Todd “Too $hort” Shaw sat in the seat of the City Clerk in Oakland’s City Hall’s third floor chamber on the evening of March 14th, 2012. The room reeked of regality. Big decisions were made here, no doubt about it. Mr. Shaw sat behind a microphone as Mrs. Dereca Blackmon stood immediately in front of the crowd and spoke to the assembled audience about the misogyny in hip-hop. Later she would engage Too $hort in a conversation about some controversial statements he recently made on that particular subject.

In Late February, a video of Too $hort giving advice to the young men of the world hit the internet. In the video, published by XXL magazine, it is said that Too $hort gives insight on approaching girls; telling young boys to: “touch a girl down there,” “push her against a wall” and, if the mission can be accomplished, he should “watch what happens,” said the LA Times. The video made $hort appear as condoner of rape, misogyny, and violence against women; and his track record of 18, now 19 albums (majority of which are comprised of sexually explicit lyrics) doesn’t exactly combat that argument.

The internet erupted.

Blogs, tweets, and youtube videos addressing Too $hort’s “advice” set off a domino effect. The video was removed from the site, groups petitioned to have XXL publisher Vanessa Satten fired, and Too $hort released a statement of apology.

“I was in the sixth or seventh grade when I started doing some of the things I was talking about … now I’m understanding that it’s actually … a form of sexual assault. And it’s crazy that I’m just now understanding this.” Too $hort spoke candidly to a room of 40 or 50 people about the video and his eye-opening experience. And from behind that microphone, through a conversation with community voice and women’s advocate Dereca Blackmon, Too $hort came clean…

“I’m chain smoking loud like it’s a Newport

Dad wasn’t around — my father figure was Too Short”

– 2 Chainz

A young rapper from College Park, GA who goes by the name of 2-Chainz and Tity Boi (born Tauheed Epps), stated these lyrics on Rick Ross’ song, “F*ck Em’”.  It was this quote that lead XXL journalists to ask Too $hort, what he would say to a young 2 Chainz. The video was edited so the only portion of the video that ever surfaced was Too $hort speaking as if he were giving game to a middle school boy about getting a middle school girl. Too $hort admitted that although his message was misconstrued in the editing of the footage- either way you cut the tape: his message was wrong.

Too $hort interview starts at the 13:40 mark.

Too $hort found himself in the position of schoolboy: reading, listening, and learning. The question that stood out to him, “Does he not get it?” That lingering question pushed Too $hort to reach out to Dream Hampton, a well-known writer, Hip-Hop Historian, and fighter for women’s rights. Their conversation resulted in this article for Ebony magazine, which concluded with Hampton telling Short that, “We are creating these patterns and we can stop them. That’s the bottom line.”

Hampton is one of many women who took offense to Too $hort’s decision to give “advice” to young men as to how to “turn out” young women. Some of the women who took offense, also took action: “We Are the 44%” is a coalition that challenges sexual violence against Black and Latina teens.  The group’s press release stated: “This group is consistent with the appalling statistic that 44% of sexual assault survivors are under 18 years old.”

Although the creation of this coalition was fueled by XXL’s video of Too $hort, the group stands firm in stating that this issue is much larger than one rapper. Dereca Blackmon, an Oakland-based member of the 44% Coalition, began her discussion with “Brother Todd” (as she calls $hort) with this quote:

“Judge a people by the character of its women.”

The ensuing 30-minute dialog covered a number of areas:

–   The “commodification ” of Hip-Hop:
–   Looking at the consumer’s role in the degradation of women in Hip-Hop lyrics
–   Voting with your dollar.
–   Not allowing the entertainment industry to define you, your beliefs, or your value system.

And all the while, $hort… or brother Todd Shaw, spoke from a place of humility.

As a man that has been in the game for over two decades, it was his industry expertise that spoke volumes as he talked about Hip-Hop’s cycles: the Bling era, the gangster rap time period, and although the more substantive rap has emerged as of late, the explicit rap with malicious content remains prevalent. He concluded his point about the “cycles within hip-hop” by stating: “Hip-Hop goes in cycles… but the sex cycle isn’t coming to an end anytime soon.”

Sex sells. Controversy does too. With Too $hort’s 19th studio album, No Trespassing, hitting the internet at the same time as this brew-haha, we shall see if the two combined are enough to garner him another gold plaque.

His latest video for “Trying To Come Up” is below.

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