Too $hort, who’s been rapping professionally since the 1980s, says he nearly quit making album recently. That changed thanks to Mistah F.A.B.
“Yeah my man Mistah F.A.B., he was real motivational on this album, because I had really made up my mind not to quit rapping, but I just wasn’t going to make an album,” $hort says in an interview with HipHopDX’s Too $hort. “Not only did he really convince me to do it, but he really gave me a lot of motivation and then sat down and started working with me through the whole album. Pretty much A&Ring, picking beats, doing hooks, all that kinda shit. Just making sure it’s a tight ass album. And I gotta tell you, it’s a tight ass album. I’m on the outside looking at what I’m doin and I’m like, ‘Damn, can you really do this at this age?’ but I’m doin it.”
$hort says he doesn’t necessarily think he needs to make albums nowadays.
“I just think that it’s at a point where I can eat off my craft many different ways and it doesn’t necessarily have to be off by trying to sell records,” he adds. “All you gotta do is be on a hot song and just stay relevant or do some shit on TV or some shit.”
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$hort also says he doesn’t think quitting will make his influence fade away. In fact, he says he sees traces of himself in many aspects of the genre today.
“I’m not the one to pat myself on the back or even need somebody else to give me credit, but I listen to a lot of Hip Hop now and I hear the Too $hort influence,” he explains. “The simple beats, the subject matter, all kinds of stuff. At the same time, my whole career, I see myself as a contributor to Hip Hop. We don’t own this shit, it’s the blob. It’s something you can’t control. It’s worldwide. It’s every language. It’s every race. When I finish contributing, I feel like I’ve left enough to where people are gonna say, ‘They got that from Too $hort.’ I’m not gonna fade away.”
Additional Reporting By Andre Grant
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