01:29:59):
I used to push push, security out the way all
that ship just like this, like guess the.
Speaker 12 (01:30:05):
Funk out the way, we're going anyway, and we just walking.
I had a bad rap at.
Speaker 8 (01:30:08):
First, Yeah, cause y'all took up all the space in
the club.
Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
I had a bad rap at first. It was bad.
So how did they take you just not being there?
So look at this.
Speaker 10 (01:30:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:30:36):
And banks came. We all came, We we came.
Speaker 10 (01:30:39):
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 deeples are in Atlanta. We had a
we had a fucking Army Johnson from day one.
Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
So so I mean.
Speaker 10 (01:31:06):
I showed up in Atlanta with a cause, man, like
you know, I was fucking I had already been coming
out there since.
Speaker 12 (01:31:12):
Like eighty nine and shit, doing shows and and.
Speaker 10 (01:31:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
I had friends in Atlanta.
Speaker 12 (01:31:26):
People don't even know I lived in Atlanta for a year.
Speaker 8 (01:31:28):
Wait, so can we talk about that right there though?
Speaker 9 (01:31:30):
Right just right there to being in Atlanta, the strip
culture and the difference between that and in the Oakland scene.
Speaker 1 (01:31:35):
We didn't have no strip clubs open.
Speaker 8 (01:31:37):
I mean, I figured, so when you got to Atlanta, clubs.
Speaker 12 (01:31:40):
And strip clubs in San Francisco are like really just
for prostitution, right.
Speaker 9 (01:31:46):
So, but when you got to Atlanta, it was like,
I mean, I know from living in Atlanta different.
Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
I got to Atlanta.
Speaker 10 (01:31:50):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:31:58):
Them days over though, days over, days over.
Speaker 10 (01:32:01):
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'd be butt ass
naked and he's like, just put one hand on her
vagina or something.
Speaker 1 (01:32:15):
Take a picture.
Speaker 8 (01:32:16):
That's like before NIS before Gentleman club.
Speaker 12 (01:32:19):
Allright, or look, no, bend over and spread your pussy
for my picture.
Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
Wo, 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 I was gonna say
about it?
Speaker 12 (01:32:42):
Back then, the pussy was, uh, some caliweed and some
probably like some food.
Speaker 8 (01:32:50):
It's not like another country.
Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
Wow. Strippers used to tell.
Speaker 10 (01:32:55):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Wow? Not anymore now. I mean Month was made about
the album number ten, the 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.
(01:33:33):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:33:46):
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
(01:34:10):
rappers that had ten albums, even your favorite rappers and
have ten albums and then just to make that statement
album number ten.
Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
That's why I named it that.
Speaker 10 (01:34:18):
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
(01:34:39):
got a lot of fucking attention, like I've heard about it.
So saying I retired was probably like the best marketing plan.
Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
I ever had.
Speaker 5 (01:34:47):
What was your deal with job? How many albums did
you have on your contract?
Speaker 10 (01:34:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
And this it was, you know.
Speaker 10 (01:35:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Stick that Dick and Britney Spears and forget all about.
Speaker 8 (01:35:14):
Hip hop wow for a long time, and they.
Speaker 10 (01:35:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
I'm gonna say what was like dealing with Barry Wiss
and just in general.
Speaker 12 (01:35:30):
I remember a n R lawyer. I think his name
is Peter thea Peter.
Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:35:52):
Every Jive was selling tons of in sync Backstreet and
Britney Spears, and they were totally neglecting R.
Speaker 12 (01:35:59):
Kelly and everything R and B and hip hop. And
I'm sitting there having a.
Speaker 10 (01:36:03):
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.
(01:36:25):
He said, we're getting back in the rap game. I said,
when did you get out? Like what the did that happen?
I was like, whoa they they got out the rap game.
I didn't even know.
Speaker 8 (01:36:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:36:59):
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
(01:37:20):
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 Shorty we played drums. They all
could play anything. So somebody saund the drums to start
kicking that beat and it's only like a little ass
set with like maybe one time one one crash and
I had snare, bass drum and fucking guitar.
Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
I only had like two strings on it.
Speaker 10 (01:37:47):
So somebody starts kicking the drum and then Shorty b
hiss the bassline right boom, hitting the chord. He like
to play the chords on the base. Got that from
a Eddie Hazel. So really that's the Parliament thing that
the base chorus, all soul, all blooesy and shit.
Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 10 (01:38:10):
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.
Speaker 9 (01:38:33):
I literally always thought that song was too short night
even being funny, but that's just funny that you said that.
Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Yeah, because it just happened like that.
Speaker 10 (01:38:39):
And then we immediately we took the rough copy to
the club, the fucking staticky copy, and it just instantly,
just instantly did it.
Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
You know. Eric Simon played a trick on me too.
Speaker 10 (01:38:50):
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,
(01:39:11):
I'm I'm chilling, and you know, I'm just gonna do
the ship whatever.
Speaker 12 (01:39:15):
But he didn't tell me that the record had broke
in New York and that they were loving it.
Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
You didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 10 (01:39:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
Like, so what do you do?
Speaker 12 (01:39:42):
I'm like, I rap, Like where you're rapping wrap everywhere.
You're like, what's your rapp name?
Speaker 1 (01:39:47):
Too short? Like oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 10 (01:39:49):
So 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.
Speaker 8 (01:39:59):
For me, and he's like out here now You're like.
Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
Now you bullshit?
Speaker 3 (01:40:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:40:17):
And like we always got it.
Speaker 3 (01:40:19):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:40:29):
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.
(01:40:52):
I'm marching the band. But we played and stepped and turned.
Then niggas marching the band. They danced and doing everything ready,
So so uh, I just think I when I started
making records, there was a bounce in New Orleans. It's
like to you swing the beat and they like do
a little different dance. And I made a song called
(01:41:13):
Iron't Tripping, just trying to do that New Orleans bounce.
And I would always go in there and try to
do something that on my rag. I'm like, they're gonna
like this in New or they're gonna like this in
in in Texas or something. I would know about certain
sounds in certain places my way on, not like not
like pandering exactly right. So I always like knew how
(01:41:33):
to just work the drums to you know, you know,
when you got go go drums, You're like, oh, that's
go go drums, you know what I mean. So that
was that I was in tune with the South, and
I think a lot of rappers who jumped on the
bandwagon later producers, rappers, whatever, they kind of adapted to
it as it became.
Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
I was there from day one on the South ship.
I was.
Speaker 10 (01:41:53):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:42:02):
The first song was I Ain't Tripping.
Speaker 10 (01:42:04):
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?
Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
To a performer, were you were you genuinely shocked at
as far as like the well the cameos that you
later did.
Speaker 10 (01:42:25):
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
(01:42:45):
jay Z, I got on jay Z and then Foxy Brown,
so I don't have another fucking start car. And I
was like, but I also figured something else out to
living in Atlanta, we had a friendly East Coast West
coast rivalry on you know, play certain songs. We try
to see who turned up the most. And I actually
started making friends with New York people so.
Speaker 8 (01:43:08):
Because they was out of the element too, so.
Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
It's neutral ground.
Speaker 12 (01:43:12):
So when I got to Atlanta, I started taking more
trips to New York.
Speaker 10 (01:43:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
Wrong? When did How did the record? You did Call Me?
Record with Little Kim for the Booty.
Speaker 10 (01:43:36):
Call Me was a Jives idea for they got the
Booty Calls soundtrack and 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 with the idea to call me. It was
(01:43:57):
originally the sample actually you know if you that's where
it started, and we later determined we didn't want to
use the sample and we changed the melody a little bit,
but just kept calling me. We sat in the studio,
we got the vibe and we're like, cool, we owned something.
So this is what we're gonna do. I got a
dope ass studio in Atlanta. We're gonna fly you on
(01:44:18):
your folks down this this meet a little Kim, We're
gonna fly you on your folks down and we're gonna
finish the song up and get the money whatever.
Speaker 12 (01:44:24):
So Jiver is in on the play. I'm in on
the ship.
Speaker 10 (01:44:29):
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
(01:44:52):
gonna get back home, sa nigga.
Speaker 12 (01:44:54):
I'm there to pick her up. And Biggie comes walking
out the airport.
Speaker 10 (01:44:59):
No Kim, oh, and he's like, and so, what's up
you and what y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
Like we're doing what you know?
Speaker 10 (01:45:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:45:20):
Wow, wow, But she did finally come. She came in
next fight.
Speaker 10 (01:45:26):
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 ounces 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.
Speaker 5 (01:45:47):
Another soundtrack question, the Juice soundtrack, mc pool, Who was
that you?
Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
That's my artist? It was, but it wasn't. I thought
that's pooh Man and he was pooh Man. Yeah, and
he he always I thought murder him. I thought it
was you.
Speaker 10 (01:46:02):
He tried to make my voicees 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.
Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
Thought that sucks. Bunny murder was damn, we're right here,
but right here. So he was someone he was a
totally different guy.
Speaker 10 (01:46:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
Gotcha, gotcha? So with with with the rise of Okay.
Speaker 5 (01:46:43):
With with?
Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:47:04):
The group that did the pack. So these were some
kids that just were from Berkeley, Man.
Speaker 10 (01:47:12):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:47:20):
The promoter had a driver, you know, come get us
in a van.
Speaker 10 (01:47:25):
And this motherfucker played the pack on their little mixtapes
and he played and I was like, I was like,
what the is that you listen to?
Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
He said the pack?
Speaker 10 (01:47:32):
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
(01:47:54):
showed up, but they wasn't a.
Speaker 1 (01:47:56):
Pack and screening you before.
Speaker 10 (01:48:00):
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,
(01:48:21):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:48:29):
And then he's like, I'm like, so, which one of
y'all is the pack?
Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Who's the pack?
Speaker 12 (01:48:33):
He's like, look, man, we're from Berkeley, like the pack.
Speaker 10 (01:48:35):
But we ain't the pack the pack first, Before you
can get to the pack, you gotta go through us first.
Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
I'm like, how what the fuck? Uh?
Speaker 10 (01:48:43):
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
(01:49:05):
and uh and stunning. They skate and then Little Bee
was just when I met them, a little Bee. I
don't know what the fuck his little image is now
with the base guy crazy when I met him.
Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
When I met him, he was like a little thug.
He was like a little street category.
Speaker 10 (01:49:19):
We had to actually wait for him to get out
of jail to start the project. He was, Oh wow,
he was in Juni Hall when when I met him.
Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:49:36):
Cool to not.
Speaker 12 (01:49:39):
Not be good and but you're not being good on purpose.
Speaker 1 (01:49:46):
Yeah, he's definitely.
Speaker 10 (01:49:47):
These motherfuckers are now wrapping off, beating, rapping like they
can't wrap, and that's the style.
Speaker 1 (01:49:51):
Yeah, it's but it goes, it goes.
Speaker 12 (01:49:55):
So yeah, the pack came to me.
Speaker 10 (01:49:59):
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.
Speaker 8 (01:50:20):
Did you meet him more house days in Atlanta?
Speaker 10 (01:50:22):
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
(01:50:43):
was like, man, you need to let me wrap on
your beats.
Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
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.
Speaker 10 (01:50:53):
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 cot closet. When you first
come in the house, they opened the coat closet and
it's his studio microphone booth.
Speaker 12 (01:51:06):
Nope, not the mic.
Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
It was the studio studio, the studio, the mic.
Speaker 10 (01:51:09):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:51:17):
I was not impressed by the fact that they figured
it out.
Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
Did they know about the legend the too Short, that
they knew who was amongst them? Or we heard about you, okay?
Speaker 12 (01:51:27):
And I was really impressed that they had no track record.
Speaker 10 (01:51:31):
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?
Speaker 12 (01:51:38):
They like they took me to the setup.
Speaker 10 (01:51:39):
They're like, we do it ourselves, Like man, y'all got
some help from somewhere, and they just elle just had
that ear round like some people just get it immediately.
And the 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.
Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
It was.
Speaker 12 (01:51:52):
It was magic when I met him beat. When I
met him, they had sixty songs.
Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
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?
Speaker 10 (01:52:15):
So so now you got you got two 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.
Speaker 1 (01:52:29):
Can you before you go, can you explain the legend
of mac dre for those this is the part of it.
Speaker 12 (01:52:36):
Him and forty from so I get ahead started everybody.
Speaker 10 (01:52:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
I got them. I set the fucking tongue.
Speaker 10 (01:52:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
Man.
Speaker 10 (01:53:10):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:53:24):
You know, I'm just you know, short dog. You know,
I talk shit out do the pimp image.
Speaker 10 (01:53:28):
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.
Speaker 12 (01:53:36):
So Oakland had a thing called the Side Show.
Speaker 10 (01:53:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:53:53):
Just hang out.
Speaker 10 (01:53:54):
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 all wow 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
(01:54:16):
the music, were about to have a fucking party. And
then they would just block off main intersections, backstreets, freeways.
They didn't give a fuck. And it's like hundreds of kids,
you know, like not don't picture kids. These motherfuckers like gangsters,
like just wilding they got. If you want to if
you want to see it, go to YouTube and look
(01:54:37):
up go dumb Usa some Oakland ship. Go dumb Usa
is to it is what it says, 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
(01:55:00):
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
got their own they are. They're thirty miles away from
us and they're fucking They might as well be on
the island right because they are not copying anybody.
Speaker 12 (01:55:16):
The Laho is original. So mac Drake brings that element
to what a side show would be.
Speaker 1 (01:55:23):
You know.
Speaker 10 (01:55:23):
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.
Speaker 5 (01:55:37):
That's whoever was Andy to like all them.
Speaker 10 (01:55:42):
Yeah, I think I think not kick sink kink from
OK but uh, turf talk is that's the forties fan.
Speaker 12 (01:55:49):
I think I think turf is from Valeo, but I
might be wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:55:52):
I might be wrong.
Speaker 10 (01:55:56):
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
(01:56:19):
it with the burning rubber and crazy car driving to Oakland,
and they messed it into one thing. And I don't
know where Hypie came from, because it could have been
called anything, because you know, really it was a real
street culture thing, And the reason why it couldn't be
a hip hop, solid solidified movement is because the Hyphee
(01:56:39):
movement was you gotta be high. You gotta be fucking
high on the drugs. The drugs were was ecstasy and
cocaine and fucking them little niggas snort heroin and shit and.
Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
Getting in the car, you gotta be drinking.
Speaker 10 (01:56:54):
So it's d u I right off the rip, it's
fucking a lot of lot of weapons, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 12 (01:57:01):
It's always a violent act to go with it. And
then it's I'm wanting it right now?
Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
Is you talking about it?
Speaker 10 (01:57:07):
And then it's like extremely overall, it's just hell of disrespectful,
just overall.
Speaker 9 (01:57:11):
Yeah, yea, some female stuff going on and you don't
look like it might be right. It's just 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.
Speaker 10 (01:57:23):
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
(01:57:44):
think it would have been something for the world. But
when you gotta be yeah, And I talked to Big
Vine over at the radio stations, she was like, man,
it was really hard to promote it on a commercial
level because it's not It was not commercial. So everybody
involved was expected and the next crunk movement, you know
what I'm saying that, and if it came short of that,
(01:58:05):
they weren't happy. And when they stopped doing it. The
music kept going. It was the same music. It's still
the same music right now. And I'm like, why are
y'all letting go of y'all ship? It's like, man, it
ain't blowing up like you.
Speaker 8 (01:58:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
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 year run and just like and.
Speaker 12 (01:58:25):
You know, you know who picked it up right lest
it on me? Yeah, got that tempo.
Speaker 10 (01:58:33):
All his early beats was like straight Bay influenced Tiger
came out on that bas sound, right, Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
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 it's like
(01:59:04):
great energy. Wow, it's still it's still alive.
Speaker 12 (01:59:07):
It's just it's just it's just not named that anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
It's still alive.
Speaker 10 (01:59:10):
They still do the same exact dances, they still act
the same guy. Damn way, it just don't call it Hyve.
Speaker 5 (01:59:16):
Did you ever have any do any work or have
any any kind of deals with JT.
Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
The bigger figure.
Speaker 10 (01:59:22):
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
(01:59:45):
was in Africa buying up property or some ship. He
put something out real yes for this is recently too.
Then I heard it got shot in Atlanta. That's the
last thing I heard.
Speaker 1 (01:59:56):
I don't know he's the one.
Speaker 10 (02:00:00):
When the game came out, he's like, oh I got
albums on the game, like yeah, figures, He's just he's just.
Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
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 old shit whatever, like what
is just your go to?
Speaker 10 (02:00:20):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:00:34):
And I hear the funk.
Speaker 1 (02:00:37):
I hear it.
Speaker 10 (02:00:38):
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 h what's my
man who's been killing him lately? Metro boom and he
(02:00:59):
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
(02:01:21):
aren't very melodic. But then if you listen to it
and why it's so catchy, it's that little melody that
they're dealing with. The auto tune, no matter how stupid
what they're saying could be shit, just it feels good,
and shit feels good.
Speaker 1 (02:01:31):
It's a good vible. And what was I saying? Because
I smoke a lot of wead of fun.
Speaker 10 (02:01:42):
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
(02:02:04):
can't leave it, can't.
Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Leave out this room.
Speaker 10 (02:02:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:02:23):
It was old reason.
Speaker 12 (02:02:24):
I can't dance to that ship. And it was it
ain't bad boy.
Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:02:37):
The fucking Yeah.
Speaker 10 (02:02:39):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:03:01):
Verse already, he could already dance to it, so he
was cool, so he.
Speaker 1 (02:03:05):
Set it off.
Speaker 10 (02:03:06):
So that's why he probably he probably conceived the concept
of the song and you know the world pimcil House
and all that.
Speaker 3 (02:03:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:03:25):
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
(02:03:47):
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 did you feel when people
started taking your inflections? I mean, yes, I know that
(02:04:09):
you know E forty can claim all this language or whatever,
but it's like you bach is like.
Speaker 10 (02:04:17):
It was exclusively uh, something that was only said by
myself and Freddie Breddy?
Speaker 1 (02:04:23):
Did you feel some way like once you heard death
throwing those guys like taking and I.
Speaker 10 (02:04:28):
Tell you, Freddy b went to jail. My career blows up.
He kind of didn't get to have the glory.
Speaker 1 (02:04:35):
Yeah. And I carried it on And.
Speaker 10 (02:04:41):
The first person I heard say it was h Ice
Cube said it on A bitch's a bitch At the
end he goes beers 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,
(02:05:01):
it just slid by. And then I had a friend
of mine who we were in the bathroom smoking some
weed at a party one night and with a dog
pound we there smoking with Dazz and Crup and Stop
were smoking at my Humby was like, man.
Speaker 12 (02:05:13):
I just got to ask, man, what made y'all say bitch?
Speaker 1 (02:05:16):
Like too Short?
Speaker 12 (02:05:16):
And Snoop told the story. He said, he said in
front of you.
Speaker 10 (02:05:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
I just said bitch.
Speaker 10 (02:05:35):
When he said that, I mean, there's no anger, there's
no there's no bad vibe. So basically I look at.
Speaker 1 (02:05:44):
It like this.
Speaker 12 (02:05:47):
Cube opened the floodgates death ro They they kind of
gave it to the world.
Speaker 1 (02:05:54):
They did, because for a seconds I really thought it
was there. So they gave it to the world.
Speaker 10 (02:05:59):
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 us the way I wrote it.
Speaker 12 (02:06:09):
It was almost like just the taking back of it.
Speaker 10 (02:06:12):
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
(02:06:33):
years somewhere in there. And I was just like, I've
been rapping longer than you, motherfuckers. I've been rapping more
and just talking shit. And then I put the what's
my favorite word in there, the bitch, And I'm like,
I'm just I'm reclaiming ownership of my shit. I'm like,
I leased it out when all around the world everybody
gets to say it, it's my gift to pop cultuler,
but it's mine and we know it now. So if
(02:06:55):
you notice, I love Snoop to death, hang out with
him a lot. But if you notice, you don't say
it that much anymore?
Speaker 1 (02:07:00):
Right, Well, sure do we cover everything I think we got?
I'm trying to think, sure, there's not an obscure beast.
I know we're going to be like, why did we
ask I got no movies? Right?
Speaker 9 (02:07:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:07:16):
Oh well, you know he was a mini cooking the
ribs you really know how to grill?
Speaker 1 (02:07:21):
Really?
Speaker 10 (02:07:22):
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 min 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.
Speaker 7 (02:07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (02:07:40):
Yeah, and you know back then that was like folklore,
like like people thought old Dog was real.
Speaker 8 (02:07:48):
Somebody.
Speaker 12 (02:07:49):
You're right, he was the hummy. But you know, fifty
one years old.
Speaker 1 (02:07:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say, yo, you you are no
way going to convince me that you're fifty one years
old right.
Speaker 8 (02:08:01):
Now, because and you ain't tired. You ain't tired of
the party.
Speaker 12 (02:08:04):
But I mean not the last two nights all. I mean,
it's a lifestyle, I know, but.
Speaker 8 (02:08:09):
This is amazing to me.
Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
I take naps.
Speaker 8 (02:08:11):
Okay, thank you, thank you for keeping it real. Thank you.
You say vitamin suit or is that just yeah, I
do all.
Speaker 1 (02:08:17):
I guess, okay, you listen. We want to be like
semi healthy.
Speaker 10 (02:08:21):
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,
(02:08:42):
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 gonna do this shit.
Speaker 1 (02:08:52):
Barrier this hit.
Speaker 3 (02:08:52):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:09:07):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:09:14):
Who's gonna be relevant?
Speaker 8 (02:09:15):
I mean that's relevant though, like that.
Speaker 1 (02:09:17):
Because I'm four four four, 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
(02:09:40):
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?
Speaker 5 (02:09:51):
I learned that pool Man was a totally different guy
from straight up.
Speaker 1 (02:09:56):
And we even made it.
Speaker 10 (02:09:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:10:07):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:10:14):
He has a somewhat success and comes to us after
one album, goes man, I think I'm want to get
off the label.
Speaker 1 (02:10:23):
We're just like, okay, damn, you're off here.
Speaker 9 (02:10:27):
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?
Speaker 1 (02:10:40):
No wife, no kids? No, that's why. Yeah, that's.
Speaker 8 (02:10:45):
Hold up.
Speaker 1 (02:10:46):
No, No, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 12 (02:10:48):
But sty, I do have somebody that keeps putting on
Wikipedia that I have a wife and kids, but I.
Speaker 8 (02:10:52):
Don't you have any kids? And I got something that
I want to learn.
Speaker 9 (02:10:56):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:11:00):
Can you just give us a little tat which.
Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
I wrote a book.
Speaker 10 (02:11:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:11:24):
We're talking to Mark right now. You feel like we're
talking to Mark right now.
Speaker 3 (02:11:29):
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?
Speaker 1 (02:11:35):
How you make it by easy?
Speaker 10 (02:11:37):
Little John said it in the From the Window to
the Wall he said, I sk skap.
Speaker 8 (02:11:45):
Not every time. Everybody make a mistake and get lost
up in sometime.
Speaker 10 (02:11:48):
I've been a skeater from day one. You know, see
the strap up. We're aiming at something.
Speaker 1 (02:11:54):
Well, look.
Speaker 9 (02:11:57):
All I asked you read your do your own audiobook.
That's what I ask you for the people do your
own audio audio.
Speaker 1 (02:12:04):
Yeah, that would be please, Steve Sugar. Steve you learn.
Speaker 15 (02:12:09):
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
(02:12:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
I've never been in love with. Famous like that.
Speaker 12 (02:12:45):
I'm the first person you walk up to say are
you too short? I'm like, I look like, yes, that's you.
Speaker 1 (02:12:58):
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
(02:13:21):
in jail twenty fifteen, June and July.
Speaker 10 (02:13:23):
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 I'm charge you
(02:13:44):
with felonies and all kind of shit. So I had
to go in there and lie to the judge and
say I didn't have the paperwork, and the judges like
you lied to me and told me that you weren't,
that you were bringing this paper and you didn't bring it.
And he asked the prosecutor what should we do with him?
She said, give him thirty days? Do you know who
he was the judge?
Speaker 1 (02:14:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:14:02):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:14:02):
Or did the judge know who you were? Yeah?
Speaker 12 (02:14:04):
It was it was a high profile case. And he
said she said thirty days.
Speaker 10 (02:14:09):
He said, well, I'm gonna give him ninety and then said,
bailiff take him right now, and I can't do it.
Speaker 12 (02:14:15):
That's the fucked that he kept me in there five
fucking weeks to the day.
Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
And so you just finished your book that way started
and finished your book.
Speaker 10 (02:14:24):
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 light side of night, I'd
wake up and like write to like this little light
and I was just right all night. So I did
(02:14:45):
my time away from everybody else, like I slept all
day every day.
Speaker 1 (02:14:48):
I'm so glad you were remind I would have been mad.
Speaker 12 (02:14:53):
I was thinking about naming the books some ship I
wrote in.
Speaker 1 (02:14:55):
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.
Speaker 12 (02:15:11):
You couldn't come in contact any other prisons.
Speaker 1 (02:15:13):
I was.
Speaker 12 (02:15:13):
I was in the cell next to where they had
Chris Brown, next where they.
Speaker 8 (02:15:16):
Had like so, what was the meals like in that section?
I know it was a little.
Speaker 1 (02:15:20):
Different slice the garlic, real sin.
Speaker 10 (02:15:26):
If you're not a snacker, if you don't like snacks,
because they you will not eat the meals.
Speaker 1 (02:15:31):
You will not.
Speaker 10 (02:15:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
I was like, what is that? And the guard said
it's ship.
Speaker 12 (02:15:47):
I was like no. I was like, no, for bro
in the kitchen when they cooking it, what do they
think they make it?
Speaker 1 (02:15:52):
What is it called? He said ship?
Speaker 8 (02:15:56):
No, that's sloppy Joe, right, they've started.
Speaker 1 (02:15:59):
They started purple spaghetti.
Speaker 8 (02:16:02):
Why would it be that color?
Speaker 1 (02:16:04):
You asked these questions, there are no answers. Purple spaghetti.
Speaker 12 (02:16:09):
La County ain't right?
Speaker 1 (02:16:10):
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.
Speaker 10 (02:16:18):
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.
Speaker 8 (02:16:26):
Wow, Okay, has anybody read it?
Speaker 12 (02:16:29):
I let one peris of reading there was like, it's
pretty good. I don't know, but they might be gassing
my people.
Speaker 10 (02:16:34):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:16:45):
Look, this is all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (02:16:49):
This.
Speaker 1 (02:16:49):
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,
(02:17:14):
I'm telling you there is an engaging, motherfucking story of
your childhood hustling these tapes.
Speaker 8 (02:17:24):
And we hear Disney has a new platform.
Speaker 12 (02:17:26):
I do have a offer on the table to do
a mini series, like like a three Prime mini series.
Speaker 1 (02:17:32):
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 Alo and the light here
(02:17:55):
and our guest today to be sure, always giving a lad,
but I'm something.
Speaker 8 (02:18:00):
About the way you call me a fucking lady. Sound old?
And no I've got a birthday coming up. I don't
like it. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
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,
(02:18:32):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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