Key Takeaways
- Too $hort says his major label sidelined him while prioritizing pop acts and told him at 40 that his career was effectively over.
- Despite releasing “Blow the Whistle,” he says shrinking budgets and support left him and labelmates like E-40 fighting to leave.
- He went independent in 2008, stabilized his career during the economic crash, and ultimately rose above the label’s attempt to write him off.
Too $hort is recalling the moment a major label decided his career had an expiration date.
In a recent episode of the Get Got Pod with Marshawn Lynch and Mike Robinson, the Oakland rapper was asked if there’s ever been a time he “got got” in the music industry and overcame it.
“People don't even know this,” he said near the 53-minute mark in the video linked below. “When I was dropping in 2005, I dropped ‘Shake That Monkey.’ In 2006, I dropped ‘Blow the Whistle.’ I'm on a label that also has Justin Timberlake, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and they making money on top of money off these groups.”
The Oakland rapper was on Jive Records beginning with 1987’s classic Born to Mack, and remained on the label for two decades before going independent.
He recalled that prior to hitting it big with teen pop stars, Jive had the likes of E-40, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, UGK, and R. Kelly on its roster.
“They put us all on the back burner so they can make all this new crossover money—this pop money,” $hort continued. “Them last couple years I did the Blow the Whistle album, and I did one more after that and I was out of my contract. E-40 got off the label before me. We was literally trying to escape from that motherfucker, man. They budgets dried up, the love dried up. I'm dropping good-ass songs and they not going nowhere ‘cause they not getting no support.”
However, before he could leave the label, Too $hort recalled feeling like he was “drowning.”
“I'm dealing with some corporate people … You could be in your best shape and they telling you, ‘Bro, you just ain't ready for the game no more.’ And I'm like, ‘Huh?’ They trying to tell me in 2006, ‘It's pretty much over for you, bro. You 40. It's done, man.’ Like, just go off to the pasture and be a hay horse.”
Too $hort went independent in 2008, in the middle of an economic collapse.
“I never felt off, but n***a it was there,” he said of that time period. “I was scrapping for mine. I was doing all kind of shit and a n***a figured a way out. A n***a figured a way to like stabilize that shit and then rise above that shit.”
Too $hort’s latest album Sir Too $hort, Vol. 2 (Drink & Smoke) arrived in July.
