Bay Area rap legend Too $hort is the latest hip-hop figure to visit the Uproxx offices to chop it up with Talib Kweli on the new episode of People’s Party With Talib Kweli, delving into his past work with Biggie and Diddy, his relationship with the late Pimp C, and the evolution of his homebase of Oakland.
In one of the episode’s most insightful moments, the California rapper recalls his early interactions with Tupac Shakur, who cut his teeth in the Bay before “becoming a superstar in LA,” as Kweli frames it. Too $hort remembers Pac as a “little homie,” back from when he was just a member of the Digital Underground crew, which existed in close proximity to Too $hort’s own crew.
“Every time I saw Tupac, he had four or five distinct personas, and he’d randomly be one of them,” Too $hort remembers. He recalls watching Tupac’s “militant Black Panther history type” in a BET interview, the part of Tupac that would drop “book knowledge,” the Tupac that would show up with a blunt and Hennessy, the “wise and spiritual brother” Tupac, and even the questionable gangster Tupac.
It all added up to a myth and legend of Tupac that resulted in a figure that “no matter the hierarchy, when we’re all in a room, let him talk.” Check out the full interview above
People’s Party is a weekly interview show hosted by Talib Kweli with big-name guests exploring hip-hop, culture, and politics. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and/or Uproxx Video on Youtube.