Top 45 Too Short Quotes

I don’t think any other hip-hop artist has achieved what I’ve achieved or the numbers I’ve sold without commercial radio. MTV and BET have never supported me.

Most of my fan mail is from women, and if people want to judge me, then they should consider how I treat the women I know.

When you come to the Bay, we always had this slick talk. E-40 made it real famous. We make up words. We talk real funny. When you hang around a bunch of Bay cats, you’re like, ‘You guys are funny.’ But that’s our way.

Gettin’ It’ is another song that means a lot to me because I got to work with George Clinton who’s always been my musical hero.

Oakland has always been my muse.

Hip-Hop is a voice.

In 1979, I was in ninth grade. Before I started tenth grade, I was already rapping myself. I didn’t wait around to see what hip-hop was doing before I jumped in; I did it immediately. When I first heard it, I said, ‘I can do this.’

I’ve learned to accept all criticism.

This is the biggest misconception about the Bay – people think that we’re L.A… Very different stuff. L.A. has its swag.

Don’t do this ageism thing in Hip Hop. Don’t be an OG and tell me these young, rich cats ain’t doing it right. Don’t tell me that, man.

The Too Short albums are not the autobiography of Todd Shaw.

I’ve always had opinions on what was going on in my community. I always knew a lot of people listened to me, so why don’t I speak on police brutality and things like that?

I don’t see a problem with looking at women as beautiful objects. I’m an artist. I don’t know how to paint, but I know how to make music, and women are art.

I didn’t tell anybody anywhere on planet Earth that I support Donald Trump as a candidate.

The only thing that private school did for me was give me this foundation where, if I choose to, I can speak proper English, or I switch to Ebonics, or I can edit myself and not curse.

Executives are convinced that a rapper has a certain lifespan as far as being a hot emcee. When you start to approach your 30s, pretty much stereotypically it’s over.

When I make a song, I actually literally talk to one person on purpose… I don’t focus on, are people in Chicago gonna like this? Are people in Atlanta gonna like this? I think of one person who’s a Too Short authority, who thinks I can’t do any wrong, because I’ve customized all these songs for this one person.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned to Parliament Funkadelic for inspiration and actually just outright and replayed or sampled a song.

Eazy-E was the person to take me on my first tour, and there was nobody telling him to do it.

I think Jive was just a shady label that they didn’t want artists in the same room like, ‘Hey, what you making?’ Like I never worked with R. Kelly, I never worked with Q-Tip. I never worked with anybody that was on Jive. I never did a song with KRS-One.

I think the whole world is one big misogynist. Even a lot of women are.

I wanna make more songs than anybody, I wanna be the oldest rapper who is active.

I actually flunked the 10th grade on purpose.

Too Short is a character.

It’s not a passion of mine to follow politics. When I deal with political issues in my songs, I just say stuff that’s current, only as a songwriter.

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.

I could have been an artist painting pictures and I would have fell in love with Oakland.

Jive never saw any value in me as a long-term artist. Even as I was doing it they were like, ‘You’re not really the kind of artist that we’d spend our money on.’ They never saw the value of Too $hort and E-40.

I grew up in L.A., I moved to Oakland when I was 14.

As a child, I did not dream of being a rapper.

I had eight years of a career before I even saw any fame outside of the Bay. I was famous in the Bay for eight years before that.

Well, I was doing platinum albums back-to-back with Jive when they were the hottest hip-hop label. There was a time when Jive made a lot more money than Def Jam. They had KRS-One, Too $hort, E-40, Mystikal, UGK and Keith Murray. They had Will Smith when he was still the Fresh Prince.

I’ll go in the studio and hear a track that I don’t like, and they’re trying to pay me to rap over it. But I’ll tell them I just can’t do it. And when they ask why, I say, ‘Because then somebody’s gonna hear it… damn, find another track.’

Hip Hop is very addictive.

I don’t know what they had against collabos. I have no idea, but I look back on it and a lot of Jive artists have really never collaborated with each other.

When I’m on the microphone and I’m recording, or onstage, or shooting a video, I’m doing my job. When I’m not, I’m being myself.

I don’t have a lot of stage antics. I don’t try to get attention through my animated body movements.

As a Raider fan, I’ll say we never want the Raiders to ever leave Oakland.

I was a child coming up in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

My engineer on the ‘Life is Too $hort’ album was Al Eaton. Al Eaton had a studio called One Little Indian Studios, and he was a pretty good guitar player. He would suggest certain songs. Al was the force behind ‘Life is Too $hort’ and definitely the force behind songs like ‘The Ghetto.’

I don’t want to be on any major labels.

Don’t get to the point where you think, ‘I learned everything last week,’ or, ‘I learned everything last year.’ You’ll never learn everything. Wake up every day and try to learn something new. And if you do learn something, pass it on to people you think deserve the game.

I definitely don’t wanna be in a fight with Nancy Grace. She look like she might can throw them thangs.

You can be in the Bay and sell 10,000 copies of independent records and make 50 grand and that’s your job for the year. The shows you do off of that and them 10,000 sales is gonna feed you and your homies.

The number-one thing about the hyphy isn’t the sideshow or doing donuts. It’s the music.