Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Too Short - Page 2

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 been taking it in stride, man. I'm not the kind of person who goes around bragging to everybody, 'I did a song with Lady Gaga!'

Too Short is a character.

I make songs all the time, I make 'em really fast, and I really felt when I made 'Don't Stop Rappin' in '85 that I could do this forever.

I think the first big chance I ever got was I was one of the opening acts for UTFO and 'Roxanne Roxanne,' that whole thing. And I come on stage, it's like 5000 people in the Oakland convention center, I'd never had a record in my life, I'd never had anything in a record store.

I've learned to accept all criticism.

I could not have been a rapper in 1985 and thought, 'I want to be a millionaire.' That was not a realistic dream.

Everything in New York ain't always what it seems.

I would never marry for feelings and love.

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.

You have to be accountable for what you do.

I've been around for a long time.

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.

Somewhere around the fifth, sixth album, we got this little formula together where we knew how to record Too $hort songs. You need the bassline, a good drum pattern, call in the keyboard, the guitars - it's just a way we mixed it all together.

Hip-hop is not one thing. There are 50 different approaches to making it and showing it.

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.

Hip-Hop is a voice.

I'm a businessman. Making records is my business. I have a big operation and I employ a lot of people.

I could see how artists like Parliament would revisit the same music and kinda change it a little bit, change the words and hook, and it'd still be that same flavor. A lot of groups back then would make another song that sounded very similar to a song they already had. Ohio Players used to do it.

Rappers have always thought they were better than me. And the media has always thought that I was not relevant to hip-hop, so therefore, they didn't have to mention me.

I've never thrown away a rhyme book.

If Too $hort and Freddy B DJed your party, you were gonna get a rap show during the party.

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.

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

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 actually flunked the 10th grade on purpose.

My goal is to be successful, so I do what works.

By the time I'm 25, I want to be financially stable.

In '88, '89, '90, '91... When I was making these albums, it would be four or five songs that didn't have any curse words, that were about social issues in the community.

I read a lot and some of the things I read are blaxploitation books, things by Donald Goines or Iceberg Slim. The books are filled with a lot of street knowledge; they really recall an era.

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

The only way I'll ever get married is in a business-friendship-relationship. It's gotta be like, 'This makes sense.' I'd marry for money.

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.'

Everybody knows rappers don't do all they say they do.

I did not dream of being an entertainer in the sense of being the one out front. I dreamed of being in the band. As a child, I'm like, I'm going around the world, I'm gonna be in the band. That was my dream.

The media tends to put the artists with the hottest single on a pedestal. And as soon as that single goes away, you're kicked off the pedestal.

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.

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 have to defend what I do for a job. Who cares what people say? If people don't see the humor in it, too bad.