Too $hort

Too $hort watched Rudy Ray Moore's 1976 comedy film The Human Tornado 'probably a hundred times,' by his own count, absorbing the cadence of a comedian who turned pimp folklore into rhyming party records years before rap existed. 'There's no way on earth I could ever fix my mouth to say I'm not influenced by him,' he told TIME. 'Part of the makeover of Too $hort comes from listening to Rudy Ray Moore's rhythmic cadence, his attitude, the way he curses.' The pimp persona, the profanity, the hustle — he says all of it started with Moore.

listen: upstream & heresource: TIME — "Rappers Reflect on the Enduring Hip-Hop Legacy of Dolemite Comedian Rudy Ray Moore" (backs the Rudy Ray Moore influence) ↗share

1970

DolemiteRudy Ray Moore

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1983

Don't Stop Rappin'Too $hort

listen forNo specific record ties the two together — the debt is about how a voice moves, not a shared song. Set Moore's 'Dolemite' against Too $hort's 1983 debut 'Don't Stop Rappin'' and listen for the same unhurried, rhyme-forward talk laid flat over a bare beat, cadence doing the work a melody would elsewhere. Both men treat rhythm as something to lean back into rather than chase, letting the profanity land like punctuation instead of shock.

Asked point blank what he was doing on 1990's 'The Ghetto,' Too $hort answered with a single record: 'There were a lot of songs that reflected Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's 'The Message,' which was a brutal tale of ghetto life,' he told The FADER. He set out to work in that same mode of ghetto reportage, he said, but flipped its despair — describing Oakland neighbors with new cars and new TVs who refused to let the odds define them.

listen: upstream & heresource: The FADER — "Interview ↗share

1982

The MessageGrandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

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1990

The GhettoToo $hort

listen for'The Message' rides a bare, clanking drum-machine groove under Melle Mel's flat, matter-of-fact narration of tenement life — a reporter's cadence, not a showman's. Too $hort's 'The Ghetto' borrows that same unhurried, talk-through-it delivery over a slower, bass-heavy loop, but flips the verdict: he narrates neighbors thriving despite the block instead of being crushed by it. Same documentary voice, aimed at a different ending.

George Clinton is one name in a longer list Too $hort has given for why his records stayed uncensored: 'I grew up with funk. James Brown, Rick James, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, and anyone else from that sound and era,' he told Billboard, crediting that grounding with the 'safety blanket' to say whatever he wanted, funny or filthy. The debt turned literal in 1996: Clinton wrote and produced Too $hort's single 'Gettin' It,' with his own band Parliament-Funkadelic singing the hook — the funk godfather personally showing up for the artist who'd been drawing on his sound for over a decade.

listen: upstream & heresource: Billboard — "Too Short Isn't Thinking About Retirement Anytime Soon, Announces New Album 'Sir Too Short'" (backs the George Clinton and funk-influence testimony) ↗share

1976

I'd Rather Be with YouGeorge Clinton

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1996

Gettin' ItToo $hort

listen forThe hook riff on Too $hort's 1996 single 'Gettin' It' lifts directly from Bootsy's Rubber Band's 'I'd Rather Be with You,' a 1976 record out of Clinton's own P-Funk family, its bouncy, elastic bassline barely altered under the verses. Clinton had a production and songwriting credit on 'Gettin' It' itself. Line the two up and listen for that same rubbery, spring-loaded bass groove carried whole from one record into the other, twenty years apart.