photo credit: 935 KDAY

The Bay legend Too $hort visits 93.5KDay with Romeo and talks about the moment he learned how to rap, Lil Jon producing two of his biggest records, first rap record he ever heard, and being the only feature on Ice Cube’s latest album.

$hort has been holding down the game for over three decades and while the rapper doesn’t have any plans on retiring, as he recorded more than 40 songs for this 20th studio album The Pimp Tape, Short confesses that he wasn’t all the way convinced to release new music, if it hadn’t been for the support of his team. Speaking on the process of the project, Too $short says:

The process was a lot different than anything I’ve ever done before. This time around, I utilized a lot of people around me, like a lot of team members chipped in to motivate me during this album. I honestly stepped into this a couple years ago, not really wanting to do it. Not because I didn’t feel confident or anything, I just didn’t really didn’t want to do it. Things were going good, you know. It wasn’t really a financial thing, it was just…somebody brought to my attention that, “You know you got 19 albums.” I’m like, “That’s cool.” They was like, “You can’t end your career with a number 19, you got to round if off.

The Oakland rhymer also reflects back on his Northern Cali come up and the origins of getting into rapping, as he was always involved with music and band in school and listen back to rap songs and tell himself he could do it. Short shares that “Rapper’s Delight” was the first rap record that he connected with and also says that although he was born in Los Angeles, his Oakland upbringing didn’t have much influence over his passion for rap.“I highly doubt that if I didn’t move to Oakland, if I ever would have been a rapper. It’s something that just happened in my life. Like, it just progressed to that. I Moved to Oakland, in 1980, the first time I ever heard rap was 1979.”

Too $hort also goes on to talk about his mother finding his rap book for the first time and how his family supported him in his early career, his relationship with Ice Cube and how linking up with Lil Jon changed his life and career.

Watch the full interview below: