Speaker 1: Hello, my loves It is Lala Kent with Randal and
Speaker 1: if you guys have forgotten, this is the Give Them
Speaker 1: La La with Randall podcast. We've taken a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks off.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we are glad to be back. I can
Speaker 2: tell you that the thing is, you know we were
Speaker 2: going to come back last week, and we didn't really know.
Speaker 2: I actually think we were ready. We just didn't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't know. I didn't know how.
Speaker 1: I couldn't start. I couldn't like sit in this room
Speaker 1: with a microphone in front of me and just fucking
Speaker 1: speak when I knew that there were things going on
Speaker 1: outside of this room that I could be a part of.
Speaker 2: Well, you went. You went to a lot of protests.
Speaker 2: I went to a couple, but you were at a
Speaker 2: lot of them. I mean, uh, And I just think
Speaker 2: it would have just been irresponsible of us to come
Speaker 2: back in here when we were still processing, when we
Speaker 2: were still having conversations. I definitely was having a lot,
Speaker 2: and I know you were. We've been doing a lot
Speaker 2: of listening and a lot of reflection, and we think
Speaker 2: the best thing for us to do is to continue listening.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: So having said that we are back, today, and I
Speaker 2: am very excited about our guests because our guest is
Speaker 2: the amazing, insightful, incredibly talented and friend of ours. I
Speaker 2: always say that long I would say everybody is a
Speaker 2: fucking friend of ours.
Speaker 1: But Too Short, Too Short, Too Short, someone who I've
Speaker 1: been a fan of since I was a young kid
Speaker 1: living in Utah turning up to his music.
Speaker 2: And you've been asking have you been you been actually
Speaker 2: actually since I introduced you to Too Short? What about
Speaker 2: I don't know, a year ago or something. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: were asked when we get our podcast going, you got
Speaker 2: to get him on the air, And I was like,
Speaker 2: of course, I'll come on. So it's just really cool
Speaker 2: that you know, he has become a friend. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, I think Too Short is like in
Speaker 2: my age demographic, and I think, you know, with what
Speaker 2: is happening right now in the Black Lives Matter movement,
Speaker 2: I just think he's going to have a lot to
Speaker 2: share with us and for a lot for us to
Speaker 2: learn from. And you know one thing I'm going to say,
Speaker 2: Lala say it is that I talk a lot.
Speaker 1: I know I've done nothing but listen since I just
Speaker 1: introduced the reintroduced.
Speaker 2: The podcast, Lala, I'm still talking.
Speaker 1: I know, Okay, keep going. So what I want to say,
Speaker 1: we wrap it up, keep going, say what you know.
Speaker 2: What I'm going to say is that today I really
Speaker 2: want to do a lot of listening. And I think
Speaker 2: it's important, even in my age, even at forty nine
Speaker 2: years old, I think that this movement of Black Lives
Speaker 2: Matter is it's just time for everybody to listen, no
Speaker 2: matter how you're raised or how diverse you are. You know,
Speaker 2: I consider myself really, and I mean this very diverse,
Speaker 2: and and you know, and a lot of the work
Speaker 2: that I've produced represents that, But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: that's I think.
Speaker 1: There's always room for more education. I've throughout these past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, you know, I've gone to protests, I've
Speaker 1: purchased a lot of books. I've listened to my black
Speaker 1: friends and how they feel about this, and I just
Speaker 1: feel like what we have been doing is not enough.
Speaker 1: It's not enough to just have the conversation once. It's
Speaker 1: not enough to just go to a protest, like we
Speaker 1: have to do better. Period.
Speaker 2: We are seeing a lot of people being held accountable now,
Speaker 2: which I am so proud to see. I think It's
Speaker 2: the first time for me that I've seen an uprising
Speaker 2: in such a unified way. I mean, it moves me
Speaker 2: when I'm watching these protests here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And they've been amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just I mean seeing people from ten years
Speaker 2: old with their parents up to you know, ninety something
Speaker 2: years old. Tim, Did you see that There's a guy
Speaker 2: that couldn't make it to a protest and I think
Speaker 2: they went to his house and they they brought him
Speaker 2: to the streets to because he wanted to be part
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, to see amazing. I mean, it
Speaker 2: just shows you that, you know, I have no excuse.
Speaker 2: Nobody has an excuse to not participate time.
Speaker 1: Sorry, if Jennifer Lopez is getting her ass out there
Speaker 1: and protesting, you have no excuse, all right.
Speaker 3: The cool thing is it's not just happening in the
Speaker 3: big cities. That's that's kind of what amazes me. There's
Speaker 3: like towns of you know, a couple thousand people, yeah,
Speaker 3: holding protests like on their main street, just holding signs,
Speaker 3: and they're still out there showing their support and I
Speaker 3: think are showing up.
Speaker 2: I agree. But even in even in the Valley of
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, which we call the Valley shertman Oaks. I
Speaker 2: was driving with my daughter and we came to the
Speaker 2: Sepulvida Ventura corner and there's like ten people on that corner,
Speaker 2: even though the larger protests were happening in downtown all that.
Speaker 2: And my daughter said, oh, Daddy, that's the Black Lives
Speaker 2: Matters protests, Like she knew. I've had the conversation and
Speaker 2: she's watched TV and we've talked about it, but I
Speaker 2: mean for her to just recognize, and she said, roll
Speaker 2: down the window. And I rolled down the window and
Speaker 2: they're saying honk, and she's, dad, honk, let them know.
Speaker 2: And it was just It's just one of those moments
Speaker 2: that you're just so proud to be part of something
Speaker 2: that has so overdue, and I'm just so glad so
Speaker 2: many millions of people are being involved and not letting
Speaker 2: this just be a weekend thing or a weekday conversation.
Speaker 1: This is every single day. I'm getting a message from
Speaker 1: one of my friends saying, this is the meeting spot tonight.
Speaker 1: We're protesting it this time, and it's like it just
Speaker 1: gives me chills. I feel like I've supported this movement
Speaker 1: since it started. Even before it started. I love the
Speaker 1: black community so so much. And to see every single
Speaker 1: I mean we down or Hollywood had twenty thousand protesters
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and to think that this is this
Speaker 1: is going to be a part of history, like when
Speaker 1: I have children or my grandbabies, I'm going to remember
Speaker 1: this time, be like we did something. We did something, yep, and.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, now I'm ready to you know,
Speaker 2: put a smile on people's faces. But also you don't happen.
Speaker 1: Well, how should you not put a smile on someone's
Speaker 1: face when you tell him that too Short is going
Speaker 1: to be on the podcast? And so today, like I
Speaker 1: really just want to hone in on like where he started,
Speaker 1: how he got his name too Short? Like where did
Speaker 1: that come from? I want to know it all he's
Speaker 1: worked with, I mean, he worked with the mac dre
Speaker 1: king of Like, let's get Hyphi, come on, everybody, let's
Speaker 1: all get down. You know, the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: Myself very educated in hip hop, I do not know
Speaker 2: who Mactra is.
Speaker 4: I can't.
Speaker 2: I think that's bad. I'm gonna have to ask.
Speaker 1: I do like this, put a look on your face
Speaker 1: like he's Miles some piece, you know, the Thiszle dance.
Speaker 1: You just gotta break it down, break it down, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I saw you know he he has had
Speaker 1: a very amazing career and worked with artists that I
Speaker 1: grew up listening to, and I just want to pick
Speaker 1: his brain. I want him to mention it all. So
Speaker 1: please try to not talk a lot, because I just
Speaker 1: want to hear Too Short through my headphones the entire time.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't see the look on his face. He's eyeballing
Speaker 1: me hard. Look at him. He's like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I can do this. He can't even respond special
Speaker 1: baby for the first time ever?
Speaker 2: Should I just go home now?
Speaker 1: No? No, no? I love I love you next to me. Okay,
Speaker 1: I love it all right you guys. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have Too Short. I'm gonna have to show
Speaker 1: my baby some love. I think I might have hurt
Speaker 1: his feelings.
Speaker 2: You mean this time or all the time.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of making up to do. We
Speaker 1: will be right back. Hey, babes, we are back and
Speaker 1: we have my boy Too Short. What's up Short? How
Speaker 1: you doing life?
Speaker 5: I'm good, I'm good. Good to see you guys. What's up?
Speaker 1: We're glad you're here, Grateful that you're here. Man.
Speaker 5: Last time I saw you were in the club turning up.
Speaker 2: Wait, how crazy is it in life? Short that that
Speaker 2: we went from having a club party to being locked
Speaker 2: down for three months so far, the first time we've
Speaker 2: had a guest here post COVID, you know, even though
Speaker 2: COVID still exists, but first time so that we're excited
Speaker 2: to have you here live with us. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the world has changed. Twenty twenty is is
Speaker 5: going to be memorable.
Speaker 2: It's going to go down in history. So I just
Speaker 2: want to start for people that don't know as much
Speaker 2: as we know. Obviously, you're one of the biggest recording
Speaker 2: artists in the world, one of the greatest tell us.
Speaker 2: I always like to start, like from the beginning, So
Speaker 2: how does it happen? How do you get into music?
Speaker 2: Why do you get into music? And what was the
Speaker 2: evolution to get you kind of to your spot when
Speaker 2: you had your first song released and started the blow up.
Speaker 5: Well, it starts in elementary school as a music student
Speaker 5: and just always wanted to We always had like instruments
Speaker 5: around our house, even though neither one of my parents
Speaker 5: were musicians, but we just had like it would be
Speaker 5: a guitar there and some drums and some boungos and
Speaker 5: some just stuff to like, I don't know, tambourine, just
Speaker 5: laying around out fun and I would beat on those
Speaker 5: drums and I was, I was in my mind, I
Speaker 5: was a drummer.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 5: So the first chance I got, I enrolled in music
Speaker 5: classes and I started learning how to play drums. I
Speaker 5: ended up being in the marching band for a couple
Speaker 5: of years. And when I got to high school, tenth grade, Oakland, California,
Speaker 5: I was in the band. And that's when I first
Speaker 5: probably like you know, eighth, ninth grade, I was. I
Speaker 5: cut school a couple of times. Tenth grade is when
Speaker 5: I bravely ventured out and I said, I'm just gonna
Speaker 5: take some time off and I might go to school
Speaker 5: for a couple of classes, and I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: I was jumping the fence and in your guard and
Speaker 5: running the streets and just wanted to run with the
Speaker 5: bad kids for a while now. And I remember this
Speaker 5: very distinctively. The band teacher came over to me and
Speaker 5: he had already you know, praised my skills, and you know,
Speaker 5: I was, I was talented, and he said that his
Speaker 5: class was a privilege and that if I was gonna
Speaker 5: be cutting school that after a certain amount of days,
Speaker 5: you get dropped from a class. He said, if you
Speaker 5: get dropped from my class, you can never take my
Speaker 5: class again. I'm the only band teacher in the school.
Speaker 5: You can never do it again. Wow, And I got dropped,
Speaker 5: will I will admit it. I tried to play cool
Speaker 5: because when you know, high school is like the band
Speaker 5: is kind of funny, you know, like you could be
Speaker 5: a cool guy in the band, but it takes a lot.
Speaker 2: So well, I gotta tell you one thing. So I
Speaker 2: was a theater kid, so I understand, like I wasn't
Speaker 2: cool like you. I was like what they call I mean,
Speaker 2: they called me like a theater gig. But you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I totally understand. I
Speaker 2: was like, I tried to fit in the normal.
Speaker 5: I'm already in with the crowd. But then you're cool,
Speaker 5: You're what they find out. I love band, You're out,
Speaker 5: You're right, like it'd be the butt of a lot
Speaker 5: of jokes. So the band guy told me I can
Speaker 5: I can never play play in the band again. And
Speaker 5: I remember eleventh grade twelfth grade, just always seeing him
Speaker 5: going like really like in my inside, like really like
Speaker 5: going ship. I wanted to be in the band.
Speaker 1: That's really cute.
Speaker 5: But rap music came along and right at the same
Speaker 5: right around the same time, that love for music was
Speaker 5: replaced with me trying to trying to be like the
Speaker 5: hip hop record.
Speaker 1: You know. Wait, so so hip hop didn't into play
Speaker 1: until you were about starting junior. Okay.
Speaker 5: I first heard rap music in ninth grade.
Speaker 2: Wait what year? What year was?
Speaker 5: Nineteen seventy nine was ninth grade?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: And what did you hear for the first time?
Speaker 5: Rappers Delight was the first really rap song that I
Speaker 5: heard that was on the radio. There were other songs.
Speaker 4: Before that, but rappers Delight was the one that was
Speaker 4: the banger.
Speaker 5: It was like, you know, rotation on the radio. Just
Speaker 5: wherever you went you heard rappers Delight. So I just
Speaker 5: knew I could do it. In nineteen eighty, I went
Speaker 5: to tenth grade and I just tried it. One day.
Speaker 5: I just tried to put I put this instrumental record on,
Speaker 5: like you know, twelve inch records used to have yeah,
Speaker 5: yea yeah on the flip side. I put the record
Speaker 5: on and I did it.
Speaker 2: That's it, And I just rapped, and I just you.
Speaker 5: Know, from that point on, I would make little homemade raps.
Speaker 5: But I think that was that filled in that void
Speaker 5: of not being in the band, because I still get
Speaker 5: that satisfation.
Speaker 2: So you start, you start doing your own like basically raps,
Speaker 2: your own records, and then you graduate. I mean, do
Speaker 2: you graduate high school?
Speaker 5: I didn't graduate by choice?
Speaker 2: Explain that. What does that mean?
Speaker 5: I had a dream, Like I knew things were you know,
Speaker 5: I was making money, I was doing stuff. Yeah, and okay,
Speaker 5: the high school graduation thing is has a lot to
Speaker 5: do with me growing up in private school. So I
Speaker 5: went to Catholic school most of my years and you know,
Speaker 5: pretty smart. Yeah, And I get to high school and
Speaker 5: I go to public school, and they're guys, this is
Speaker 5: you know, it's kind of like what we were talking
Speaker 5: about before we got on the air, about just all
Speaker 5: the ills of the world, and one of them is
Speaker 5: the public school system in the inner cities. And it's
Speaker 5: really something that I couldn't grasp at first. So I
Speaker 5: get to tenth grade and I'm fourteen fifteen, and there
Speaker 5: are guys fourteen fifteen who can't read. Wow, but they
Speaker 5: go to school every day and they have special classes
Speaker 5: to help, you know, they call them remedio classes. And
Speaker 5: you can go to English math and you don't have
Speaker 5: to learn shit. You go to math class and they
Speaker 5: give you a calculator and all your work is plus
Speaker 5: minus and subtraction division.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you get a wow.
Speaker 5: So when I got to twelfth grade, I was doing
Speaker 5: my fair share of fucking up.
Speaker 6: I love that I was doing my fair share the
Speaker 6: fucking up escalator basically from I was keeping a chart
Speaker 6: of how to graduate the right credits, and you know, oh,
Speaker 6: you're working.
Speaker 5: I was on my fair share of fucking up. I
Speaker 5: wasn't fucking all the way.
Speaker 2: Right, but you knew enough of how to get out
Speaker 2: of high school.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was. I was maintaining a D average on purpose.
Speaker 2: It was pretty pretty easy. I was a D student
Speaker 2: without with trying. So so that shows you a stupid eye.
Speaker 2: Om but okay, go ahead.
Speaker 5: So I got the twelfth grade and everybody's getting all
Speaker 5: excited about being seniors and the events you get to
Speaker 5: be participating in and not just I didn't have any
Speaker 5: school spirit by twelfth grade. I was like, I don't
Speaker 5: give a fuck if we win the next game. I
Speaker 5: don't care about what's going on after school, you know,
Speaker 5: I just didn't care anymore.
Speaker 2: And I had a dream, but at this point, your
Speaker 2: dream is to be a rapper position or a pimp
Speaker 2: or a pim. So it's one of the threat musician.
Speaker 5: They were all. They were all very lucid, very bright,
Speaker 5: and very lucrative.
Speaker 2: So this is amazing.
Speaker 5: I was just I was so affected by my friends
Speaker 5: who we would you know, the newspapers a big deal
Speaker 5: and you like something would happened. He was like, let
Speaker 5: me read it, and I let a lot of buddies
Speaker 5: who couldn't read. And my one buddy, I remember him
Speaker 5: staying to me, he was kind of like like rubbing
Speaker 5: it in and I didn't have the right credits to
Speaker 5: and he was gonna he was like, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 5: ain't even gonna be a graduation. And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 5: you can't even say the word. You keep saying gratulation
Speaker 5: and you can't even read it. You can't even read,
Speaker 5: and it wasn't it's funny, but it's not.
Speaker 2: It's not funny.
Speaker 5: And if the guys walked, they got their cap and gown,
Speaker 5: they got their diplomas.
Speaker 2: But they can't read. But they can't read a book.
Speaker 5: I was like, I don't even want that ship.
Speaker 2: That ship.
Speaker 5: I was like two credits short of a diploma and
Speaker 5: want that ship even like it counts is like, go,
Speaker 5: do you get your ged? Fuck all this right, I'm
Speaker 5: about to get money, dude, I love it.
Speaker 2: Now what happens? So? Yeah?
Speaker 5: So, I mean I had a plan. It never once
Speaker 5: in my mind, like your parents put that fear in you,
Speaker 5: and it never once affected me.
Speaker 2: You weren't ever worried you.
Speaker 5: This was not going to work. I'm like, this shit
Speaker 5: sounds good. This didn't. I just knew it. Like you,
Speaker 5: a lot of us in life say this when you
Speaker 5: ask us, when you look back and go, well, what
Speaker 5: was the part where there was no curve? I just knew.
Speaker 1: You just knew, and you knew that you would do
Speaker 1: whatever it took to get to that place.
Speaker 5: Because everywhere I went, every time I got on the
Speaker 5: mic at a party, they loved it. Every time Wow
Speaker 5: all may tape, they loved it. I'm like, everybody loves
Speaker 5: this shit.
Speaker 2: So what's the first moment now between eighteen and twenty
Speaker 2: one that it happens for you? I had a professional
Speaker 2: on a financial level. When does it happen?
Speaker 5: And how I got an opening slot on a big
Speaker 5: show that came through Oakland and it was probably like
Speaker 5: somewhere in the neighborhood, about seven thousands, and the.
Speaker 1: Crowd, Wow, that's a big crowd that's.
Speaker 5: Never had a song on the radio. I never had
Speaker 5: a record deal. I never had a record I never
Speaker 5: had anything.
Speaker 1: Did you have to like audition for this spot or
Speaker 1: had someone heard you?
Speaker 5: Promoter? The guy who his name was Lionel B. And
Speaker 5: he worked for Bill Grand Bill Graham was a big
Speaker 5: promoter and Lionel B did the urban stuff for Bill
Speaker 5: Graham Bayry Productions, and h he put me on the spot.
Speaker 5: He knew about me in the streets. He knew. And
Speaker 5: I got up there with no radio, no nothing, no contract,
Speaker 5: no nothing, and I started rapping these songs that I
Speaker 5: would sell in the streets. And the entire crowd knew
Speaker 5: all the words shut up and it shocked.
Speaker 2: They knew the word oh oh, so you were big
Speaker 2: under ground kind of.
Speaker 5: Everybody was in shocked. They're like, I got off stage
Speaker 5: and people were going, who the fuck are you?
Speaker 1: Did you have any idea that you were so big
Speaker 1: in like the underground world, or was.
Speaker 5: Like, what was that moment I got the bus to
Speaker 5: the show that day?
Speaker 2: Wow? You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Bo Wait, So I borrowed the clothes that I was wearing.
Speaker 5: I wanted to look fly. I had to go borrow
Speaker 5: some clothes from Oh my god, this is so cousin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what happens after that moment?
Speaker 5: So after that moment I had already I had to
Speaker 5: dream the dream was real. Right, And a friend of
Speaker 5: mine who he was a drug dealer's little brother, a
Speaker 5: big time drug dealer's little brother, and he played football,
Speaker 5: not the drug dealers, the little right, right, and the
Speaker 5: little brother a little come around hours. He was the
Speaker 5: guy who'd come around and he'd have like the best,
Speaker 5: best weed and he'd be drunk.
Speaker 1: You always want to be friends with that guy.
Speaker 5: He'd be driving one of his brother's brand new cars.
Speaker 5: He was always and he'd just pull up on us
Speaker 5: and he'd be you know, I'm talking like we're right
Speaker 5: out of high school, we're eighteen, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you want to smoke some of this week? He's got
Speaker 5: the best fucking weed. And then he's like sprinkling a
Speaker 5: little cocaine across and we're like, oh, this dude ship.
Speaker 5: So he was the moment we knew he was a
Speaker 5: little brother. He wasn't giving him credit for that. He
Speaker 5: was on our level, but he was the little brother
Speaker 5: who could do things right. And he was doing the
Speaker 5: big Willie. I mean, he's like, yeah, you know, my
Speaker 5: brother owned a label, man, and blah blah blah. His
Speaker 5: brother's the kind of guy would ride by the brand
Speaker 5: new Mercedes. It's like nineteen eighty five. He might wave
Speaker 5: at you, you like, you know, you got an image,
Speaker 5: you got a certain perception of him. So he said,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna take you induce to my brother. He got
Speaker 5: a label, and he takes me up there, and you know,
Speaker 5: after a while, it didn't happen like right off the
Speaker 5: back of his brother to just kind of shitty at first,
Speaker 5: a little bitty. He wouldn't let us in the door,
Speaker 5: like come first couple of times he's like, yeah, just
Speaker 5: come back, come back twenty minutes. So finally he let
Speaker 5: us in. Yeah, and you know, he showed me all
Speaker 5: this shit. He had all this equipment, and you know,
Speaker 5: all these fabulous people would come by, and musicians and
Speaker 5: professional sports players, and all this stuff, and he took
Speaker 5: me to the studio and the shit it just hit
Speaker 5: from day one, It just it just worked. And I
Speaker 5: did three albums with They had a label called seventy
Speaker 5: five Girls. And this was the best experience. If I
Speaker 5: looked at it like my internship to the music industry,
Speaker 5: it was the best. It was the best. I mean literally,
Speaker 5: like I think I could have been a drug addict
Speaker 5: if it wasn't or that experience, because there were seasoned
Speaker 5: musicians and people who are around who were really addicted
Speaker 5: to like crack, some of them did heroin. It was
Speaker 5: like like big musicians, like they were like I would
Speaker 5: never drop names because it was literally people that played
Speaker 5: for all three sports teams Oakland A's, the Warriors, oh
Speaker 5: and the Raiders would stop by and it was just
Speaker 5: you know, it was it was nuts. It was that lifestyle.
Speaker 5: So so I got to see people just sit there
Speaker 5: and smoke coke and snorted and I was snorting a
Speaker 5: lot of coke myself, and we put the cocaine and
Speaker 5: the cigarettes and it was just it was all free
Speaker 5: and ship. The studio sessions used to be drug laced
Speaker 5: and it was, you know, just everybody was just but
Speaker 5: it was also like like I'm eighteen, and when you're eighteen,
Speaker 5: just getting out of high school. In high school, a
Speaker 5: lot of times you know the girls at your school
Speaker 5: date older guys, right, and it was a lot of
Speaker 5: like the super fine ones, they I'll mess with little boys.
Speaker 1: They want the grown metal.
Speaker 5: So here I am. I instantly end up in this
Speaker 5: crew with these guys, these musicians, and this big dreg
Speaker 5: dealer and we like he like takes me under his wing,
Speaker 5: and all these chicks who, like I know, who are
Speaker 5: like grown ass finance chicks are coming over his house
Speaker 5: and like taking their pants off and just hanging out
Speaker 5: in their panties and because they want to, they want
Speaker 5: to get high and they want to kick it.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And I'm just over there like a fly on the wall,
Speaker 5: you know, just kind of like just seeing how it
Speaker 5: all goes and player lifestyle and you know, the girls
Speaker 5: in there dancing in their underwear and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 5: guys like one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: And right, like you were more of an observer at.
Speaker 5: This It's almost like I was trained to find the
Speaker 5: things and that I liked, like what to do and what.
Speaker 1: Not to do.
Speaker 2: It was like it was like, it was basically like
Speaker 2: your graduation, your graduations. I got to see all that
Speaker 2: shit without actually touching it, right, you didn't go down
Speaker 2: that rabbit hole, because you saw it all happening in front.
Speaker 5: I saw that the guy who got all the money
Speaker 5: with the boss man. I saw the guy who did
Speaker 5: all the work and just wanted to get high, was,
Speaker 5: you know, riding around the fucked up car and just
Speaker 5: coming over even if drugs are free. But I'm like,
Speaker 5: I don't want that life, you know, right right? And
Speaker 5: it just it really prepared me for the next thing
Speaker 5: I did, which is wild start my own company.
Speaker 2: Okay, so now what happens with that?
Speaker 5: How the seventy five Girls was nineteen eighty five. I
Speaker 5: got at high school eighty four. In eighty five and
Speaker 5: eighty six, I was in that environment. I was just
Speaker 5: describing eight ten, nineteen years. I look back on it
Speaker 5: as a treasure because at the same time all this
Speaker 5: stuff is going on, the guy the boss band was
Speaker 5: running an independent label, and literally he would go to
Speaker 5: the studio, pay for the sessions. He would pay the musicians,
Speaker 5: he would pay the engineers. He would take it somewhere
Speaker 5: and get it all mixed down. He would take it
Speaker 5: somewhere else and have it all manufactured and cassettes and records,
Speaker 5: and then he would drive over to San rafael A,
Speaker 5: cross the bridge and drop it off to a distributor.
Speaker 5: Then he would take it to certain mom and pop
Speaker 5: stores that took product direct, and then he would wait
Speaker 5: a while and he'd go making rounds and he just
Speaker 5: pick up money and pick up checks.
Speaker 1: So he was it's like a one man show.
Speaker 5: But the whole way, he's telling me, I'm going over here,
Speaker 5: We're gonna go over here and talk to George, we're
Speaker 5: gonna stop by here, we're gonna pick up today, and you'
Speaker 5: dropping on he takes. I'm just I'm just learning everything.
Speaker 2: So you're basically getting an education of how to run
Speaker 2: a company, distribute your own product, go to the studio,
Speaker 2: release it.
Speaker 5: The whole thing, and the most important because a lot
Speaker 5: of people didn't know that part. Go get your fucking money.
Speaker 2: It's just because you put out a song or put
Speaker 2: out an album doesn't mean you're paid.
Speaker 5: And a lot of artists when they're young, they don't
Speaker 5: even want the money. They're like, you know, that's my guy,
Speaker 5: My guy, he's got everything.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm on the radio.
Speaker 5: Find out seven years later your guy is you know
Speaker 5: he took off your body. Yeah, so I got that
Speaker 5: was another lovely thing that everything I ever did in
Speaker 5: business since that little experience was I don't care who
Speaker 5: we're partners, what we're doing. I'm on the bank accounts.
Speaker 5: I'm the money does not come to anybody. It comes
Speaker 5: to either us or me, doesn't go it doesn't go
Speaker 5: three other parties. You're not gonna tell me the account
Speaker 5: and show me a piece of pain.
Speaker 2: By the way, my dad taught me as a kid
Speaker 2: when I was starting my production company twenty four years ago.
Speaker 2: He said, always be the signer. Don't let anybody else sign,
Speaker 2: no matter what. And I took that to heart, and
Speaker 2: I even told you that lot like you always want
Speaker 2: to be signing your own stuff. It doesn't even matter
Speaker 2: if it's a.
Speaker 1: So no one's signing or doing anything on my behalf.
Speaker 1: I freak out if I lose the dollar.
Speaker 5: I pick up any to this day. By the way,
Speaker 5: I don't really collect anything. If I drop it, I'm picking.
Speaker 2: By the way, I respect I respect that. By the way,
Speaker 2: if you want to talk about the cheapest person on
Speaker 2: the planet is my fiance.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, people said I keep stying for his money. No,
Speaker 1: I'm as a.
Speaker 2: Lot of money. She just keeps it all.
Speaker 1: No, I like it all myself.
Speaker 5: Short.
Speaker 1: I gotta know real quick, when did you get the
Speaker 1: name too short? Was that something you chose for yourself?
Speaker 5: My room name is Todd. And when I got to
Speaker 5: high school, I didn't have a nickname, and my brothers
Speaker 5: was My brother was two grades ahead of me. So
Speaker 5: I get to tenth grade. He's in twelfth grade, and
Speaker 5: they're like the seniors of the school, and he and
Speaker 5: I kind of the first thing I did when I
Speaker 5: got to school was kind of clicked up with them
Speaker 5: a little bit because they're already established crew and I'm
Speaker 5: going to a high school. I didn't really know anybody,
Speaker 5: and they I remember, I remember clear as day. We
Speaker 5: was sitting around and they go, well, shit, we damn
Speaker 5: sure're not gonna call you Todd. So and they started
Speaker 5: these are older guys, right, They started throwing all these
Speaker 5: names out, like they're gonna call men that ain't working,
Speaker 5: that ain't working, that ain't working. And then this dude
Speaker 5: came up who everybody knew. His name was Shorty and
Speaker 5: he walks up to the group of people while the
Speaker 5: joke is on, and he's a little bit taller than me,
Speaker 5: and they're like, damn you, he can't name you. He's
Speaker 5: shorter than Shorty, Like somebody said, you're just fucking short.
Speaker 5: So my name was never too short. My name was
Speaker 5: always short because there was a dude name Shorty that
Speaker 5: was taller than me. So my name was short got it.
Speaker 5: And I hated that ship is stuff well for you though, yeah,
Speaker 5: and it just and it was just it was a joke,
Speaker 5: like short was always a fucking joke with him, and
Speaker 5: then I flipped it on him. One day, we went
Speaker 5: to see this movie called Penitentiary and the league character
Speaker 5: his name was too Sweet, and he was in jail
Speaker 5: and he was boxing in jail, but they would let
Speaker 5: him out of jail to go get pussy and everybody
Speaker 5: he fought, he beat their ass. He was the hero
Speaker 5: of the movie. So one day I was talking to
Speaker 5: this bum, a homeless guy and I always hung out
Speaker 5: with my brother and them, and they left me. They
Speaker 5: went in the party. I was I was too little
Speaker 5: to go in the party. So it's probably like a
Speaker 5: Friday night and I'm hanging out of this party for
Speaker 5: two three hours talking to this homeless guy. Yeah, because
Speaker 5: my brother didn't will let me go in the party.
Speaker 5: But I'm my mother. My mother probably like, well, if
Speaker 5: you want to go, you gotta take him. So it
Speaker 5: was that type of thing. Oh, I didn't mind. So
Speaker 5: I'm hanging outside. I'm asking us. I used to always
Speaker 5: ask homeless people questions. I still do. Really, just how
Speaker 5: was life? You know, that's nice, but you get a
Speaker 5: lot of information.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been through some ship.
Speaker 2: Well. I went to school, prit Art High School in Miami,
Speaker 2: in downtown, and it was filled with all those people,
Speaker 2: and I used to have conversations. I used to you know,
Speaker 2: wh I hear things. Maybe not as a death, but
Speaker 2: I definitely always was opened mind.
Speaker 1: So I can see it in Short's eyes. He gives it.
Speaker 1: Damn about it.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, it's cool to give a fuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you give a lot of fus. I
Speaker 1: can tell by his eyes.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I told them. The homeless guy asked me
Speaker 5: what my name was, and I didn't want to say Todd,
Speaker 5: so and I didn't want to stay short. I didn't
Speaker 5: have ship to say, so I thought of the movie
Speaker 5: you're too sweet, and I thought the joke was short,
Speaker 5: and I said, yeah, my name is too short, and
Speaker 5: that's how yeah, and so he kind of, uh when
Speaker 5: my brother name came out the party, he kind of
Speaker 5: was like saying, all right, all right, you know, like
Speaker 5: we like we homies and were saying goodbye, yeah, and
Speaker 5: he yelled out my name and then it just it.
Speaker 2: Just took off.
Speaker 5: It just took off, like he called me too short
Speaker 5: in front of him and they were like that that's it,
Speaker 5: and he said it kind of cool, like too so
Speaker 5: it put a little swag on.
Speaker 1: It, and I really got some swag.
Speaker 5: And then I started rapping. I started rapping. I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm too short. Was it was initially sir too short?
Speaker 2: Oh. I.
Speaker 5: I went to the mall one day. I got me
Speaker 5: a hat. It was a black hat with gold letters.
Speaker 5: It said sir too short. And when he got the jacket,
Speaker 5: the match with the too short, it's an international on
Speaker 5: this sleeve and player on that sleeve, and I was
Speaker 5: instantly too short.
Speaker 2: At the end.
Speaker 1: That homeless man single handedly put you in the direction
Speaker 1: of being too We.
Speaker 5: Killed the joke that day.
Speaker 2: It was no, it was never the joke was over
Speaker 2: from that day on International Superstar. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: we're gonna take quick break because we have a lot
Speaker 2: more to talk about, uh, and we'll be right back
Speaker 2: with too Short, Too Short.
Speaker 1: All Right, y'all, we are back, and we have too Short.
Speaker 1: He is talking to us about the good old day.
Speaker 1: Is I like, I feel like I'm sitting here cheesing
Speaker 1: because like you're a great storyteller.
Speaker 2: Short, Yeah, really good.
Speaker 1: Listen to you for hours. It's life, a great life
Speaker 1: I can tell.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask a questions. So, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is factual, but people say that
Speaker 2: you're likely the only rappers who have recorded with both Tupac,
Speaker 2: b I G and jay Z. I mean, I just
Speaker 2: want to have a story to the greatness of your
Speaker 2: ability mixing with their ability. Just something.
Speaker 5: Well, I know there's there's a combination of artists. There's
Speaker 5: a lot of artists who have a combination of you know,
Speaker 5: two of the three or whatever. But no, I've been
Speaker 5: on I was on two Biggie albums and two jay
Speaker 5: Z albums, so oh, I don't think anybody's done that.
Speaker 5: And then also, you know, during the during the so
Speaker 5: called East Coast West Coast Beef and all that stuff.
Speaker 5: I was neutral. I was kind of like I lived
Speaker 5: in Atlanta at the time, and you couldn't bring that
Speaker 5: to me, Like it just it wasn't I was not
Speaker 5: a part of that thing because had a lot of
Speaker 5: friends in Atlanta, a lot of friends in New York,
Speaker 5: a lot of friends in la and a lot of
Speaker 5: friends at Death Row and a lot of friends at
Speaker 5: Bad Boys.
Speaker 2: So you were in every you were part of everything,
Speaker 2: Like relationships.
Speaker 5: I was really cool with Tupac, Snoop Dogg and Shig Night.
Speaker 5: I was really really cool with uh Notoris Big and
Speaker 5: Puff Daddy and BIG's crew. And it was just a
Speaker 5: thing like if you were positioned properly at the time,
Speaker 5: that thing was between them and other people started going back.
Speaker 5: Ride with Tupac man, I ride with Big. I'm the
Speaker 5: East Coast on West Coast. But if you were positioned properly,
Speaker 5: like I was with the bosses and you know, as
Speaker 5: well as with the artists, and like, right, I don't
Speaker 5: think I'm not in your politics. I'm from I'm I'm
Speaker 5: from Oakland. We have it right, and we byry We're
Speaker 5: not East or West Bay. That's how we played it.
Speaker 2: How was what What's I mean? Do you have a
Speaker 2: story from two backed Share that was like special or
Speaker 2: I mean these are legends obviously to all of us
Speaker 2: sitting here listening.
Speaker 5: I'm older than all these guys. I'm the big homie.
Speaker 5: Like I'm like platinum millions of records. So before any
Speaker 5: of these guys get in.
Speaker 2: The game, oh shit, So you know I didn't know
Speaker 2: that before.
Speaker 5: Jay Z, before Big, before Snoop and Park, I'm platinum
Speaker 5: out there already. These guys literally grew up listening to
Speaker 5: two Short like literally, so you were.
Speaker 2: Like the godfather to them. As they were coming up.
Speaker 2: They looked up to you and me as an artist,
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, I had the success, but Tupac was
Speaker 5: really good friends with people that I worked with. I
Speaker 5: worked with a guitar player named Shorty B. He also
Speaker 5: worked with Digital Underground. Okay, I worked with a keyboard
Speaker 5: player named pee Wee and he also worked with Digital Underground.
Speaker 5: So Digital Underground is a very funky band that made
Speaker 5: the Humpty Dance and songs like that, and the leader
Speaker 5: of the band was a musician, he was a keyboard player,
Speaker 5: and we did a lot of stuff together. Are clicks
Speaker 5: were really close. I knew the management. Excuse me, I
Speaker 5: knew the DJ knew you know, we were close. You
Speaker 5: can go back and look at a DVD. It sounds
Speaker 5: funny to save it.
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 5: It's like I did a thing called short Dogs in
Speaker 5: the House, named after one of my albums. We used
Speaker 5: to always have like a little video thing to go
Speaker 5: concert or whatever to go with the album. And I
Speaker 5: didn't notice it two years later. But Tupac's like a
Speaker 5: little guy in the background, just like dancing and kicking,
Speaker 5: and he's you know, shot g is the leader of
Speaker 5: digit Underground. He was hosting my party. So he's going
Speaker 5: around a microphone interviewing people. And Tupac was like, you know,
Speaker 5: he's a little homie and we were always close.
Speaker 1: Like that, So wait, how can we see this?
Speaker 4: How can I see this called short Dogs in the House?
Speaker 4: Probably you or something like that.
Speaker 1: I have to see this.
Speaker 5: So Tupac would come around. He'd be around at times
Speaker 5: before he was really really famous. He'd be around because
Speaker 5: he used to hang out with Richie rich which is
Speaker 5: another one of my homies, and Richie rich was like
Speaker 5: his kind of Oakland mentor so to speak. Like his
Speaker 5: big homie from Oakland that took him around and you know,
Speaker 5: and got him accepted. Because if you go back and
Speaker 5: look at those videos, Brenda's got a baby and when
Speaker 5: my homies called, Like the video when my Homies, that's
Speaker 5: probably Tupac's first video before. That's he's in the car.
Speaker 5: That's Richie Rich. That's Richie Rich's car. That's you know,
Speaker 5: that's the that's the hommy. So Richie Rich is my
Speaker 5: hommy homie, and Tupac will come around. He'd be like
Speaker 5: the little hommy. You know, I'm Raisy. I'm like short dog.
Speaker 5: So I can't. I can't really Tupacs every time he
Speaker 5: ever appeared on the song it was the ship. So
Speaker 5: I'm a fan from day one. Brenda's got a baby.
Speaker 2: He's very prolific.
Speaker 5: He's a young cat, and he's saying these things that
Speaker 5: are big, big things to say, you know, I'm talking
Speaker 5: about teenage pregnancy. And then he does interviews, and in
Speaker 5: his interviews he's a voice. He's like really speaking on
Speaker 5: unjust thinks. Like from the start. So I'm admirer and
Speaker 5: admirer of his from the start, but when he comes around,
Speaker 5: I can't tell him.
Speaker 2: That he's like one of the greatest poets. Sound like
Speaker 2: we're knocking out.
Speaker 5: I'm like, what's up, homie?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: So we had that kind of relationship where we ended
Speaker 5: up on a few songs together because we hung out
Speaker 5: in the same circles and we get around each other.
Speaker 5: We would never He's one of those guys that I
Speaker 5: I do it with Snoop too. When I hang around
Speaker 5: those kind of guys, I kind of fade away because
Speaker 5: they're so fucking popular and so famous and so magnetic
Speaker 5: that they get all the attention, and I love it
Speaker 5: because I'm I never wanted to be famous, So when
Speaker 5: I get around those real famous guys, I kind of like, just.
Speaker 2: You're pretty famous. So I have all the hard time
Speaker 2: with this, I know, but.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be meaning I don't want to
Speaker 5: be face recognized.
Speaker 2: You just focus, you just kind of pull back.
Speaker 5: So I get around guys like that and I just
Speaker 5: take it off. I'm cool with that. So it was
Speaker 5: it was that kind of thing. We'd all get around
Speaker 5: each other, and I wouldn't I wouldn't try to be
Speaker 5: the loud guy in the room right or the or
Speaker 5: the you know, the one with all the glow So
Speaker 5: and those guys, those guys like Tupac would take over
Speaker 5: a room. If he came in the room, he'd take
Speaker 5: over big, same thing with big.
Speaker 2: They just right. Yeah, I didn't know either of them.
Speaker 5: And jay Z's on the quiet side. He doesn't. He
Speaker 5: doesn't really do a lot of loud ship talking.
Speaker 2: I met him and he seemed really really quiet and mellow.
Speaker 2: He's very calculated, very calculated.
Speaker 1: He's observing the room.
Speaker 5: But when they when they depict Tupac in movies, it
Speaker 5: kind of bothers me because I saw him quite often
Speaker 5: in my life, and he never was the same person twice. Like,
Speaker 5: he never was. He wasn't like I probably sounding like
Speaker 5: that once or twice maybe a lot of times he'd
Speaker 5: come up and he'd be very introspective or in an
Speaker 5: intelligent mood, or he'd be militant, or he'd be you know, gangster,
Speaker 5: or he'd just be quiet. He'd be smoking a cigarette,
Speaker 5: drinks and here, and like, he was never this person because.
Speaker 4: Oh I know how Tupac is, like you can, I don't,
Speaker 4: because it was just always different.
Speaker 5: He was a very multi faceted person. Yeah, listen to
Speaker 5: his music. One minute, he's saying, oh, you know, it's
Speaker 5: keep my sisters up, hold your head up next to
Speaker 5: me and saying, bitch stuck my dick.
Speaker 1: The next minute he's saying, I fucked your bitch, you
Speaker 1: fat motherfucker.
Speaker 5: I saw Tupac the night he got shot in Vegas,
Speaker 5: and uh, I mean, we're always at the fire he
Speaker 5: went to the fight.
Speaker 2: Okay. Uh.
Speaker 5: We stayed at that same hotel, the Luxor, and they
Speaker 5: were they had probably gotten to the altercation at the
Speaker 5: thing and went back to the hotel and we bumped
Speaker 5: into them on their way to the club. They said
Speaker 5: they had to they weren't wearing the clothes that they
Speaker 5: got shot, and they were wearing different clothes, and they said,
Speaker 5: we're gonna go about Sugarhouse changed and then go to
Speaker 5: the party. Come to come up to the clubs. You know,
Speaker 5: he's like, it's gonna be open, like everybody getting on
Speaker 5: the mic tonight. So you know, he figured me one
Speaker 5: of those nights where DJ spending different people's tracks and
Speaker 5: we all rock at the crowd and it's not the
Speaker 5: club wasn't that big and it was just probably it
Speaker 5: would have been the ship. Oh my god, it never happened.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's fucking epic. God, yeah, you were there. I
Speaker 2: mean you were there are hours before this last time
Speaker 2: been probably about them.
Speaker 5: Not two hours later we heard.
Speaker 2: About the shooting. Oh my god. And and not to
Speaker 2: you know, harp, but I mean, I know that moment
Speaker 2: changed the world for everybody. And obviously what's going on
Speaker 2: today we'll get into, but that that moment when you
Speaker 2: heard where were you when you heard it? Were you
Speaker 2: in the club?
Speaker 5: Were you We were on our way to the club,
Speaker 5: and there were run around pretty quick, and and even
Speaker 5: the crime scenees, you know, like it was all that
Speaker 5: whole intersection.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal.
Speaker 5: But but it was you know, there was there was
Speaker 5: a buzz in the air that night that that it
Speaker 5: was going to be some friction, because really, I would
Speaker 5: I'm wondering, like, was it from the time of the
Speaker 5: fight until the time of shooting. It could have been
Speaker 5: like two three hours or something somewhere in there, and
Speaker 5: it was in the air. It was like death row
Speaker 5: got into it with some cribs and blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: So it was people who were saying, it's probably gonna
Speaker 5: be a thing at the club.
Speaker 2: Oh, so you you knew there was something going to
Speaker 2: have it, but nobody back to this right. It was
Speaker 2: just like and I mean we're still going to the club. Wow.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: My old theory back then was like you go to
Speaker 5: a place where you think it might be some violence.
Speaker 5: I'm like, shit, it's gonna be bound people. The bullet
Speaker 5: ain't gonna hit me.
Speaker 2: Wow. That was my theory. Oh well, let me let
Speaker 2: me pivot here for a second. Uh. You know, I
Speaker 2: you know, you've been a friend, You've showed up for us,
Speaker 2: and you've uh performed for us when you didn't have to,
Speaker 2: you know, and and we're very generous, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think that now the last week, what we've all
Speaker 2: been through with you know, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously has changed the world. You know, I
Speaker 2: hope for the better. And uh and I hope a
Speaker 2: lot of people uh open their eyes you know to
Speaker 2: things that you know, we're artists, we were talking about
Speaker 2: it before. You know, as artists, you know, you grow
Speaker 2: up and you don't see the things that maybe other people,
Speaker 2: how other people treat each other. Because we work with everybody.
Speaker 2: You know, whether you're black, white, purple, green, female, male, gay, straight,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. It's at least the way I was
Speaker 2: raised and grew up in the arts. But today, you know,
Speaker 2: but that's not the world everywhere else you were telling me,
Speaker 2: you know, you were just saying, how that's one percent,
Speaker 2: you know, of LA is.
Speaker 5: A different a different thing when you specifically, specifically talking
Speaker 5: about Hollywood and being on video sets and TV sets
Speaker 5: and movie sets and in the offices that running production companies,
Speaker 5: and it's it's very, very diverse in Hollywood and all
Speaker 5: aspects of from the highest to the lows, as far
Speaker 5: as directors and producers and all the casting directors.
Speaker 2: You never know, right, it doesn't. But but then you
Speaker 2: go outside the rest of the country and the world
Speaker 2: and that doesn't exist. And so now here we are today,
Speaker 2: you know, with the protests going on, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't even know, if not how the
Speaker 2: numbers compare it to other big but to me, it
Speaker 2: feels like the world is gonna have to wake up, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, they're gonna have to wake up and and
Speaker 2: it make change.
Speaker 5: We're gonna keep doing the same thing, and if we
Speaker 5: don't do something different, it's gonna be the same thing.
Speaker 5: And the same thing is it always comes to a
Speaker 5: point where we go, oh my god, let's discuss this, right,
Speaker 5: and we come with all these solutions, and it just
Speaker 5: seems yeah, it just you know, because this has been
Speaker 5: serious for about this has been a serious, Okay, we'll
Speaker 5: fix it for about ten plus years, like seriously, Like
Speaker 5: cops are unjustly choking people out. That's been a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and it doesn't seem to go away, like it's just
Speaker 5: and to me, it's like a cycle. Yeah to me,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm I'm fifty four, and I came up
Speaker 5: at a time where in Oakland, California, where as young
Speaker 5: black man, we got harassed, Like harassment was not unjust.
Speaker 5: It was the norm, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 5: was like it's not it's not like oh man, I
Speaker 5: just got handcuffed on the way over hears and somebody
Speaker 5: be like, man, I got a handcuff yesterday, like you know,
Speaker 5: like it was normal.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And then you know in recent years when in New
Speaker 5: York with the stopping frisk it's it didn't have to
Speaker 5: have a name. It was always stopping frisk. It was
Speaker 5: always a fear of when you get when you're in
Speaker 5: your car and you get pulled over, you have to
Speaker 5: get out the car to get searched, and it's always
Speaker 5: that fear while they're searching your car, like I there's
Speaker 5: nothing in my car. But I've heard from so many
Speaker 5: people that they come out with this bag and go, hey,
Speaker 5: what's this and you're like, it's not mine. Yeah, this
Speaker 5: shit happens. It's just you have this fear of You
Speaker 5: don't have fear of white people, you don't have fear
Speaker 5: of society, you have fear of police, right, And it's like,
Speaker 5: this guy could fuck my day up.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to tell you something. It's you know,
Speaker 2: growing up in the arts like you and and being
Speaker 2: in such a diverse universe my whole life. You know,
Speaker 2: it exists. You know that the world, some of the
Speaker 2: world is stuck in a time warp. And I'm glad
Speaker 2: that that we're gonna wake up the world that is
Speaker 2: still sleeping. What I think that shocked me, even somebody
Speaker 2: who's forty nine years old and has been around for
Speaker 2: a long time, When that police officer sat on his
Speaker 2: neck for eight plus minutes, I don't I can't even
Speaker 2: comprehend that. Mentally, I can't even get my I still
Speaker 2: think about it. I listened to the words that he
Speaker 2: was saying, Wow, how the fuck could this happen?
Speaker 5: He got it out pretty clear. I can't breathe right right,
Speaker 5: I can't breathe.
Speaker 1: Along with a bunch of other people that were standing
Speaker 1: in a position telling him that something is happening and
Speaker 1: to stop and it's the video is horrific. And I
Speaker 1: want to know that when when you were a child,
Speaker 1: did your mom ever have to have those conversations with you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: Is it thing that's sort of like in the context
Speaker 5: of the Willie Lynch letter, whatever the you know, the
Speaker 5: Willy Lynch the thing is where you don't have to
Speaker 5: be the slave. You don't have to discipline them. You
Speaker 5: just have to convince his mother that if you don't
Speaker 5: control him, I'm going to kill him. So if my
Speaker 5: mother didn't have to say, these are the rules of
Speaker 5: you as a little black kid going out in the world.
Speaker 2: This is what you do.
Speaker 5: Like the fear is instilled from day one. It's like,
Speaker 5: if you know it's this this fear like like from
Speaker 5: I can remember from the seventies, been a little kid
Speaker 5: like you. The fucking police like you. They come down
Speaker 5: to block and you don't go hot miss to officer.
Speaker 5: You yeah, you like, that's almost like that's definite enemy,
Speaker 5: that's the enemy.
Speaker 2: But that that and that and that's that's disgusting to me,
Speaker 2: that that's how it is. That one and I and
Speaker 2: I think that this, you know, with what's going on,
Speaker 2: I think even somebody like myself, who has been isolated
Speaker 2: in a very open world, uh now is starting to
Speaker 2: see things that I didn't even see the conversation. Even
Speaker 2: for me, hearing things like this, it's just it's just
Speaker 2: disgusting on every level and out. And I'm happy the
Speaker 2: world is standing up so.
Speaker 5: That the argument about the police and their authority and
Speaker 5: abusing it has a lot of layers. And I think
Speaker 5: that's something very important, is that a lot of the
Speaker 5: reason why the police are needed in high crime areas
Speaker 5: and inner cities is because of conditions that were created,
Speaker 5: not things that just happen, Like you take away opportunities
Speaker 5: or you don't even give opportunities, and this is what you.
Speaker 2: Get, zero opportunity, Like this is what is there's no opportunity.
Speaker 5: If you go to send if you're going to send
Speaker 5: a kid the kindergarten and not teach him, shit, what
Speaker 5: do you think he's going to be in fifteen. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm just saying, what then are you gonna give? You're
Speaker 5: gonna get nothing in return. So it's not it's not
Speaker 5: the people by a whole, it's it's definitely the system.
Speaker 5: It's definitely that you're not giving a certain a certain
Speaker 5: group of people a chance, and then you don't want
Speaker 5: to give them a chance because you're biased against him
Speaker 5: because of race or color or religion or something. And
Speaker 5: then you this goes. This is not just black white
Speaker 5: in America. This is every religion dispute, every race or
Speaker 5: neighboring country dispute, all over the world. It's the same
Speaker 5: fucking idiots it everywhere when you get to the root
Speaker 5: of it, like why do you hate your next door neighborhood?
Speaker 5: Like it's no fucking.
Speaker 1: Reason, right, there is no reason.
Speaker 2: Well, I I really, you know, having watched you know,
Speaker 2: I'm an optimist. I've always been. Some people are pessimist,
Speaker 2: but I'm an optimist. And I feel like this is
Speaker 2: something that was long overdue and and and I do
Speaker 2: pray and hope and will fight for you know that change.
Speaker 2: So and I don't mean it just in some politically
Speaker 2: correct bullshit, because you know me and you know my
Speaker 2: work and what I've done, and I just I just
Speaker 2: think that other people have to, you know, change. I
Speaker 2: mean the world has to change. And there are people
Speaker 2: who you know, you know, have changed for decades, but
Speaker 2: there are too many people that are stuck in their ways.
Speaker 2: And I really hope the Black Lives Matter movement, the protesting,
Speaker 2: the standing up, the blocking off streets, the education that
Speaker 2: I think people that were so uneducated because they lived
Speaker 2: in a bubble maybe and I pray that this will
Speaker 2: move the thinking forward and change.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean real change, not just well short,
Speaker 1: you're you're a mentor at Youth Uprising.
Speaker 2: I was for a while.
Speaker 1: And what did that entail when you were doing that?
Speaker 5: There was there is a place Oakland call Youth Uprising
Speaker 5: that was built in the neighborhood in the you know,
Speaker 5: right next to a high school. And it was just
Speaker 5: so that kids, I think it was the ages were
Speaker 5: like twelve to eighteen nineteen somewhere like that. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: can't remember the age group now, but they were allowed
Speaker 5: to come there and participate in a lot of things.
Speaker 5: You know a lot of cities have this, but of course,
Speaker 5: but I like that place because it focused on a
Speaker 5: lot of things artistic. It was had a lot to
Speaker 5: do with music and dance, and so you felt like you.
Speaker 1: Were a part of something instead of after school, you know,
Speaker 1: you're going and getting into trouble. You had a place
Speaker 1: where you could go and focus on music or I
Speaker 1: was just.
Speaker 5: You know, I just wanted to be a part of
Speaker 5: the solution. And not so much as I looked into.
Speaker 2: What they do.
Speaker 5: Like a lot of people people go get these grants
Speaker 5: and all this stuff and they do it in the
Speaker 5: name of the kids, and we're gonna have these programs
Speaker 5: and stuff. But they to me, I looked at a
Speaker 5: lot of stuff and I'm like, you're not really impacting
Speaker 5: the kids firsthand. So I wanted to be a part
Speaker 5: of something where I interacted with them. I literally made
Speaker 5: music with them. I literally, you know, they put on
Speaker 5: shows and I even you know, took some of them
Speaker 5: out to do shows to perform on stage with me.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And if you look and eat for these videos, most
Speaker 5: of those kids that do the dance and I'm from
Speaker 5: youth up rising, like wow, like we you know a
Speaker 5: lot of them, you know, grew up into society to
Speaker 5: do stuff with their talents that they learned at Youth
Speaker 5: up Rising so it continues to this day, and I
Speaker 5: applaud all places like that that, you know, just give
Speaker 5: inner city kids opportunity to play sports, to make music,
Speaker 5: to do something other than just go home and do nothing,
Speaker 5: like you know. And I had the one thing that
Speaker 5: touched me at Youth Theft Riising that I never forget
Speaker 5: is a kid, A little kid asked me did I
Speaker 5: know where he could buy a gun? And you know,
Speaker 5: I didn't want to go tell on him or scold him,
Speaker 5: so I asked him why, Like, we't need a gun.
Speaker 5: He was like, well, I live on such and such street,
Speaker 5: and he said the guys that I got to walk
Speaker 5: past on my way home are enemies with the guys
Speaker 5: that I live by. And he's like, the guys that
Speaker 5: I live by don't like me because I don't want
Speaker 5: to be a part of what they're doing. He's like,
Speaker 5: so it's dangerous to go home, like just from school
Speaker 5: to home. He's uh, is playing with his life. Wow,
Speaker 5: And he's like, I just need a gun to get home.
Speaker 4: And what what did?
Speaker 1: What do you even say to something like that?
Speaker 5: So what you thought Uprising would do is Youth Uprising
Speaker 5: had guys that worked there who were you know, X
Speaker 5: street guys, and these guys would find out about situations
Speaker 5: like that and they would go talk to all parties involved.
Speaker 5: They will talk to the guys who are both the
Speaker 5: enemy side, and they say, look, you guys are enemies.
Speaker 5: I ain't trying to get in your business. It's done
Speaker 5: what you're doing. Because a little guy who's got to
Speaker 5: walk home from school every day, he don't want to
Speaker 5: be your enemy. Can you guys not fuck with him?
Speaker 4: And it weren' sometimes sometimes and it works and they go, okay, we.
Speaker 5: Seen a little honey, you thought he was with them,
Speaker 5: and you get it all clarified and just leave alone.
Speaker 5: And he wants to be a good kid. And a
Speaker 5: lot of times bad kids will allow the good kid
Speaker 5: to be good. They'll allow you to play sports, they
Speaker 5: will allow you to be excelling academics, the like, he's
Speaker 5: not one of us. Take care of him. He might
Speaker 5: make it out of here. They understand.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just want to say, because we're basically out
Speaker 2: of time, I want to I want to know anything
Speaker 2: that you have coming up that I need to know about,
Speaker 2: because I know you do.
Speaker 5: Do you ever want to hear some good music.
Speaker 1: Always always too short, drop it, go to Spotify.
Speaker 5: I do a weekly playlist. It's called Trunk Tuesdays Drunk
Speaker 5: Tuesday like this, and I keep it like one hundred
Speaker 5: songs in rotation. A lot of it is new, too
Speaker 5: short stuff, a lot of it's just stuff. It's the stuff,
Speaker 5: you know, the trunck is. You know, I got woofers
Speaker 5: in the trunk of my car and it's all that stuff.
Speaker 5: It's the ship that I ride too. So I've been
Speaker 5: introducing a lot of my new music on There's something
Speaker 5: I just started probably like a month ago, so just
Speaker 5: now growing it. Trunk Tuesday is on Spotify, and it's
Speaker 5: about new artists. I'm working with new artists that I'm supporting,
Speaker 5: and I'm just trying to help, just help the industry,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: So so everybody listening on this podcast, all hundred thousand
Speaker 2: of you, go to Trunk Tuesdays at Spotify. I'm not
Speaker 2: playing because this is one of the greatest.
Speaker 1: Artists and I'm gonna hustle my way into two shorts
Speaker 1: Trunk Tuesday playlists. All right, dude, sure, it was truly
Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you on. We're so grateful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for everything.
Speaker 5: Thanks Davie.
Speaker 2: Always takes coming through all right, Thanks guys,