Too Short

Having first introduced his brand of sexually explicit rap in 1982, Too Short, also known as Too $hort, introduced much of the 'sex, drug dealing, and violence' ethos that would later become so popular with gangsta rap acts such as N.W.A.. He seems to have been one of the first rap acts to pronounce the word bitch as 'beatch,' and what seems to be a speech impediment renders words like dick as 'deek'.

Too Short, whose actual name is the decidedly non-gangster sounding Todd Shaw (emphasis on the Todd), hails from Oakland, California, although he once briefly relocated to Atlanta to keep pace with black 'pimp' culture. He began rapping in the very early days of rap, and first released an album in 1982. His lyrical style is very laid back and almost monotone, and there have been some questionable rhymes over the years, such as 'computer' with 'do her,' 'wanna' with 'tonsils,' and 'hoes' with 'dildo' (which in Too Shortish comes out as 'deeldo').

Much of Too Short's content and style is shaped by his admiration and emulation of the pimps of the blaxploitation era, specifically 'Goldy' from The Mack which took place in Oakland. Short claims in his songs to be a pimp and a coke dealer, and to have no remorse from possibly having killed a woman who choked on his semen. He is also seemingly obsessed with proving that he himself does not smoke crack. His cohorts, the 'dangerous crew', have spawned a few other rap acts such as Ant Banks and Goldy.

His music also somewhat pioneered the use of actual interpolation in rap music, rather than just straight sampling, meaning that an old funk melody is re-recorded and then rapped over rather than just sampled and rapped over. This difference may seem pretty minimal, but Too Short has admonished the music world to "Put away the samples and pick up some instruments."

Lyrically, however, Too Short is extremely limited. Content wise, every Too Short song pretty much contains only the following profound revelations:

• Too Short is a player
• You, on the other hand, are ‘player hater’
• Too Short is from Oakland
• Too Short has a lot of money
• Too Short likes to spend said money
• Too Short doesn’t ‘love’ hoes
• You, on the other hand, are a ‘suckka’ who very likely does love hoes
• Despite what you might think, Too Short is not ‘on the pipe’
• You, on the other hand, may in fact be on said pipe
• repeat…

Too Short has released thirteen albums:

Don't Stop Rappin
Players
Coke Dealers
Born To Mack
Life is... Too $hort
Short Dog's In The House
Shorty The Pimp*
Get In Where You Fit In (1994)
Cocktails (1995)
Gettin It...(1996)
Can't Stay Away (1999)
You Nasty (2001)
Chase The Cat (2001)

And there is at least one greatest hits album entitled Too $hort: 1982-1996, The Player Years

* An identical album was released with an alternate title, 'Shorty The Player'.