Too Short (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Todd Anthony Shaw (born April 28, 1966), better known by his stage name Too $hort, is an American rapper who started his career at the age of fourteen in Oakland, California. Too Short has sold about 11 million albums in the US alone with 17 albums released and an average of 600,000 copies per album. Shaw was born in South Los Angeles, California, and raised in East Oakland, California during his teenage years. In the early 1980s, Short produced custom raps (called "special requests") for people with his high school friend, Freddy B. In 1983, Too Short released his first album, Don't Stop Rappin', on the local label 75 Girls. This and his next three releases featured raw, simple drum beats using a LinnDrum drum machine in the early 1980s, switching to mostly the TR-808 and TR-909 by the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1986, Too Short and Freddie B. founded the Dangerous Music record label to distribute his music regionally. Dangerous Music later changed names to Short Records, and then Up All Nite Records. With his 1988 release, Life Is...Too Short, he began infusing replayed established funk riffs (rather than samples) with his beats.