Too $hort has obviously not been in the lab with 2Pac for quite some time, but he still remains awestruck at the late legend’s rapid-fire writing process.
HipHopDX caught up with the Bay Area native at Day 2 of One Music Fest in Atlanta last month, where he was asked about some memorable moments in the booth with his peers.
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“I know you’ve heard from a million people about 2Pac, man. He wrote rhymes as fast as he could write words,” $hort began. “Like, I write a rhyme – I think about it, write it down. Think about it, write something that rhyme with it. Think about it, you know I’m writing a story, telling something and I’m writing.
“But he just goes [makes writing motion] and he’ll go, ‘Alright, I’m ready to go in the booth.’ Like what? He can’t be ready. And it’s just dope as fuck. So I don’t how his mind was working to be able to make such prolific statements in a rhyme and then go in and put a pattern to it. And it really wasn’t like he was going in the booth and fucking up — he’d just go in there and spit it.”
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He continued: “So I don’t know, some people have the gift, you know? I saw my man Erick Sermon so many times like put on the beat, the beat bumping and he like, ‘Let me in the booth.’ Like you ain’t got a pen, paper, nothing. And he’d get in there and say some funky-ass shit and I’m like, he just got it. Some people just got it.”
You can watch the clip below:
This isn’t the first time Too $hort shared some stories about his times with 2Pac. The two rap icons — who both lived in The Bay at one time — ran in the same circles, although Short Dawg was five years older than ‘Pac. But $hort recently admitted that he was afraid to introduce 2Pac to his other friends out of fear they would encourage ‘Pac to participate in nefarious street activities.
“I’ve been platinum before most n-ggas,” he told the 85 South Showlast year. “Shock G was the leader of Digital Underground, but 2Pac was the little homie in the crew. But 2Pac started coming of age and I looked at him, I liked the n-gga. But I’m an East Oakland n-gga, right? And I seen him, he used to always keep his little thing, he was not a punk. He was ready for whatever. He was a real one.”
He went on: “But I was like, ‘I cannot bring this n-gga around my homies ‘cause it’s going to be like oil and fire.’ When 2Pac got to L.A., he went 10,000 mph. I knew it! I was like, ‘I cannot bring this n-gga around my homies,’ so I literally made a conscious effort to not ever bring 2Pac to — he found his way to Richie Rich; he gave ‘Pac the town.”
“I said I wouldn’t do it ‘cause I wouldn’t want that guilt. I can’t bring ’em around them n-ggas ‘cause the kind of n-ggas I was running with the time, they would have been like, ‘Oh you wanna be a G? Come on n-gga, let’s go be a G.’”
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Too $hort and 2Pac collaborated on the single “We Do This” featuring MC Breed and Father Dom from Short’s 1995 album Cocktails. Almost a year later, 2Pac died following a drive-by shooting.
