Too $hort controversy

Too $hort posted a video (now deleted from XXL's website) of 'fatherly advice' that I didn't see -- not sure if it's still out there -- but it involved apparently being advice to young guys how to make moves on girls that were basically sexual assault, apparently

there was an outcry i first observed following dream hampton's twitter & then they had a dialogue in ebony which is actually p eye-opening

http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/too-short-interview

seems like the kind of discussion that doesn't really happen in public too often when we pay lip service to 'dialogue' about stuff

whoah this is crazy

that's pretty ill

sadly doesn't surprise me though

it's v interesting to see him being so humbled and open and non-bullshitty in the "I THE CELEBRITY AM MAKING FORMAL APOLOGY" sort of way

it is kind of mindblowing how rarely guys are taught to think abt stuff like this growing up. like i look back p frequently now on all levels & think about how society has basically normalized lots of things that are totally inappropriate. cf eating mcdonalds, as well

(not trying to make a tangent, nutrition was just the first issue that sprang to mind as some pretty simple stuff that, like, my dad's generation had very vague & inaccurate ideas about)

Some people told me that twenty years ago there were little youngsters listening to Too $hort. Its not legally supposed to be sold to kids. It is adult music.

Yeah, uh...bought Life Is Too Short the year it came out, when I was 12. He was on MTV. He had to know he was reaching kids.

Dream Hampton is awesome.

a big part of the fun of rap music was that it was forbidden obv.

that part did read a bit like playing dumb

everything reaches kids. does that mean adult material shouldn't be made?

no thats not what we're talking about shakey, we're talking about whether or not Short knew that his stuff was reaching kids

I don't think he says that

he acknowledges that he knows who his music was reaching - even when it wasn't supposed to - and that it was negative

dream hampton is such an all-time hero. <3

this allhiphop interview with too $hort is really interesting, too: http://allhiphop.com/2012/02/23/exclusive-too-hort-on-righting-wrongs-and-rapping-relentlessly/

especially the bit where he talks about thinking further than his immediate reaction of "it's just a joke" (and the mirroring with the idea of this stuff as just a joke or prank), and this: "There can’t be any forgiveness. I don’t expect anybody to be like, “I forgive you for being remorseful.” That’s bullsh*t. You’ve got to do something. I have to reverse the message."

that's such a valuable reaction to have.

anyway to avoid a trainwreck here,

there's kind of an old-dude-in-the-club vibe to some of his new songs (although the one that just leaked w/ Twista, 50 Cent, etc. is GREAT) and i dont think his brash misogyny thing really works when hes at an age that should know better. But I could read his recent interviews alllll day.

full disclosure i interviewed him a few weeks back before this story happened & found him v. thoughtful & self-analytical about a lot of stuff in his life & about making a positive impact for a lot of struggling people, so when his first 'apology' leaked i think his mindset may have been more, "this is so crazy that i'm getting heat, i've been in the middle of this campaign about doing positive things" rather than "but i do these good deeds so i get a get-out-of-jail-free card," but obviously that's kind of hair splitting at the end of the day b/c it came across as an excuse either way

regardless, based purely on my interaction, i can entirely believe the genuine-ness of this

i mean obv the proof will be what he actually does now but it was nice to read the kind of honest dialogue that people typically have in private

That's a great interview. Not just his honesty, but the part where she's saying "if you're serious about this you have to be prepared to be mocked by a large part of your fanbase".

yeah this is fascinating but c'mon so many ppl have called him out over the years for releasing 20 albums of misogyny. i find it hard to believe this is the first time he's been made aware that people think his persona has a negative impact. that said, this is a positive step and a refreshing way to approach such a scandal.

i find the 'i just did it for the money' aspect really interesting

oh it isn't, he was specifically addressing the video tho

in the post-rick ross world are rappers more comfortable vocally separating their on-record characters from their real personalities?

or maybe social media just makes them more aware/accountable?

i think maybe hes just old enough that he doesnt give a fuck

…in my mind, I’m not a rude guy who just goes around calling women “b*tch”

man this is like one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of Too $hort tbh; shows how crippled his self-awareness was

well, he said JUST

i literally first think of the word 'bitch' when i think of too short.

then i think about 'gettin it'.

yeah i think what he means is "i say it in songs/in certain context, i don't go around insulting every woman i meet," which is probably true and fair of him to say even if yeah he did pretty much build his career around that word

one of the things abt seeing him live a few years ago is recognizing how charismatic & personable he is as a stage presence. Like, I can entirely see how hes "gotten away with" being a guy who is rude & says bitch, which is that at some level, he's not 'rude' at all, at least not in a way that is as jarring as coming from some people. Which is dangerous in its own way

yeah i mean he's totally one of the cuddliest rap legends around

hes very charming yeah

that's a really good interview. hard to read.

c'mon so many ppl have called him out over the years for releasing 20 albums of misogyny. i find it hard to believe this is the first time he's been made aware that people think his persona has a negative impact.

for sure, but i think the parts of the interview that seemed like genuinely new territory for him were when, armed with hampton's account of rape culture, he was reviewing things he and other boys had done when younger and identifying them as part of that culture. i mean, many people are dismissive of "rape culture" as a reality so i think the degree to which he seems to hear what hampton's saying is encouraging.

some distinctions should probably be made here, Too $hort's never rapped about raping or sexually assaulting anybody. the "pimp game" image+ culture is obviously mysogynistic but I dunno if it is an explicit part of "rape culture". I'm not arguing that a lot of his material isn't mysogynistic (it definitely is) but it's mysogynistic in kind of a different way than this last thing, I guess... (might be diggin myself a hole here lol)

anyway he has always struck me as an unusually sharp and perceptive guy, with a keen awareness of the separation between himself and his public persona

Even if he doesn't buy it "really" it's helpful in the sense of showing him buying it. People respond to influential peers. We can act like its only kids who were to be victims here but imo, he addressed it maturely which I think will make it easier for others to do the same in his industry.

Xp pimping is a part of rape culture yes.

I think he also did a smart thing which was to bring up the multiple ways in which those ideas seemed acceptable to him even as a kid ... All these films where this stuff was normalized. I like that, and maybe I should credit hampton for pushing it this way, it came across as an exploration of how these attitudes come about rather than an excuse

Anyway idk I dont want to be holier than thou about it, I dont want this to be gee isnt too short decent but there is something nice abt collective rage about these things holding people accountable

people are demanding that xxl's editor in chief step down for letting this video run, i'm curious what ppl think about that. Im willing to believe her when she says she never saw it before it ran.

the "pimp game" image+ culture is obviously mysogynistic but I dunno if it is an explicit part of "rape culture".

I think most of the people I read who talk about rape culture would say that pimp image/culture is explicitly & definitely a big part of that culture. you kind of can't put a non-misogynist face on pimping

it's cool to see a man willing to step into the heat here like TS does for sure, his desire to learn where he is or has been wrong is awesome. that's such a hard position to be in, because it demands vulnerability & openness.

it's cool that he doesn't expect forgiveness and was willing to have this dialogue, but he's still a dude who's made his entire career off of misogyny talking about how his eyes are opening to what sexual assault is and the "negativity" of his message at 45.

sure, that's true, but - I don't know. I'm into people getting religion whenever they get it, so to speak.

One reason I'm glad dream hampton is like "ok, prove it." The album coming out this week still has "porno bitch" and "respect the pimpin'" on it, we'll see if the next avoids those two staples.

i just remembered when you got all excited about ja rule meeting with farrakhan about ending the 50 cent beef

I dont think im expecting too short to stop rapping about these things, nor do I think rappers not rapping about pimping is even particularly the problem dream hampton is addressing here

Just like you have women and men calling you out for this, I know there are just as many or more people telling you 'ignore all this, keep pimping.' So if you're serious about changing, on a fundamental level, expect to be ridiculed and abandoned by your core base.

some distinctions should probably be made here, Too $hort's never rapped about raping or sexually assaulting anybody. the "pimp game" image+ culture is obviously mysogynistic but I dunno if it is an explicit part of "rape culture". I'm not arguing that a lot of his material isn't mysogynistic (it definitely is) but it's mysogynistic in kind of a different way than this last thing, I guess... (might be diggin myself a hole here lol)

― Artful Dodderer (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, February 24, 2012 10:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i...know what too $hort raps about. it's definitely arguably part of rape culture, which i think dream hampton does an excellent job of outlining in that interview, if you have any questions about what it is. she points out that it's not like too $hort or hip hop created rape culture; we're all living in it.

and what i was referring to as moments where he seemed to be absorbing the concept of rape culture and reflecting on it were moments like this:

So I am sitting there and the thing that I am saying is actually reminiscent of when we as little boys were being bad and (what) we were doing something or learning or practicing. But know I'm understanding that it's actually it’s a form of sexual assault. And it's crazy that I'm just now understanding this.

I’m not going to lie to you…my eyes are opening just from reading the comments, the stuff that is coming from people. They say stuff like, “Does he get it?” I’m reading it and I am starting to get it. I am looking at this and I am looking at all the stuff that they put out, completely from the entertainment industry, from the movies I watched when I was a kid. A rape scene in a movie was pretty normal. They don’t really do it that much anymore, (but) back then a guy would take it and the girl would enjoy it. They put those images out there over and over again and it’s like so much society is ok with the images of aggressive male and female sexuality. I’m just reading this and I’m reading that, and I’m like I am so much a part of that whole “man” thing.

a lot of that is awkwardly phrased and "aggressive male and female sexuality" is kind of a cop-out in terms of what hampton is talking about, but it is a really hard, awkward conversation to have. he could have been a lot more defensive. i have definitely had conversations about rape where men were a lot more defensive than that.

"arguably" really not necessary pimp as an archetype is totally a part of rape culture.

xp to anthony Yeah and? I've read the whole thing. There are plenty of actions that he could take that would do that without changing his recording content considerably. Any action that could be seen as a genuine attempt to reckon w this happening could be taken as a loss by that fanbase

it's too short, I'm not expecting an overnight transformation but even if he ends up sponsoring some anti rape orgs or w/e thats a net win. The fact that this public conversation happened alone and that he was taking her seriously is already something that probably alienates his fanbase to some degree

Pimping is a real part of life as are pimp fantasies and those aren't disappearing any more than the industrial revolution was able to end ren faires

the part where he's only now realizing that what "we as little boys" did to be bad is sexual assault is a little o_O if it's true, about which i'm not sure, but connecting that behavior to culture is a step many people are unwilling to take, so the fact that he was willing to take that possibility seriously was encouraging to me.

I think the reason I really like too short in this is less how cool I think he is or w/e dm'd more how real he is here. Like, almost unafraid of appearing foolish

And not dm'd (on phone)

it's cool to see a man willing to step into the heat here like TS does for sure, his desire to learn where he is or has been wrong is awesome. that's such a hard position to be in, because it demands vulnerability & openness.

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, February 24, 2012 10:55 PM (Yesterday)

yeah otm - and i don't want this to be all about "pat too short on the back" but the biggest thing i think is that he really does not have to do what he's doing - he's a living legend already and sadly he'd get plenty of support from his base and the culture he's a part of if he were defensive about this whole thing (look at chris brown). as dream hampton said, the only way things are gonna change for the better is if someone like short himself takes the initiative like this

it's cool Whiney neither you nor Deej are young cats with your stethoscopes on the pulse of the youth so relax!

da poopier otm

I mean as someone who bought life is and born to mack around 13-14 I think whiney and others are kinda forgetting how nasty and really hateful too short was, to recast him as some loveable dolemite is really letting him off the hook

^^^ yeah. that stuff was outlying back then. it was the shit you were interested in and when you heard it you went "this is pretty mean-spirited stuff"

i just think its kind of weird that this convo that we should have been having for years is centered around a Blowfly/Dolemite-style comedian instead of people like Jay-Z/Kanye/Cudi/etc who say horrific mysoginist shit all the time

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Saturday, February 25, 2012 12:03 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

OTM, whether or not the analogies hold water. thing that shocked me the most abt last year's discussion of odd future's homophobia was how blasé many seemed to be about their much more toxic misogyny (said as a conflicted OF defender). this is a conversation that should have been ongoing for years, and though it makes sense to initially focus on an outlier like too $hort, it's more appropriately centered on misogyny in mainstream pop.

no one's stopping you guys from talking more about misogyny in mainstream pop

troo

feel like im supposed to argue w/ da croupier b/c of how much i like "just another day" or "dope beat" or "the ghetto" but hes more or less otm, although I cant say I personally feel like its 'more offensive' that he is willing to have this conversation & still releases "porno bitch" -- i mean, theres another too short in the wings if this one turned to jesus it still wouldnt lessen the fact that this conversation happened in the public arena & loathe as i am to agree with whiney, its getting a LOT more attention than that XXL video would have.

like, if this is all that comes from this, then yeah its easy to be cynical about it w/r/t Too Short himself (although i still think a highly publicized convo like this is already valuable just for starting discussions like this one). But like aero described, it seemed like a genuine moment. I think we forget how quickly changes like this can happen -- even like he was talking about, rape scenes in movies (revenge of the nerds for ex) that used to just be a part of the context of growing up. not that this excuses him, i just mean that it makes his transition now more believable to me

i like croupier's kind of absolutism on this stuff its valuable for directing conversation & keeping it from being dudes slapping too short on the back for being a stand-up misogynist. obv it was more fun for me when he was shitting on odd future since i didnt like their music anyway

but i think w/ artists like this it can be hard to wrestle with both the complicated ways you might be drawn in & repelled by them, fact is that i dont think i could write off a lot of the cultural input i take in that is rape cultureish b/c i think that this becomes a slippery slope to ignoring some very real ugly parts of culture rather than actually wrestling w/ them. like, misogynists are people too? that was kind of a big part of dream hampton's strategy in talking w/ him, actually, some can correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't that bell hooks' argument, about how these kinds of roles arent just damaging to women, but to men as well.

also i think this can be a double-edged sword so don't think i'm being a tech-utopian here, but could this have happened in the pre-internet era?

i'm just reading this for the first time.
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/07.24.97/dirty-art-9730.html

i just think its kind of weird that this convo that we should have been having for years is centered around a Blowfly/Dolemite-style comedian instead of people like Jay-Z/Kanye/Cudi/etc who say horrific mysoginist shit all the time

Except in the multiple threads where this has happened and the poster who raises the point just gets met with eyerolling or accusations of concern trolling.

does that happen a lot now?

i mean, when odd future became a big thing we all talked about this stuff & if someone said some shit about 'concern trolling' it was like a frogsbs type thing afaic remember

no there was also forks saying they're just kids so nothing they say matters and besides they're trolling iirc

yeah but we all argued about that, i mean i disagreed w/ forks & agreed w/ croupier completely then, but i wouldn't say like i felt i was being silenced or w/e

I guess I'm referring to things like on the Beyonce thread where Titchy (yeah I know...) starts talking about 'That's My Bitch' and there's a collective eyeroll, partly because he's bringing it onto the Beyonce thread but also you get posts like:

rap music sometimes refers to women as bitches, my eyes have been opened

― tine nic (k3vin k.), Monday, August 15, 2011 3:17 PM

Or eyerolling when an interviewer brings up older lyrics in an interview with Jay-Z. I'm not trying to single Kevin or anyone else out here as it's something we're all complicit in to some extent and I understand the eyerolling reaction to something like that.

I mean really if you've got any interest in hip-hop you get used to overlooking a lot of horrifyingly misogynist shit at best and at worst actively enjoying it on some level, even if it's just the sound of a cadence or force of delivery or whatever. And at the overlooking end of the spectrum it's because there are good ways and bad ways to engage with this stuff and constant finger-wagging from rich white people isn't one of the best - it's open to charges of hypocrisy and gets batted away with the sort of flimsy Snoop-type responses. But that makes a genuine dialogue like the one in the original post all the more valuable.

yeah I mean - I can't dig up & point to specific posts but I would assume that if I ever went into the rolling snap thread or w/e & took offense at a rapper calling people bitches & whores a lot, there'd be plenty of "yeah what can you do it's like that" at best. if you listen to rap you sort of have to deal with the genre convention of misogyny. and what used to point out that this is also true of rock, and he was right.

yeah i mean there's also a way that rap functions that is about being real -- i don't mean authentic, more just, valuing a lack-of-censorship, the arrogance to get away w/ being completely honest to an audience -- which means ppl aren't holding back & a lot of shit that in other genres is more implied or kept below the surface is going to be more explicit in rap by nature

& yeah the thing is there's def a problem where you have to put up w/ or ignore or indulge (or a combination of the above) some of it in order to actually get a handle on the full spectrum of rap that is released -- and I mean, there's no question we all draw our own lines where we're like, aite, this is toooo much for me. personally i found sarcastic rape jokes on odd future's shit to be just more abrasive than a lot of shit that is more considered "casual misogyny' and i don't think im more right or anything for feeling that way, it becomes like a debate about hitler vs mao or something. But there are moments where, like, privilege lets us feel a certain way abt the music & i think as long as i'm being real about how i feel on a record then that should be the most important thing & people can judge me (and should judge me) for those stands as i take them

one of the interesting things to me is gender of audiences too & how that intersects w/ our ideas of what stuff is offensive to women. i saw cormega the other night in an audience full of men & he doesnt say much shit about women at all, like one of the weird things w/ hip hop that is often misognyistic in the casual sense is that its also music targeted at both men & women so there's a strategic deployment of misogyny that can be fairly nuanced in ways ppl dont realize b/c its so openly bawdy & rude

to be clear im not saying having female fans makes it ok to be misogynist. more trying to get a handle on the lay of the land so to speak

also if you guys have the time, read that ann powers piece i linked upthread, it is VERY REAL & i cant believe i only heard about it yesterday

The Cronenberg was a hopeless rip-off of Butnuel in his priest-and-cow phase, with none of the unsparing insight into sexual anxiety that would later make Cronenberg a great violator artist. But his weak effort only disappointed, while Hollywood Boulevard truly sickened me. What I hated most was that the movie's heroine kept getting raped, again and again, in scenes meant to be an amusing send-up of exploitation's bodice-ripping reflex.

How could I, who relished every cringe-worthy detail about those twin doctors and their womb-torture instruments in Dead Ringers, be outraged by a C-movie's tame rape-scene rip-offs? I think it's because Hollywood Boulevard didn't go far enough. What I mean is that the film used distancing techniques: cheap jokes, irony, and the classic she-really-likes-it disclaimer--when I finally left the room for good, the heroine was just beginning to get into her third rape--to help viewers avoid confronting what rape might actually feel like for victim and perpetrator.

Nor did the film require me to think about what I was watching--in fact, thinking about it made me want to turn it off. Dead Ringers shattered distance, implicating me. Hollywood Boulevard let me off the hook. Not all art that claims to be transgressive is worth caring about. But you can't tell the bullshit from the real by setting moral standards. You have to set artistic ones.

this is a much more nuanced take than 'the avant-garde need not be moral' or w/e that quote people kept bringing up in context w/ dipset was

Good column.

i have to admit that piece is making me embarrassed abt when i said ann p's recent criticism hasnt really resonated w me b/c its like, oh yeah, i was 14 when she wrote this

under ann powers' reading, OFWGKTA's offensive misogyny is actually more defensible than too $hort's casual misogyny

I dont think the stuff directly parallels like that, her argument is more case-by-case basis

yeah but the root question seems to be, "does this art shock the consumer"

I dont find odd future shocking

I think they're probably more shocking than too $hort! or at least, they intend for their music to shock

I think too short writing a song about a woman who takes a lethal bj is intended to shock. Too $hort was kids sneaking cds past their parents music before tyler was alive

okay but is too $hort shocking in 2012?

"Butnuel"

itt put butt in a surrealist director's name

No but neither is odd future imo

Youre drawing a nonexistent distinction that exists purely for the individual listener

joseph cornholell

No but neither is odd future imo

Youre drawing a nonexistent distinction that exists purely for the individual listener

― D-40, Sunday, February 26, 2012 3:13 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

no it exists on both sides - you can intend to shock without actually shocking. too $hort, otoh, is working on autopilot at this point, not making music videos with centaurs and bug eating and uh whatever else skatepunk horrorcore OFWGKTA throw into it.

my point is that the 'shock value' of too $hort has become normalized by 2012 - that's what happens to shock value, either it gets assimilated and becomes passe or it is forgotten. a new too $hort album is certainly not going to get 6000 response ilx thread in 2012.

and that's the problem - at this point in his career, to use the two examples at the end of powers' essay, too $hort is firmly on the hollywood boulevard side rather than the cronenberg side of the line.

or I mean, you can certainly define 'shock' as being wholly on the side of the consumer of the art. but imo you'll have to do a lot more work to find too $hort defensible in 2012 and not OFWGKTA.

I don't think we need a scale of 'more indefensible' really

well I'm just going off of the conceptual framework laid out in the powers' piece

and that's the problem - at this point in his career, to use the two examples at the end of powers' essay, too $hort is firmly on the hollywood boulevard side rather than the cronenberg side of the line.

― flagp∞st (dayo), Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:19 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this a review of an album you haven't heard yet ?

i mean, i said this earlier in the thread -- to me his misogyny comes across as old-dude-in-the-club in his current music. but i don't think that odd future pretending to be a centaur is any more 'shocking'

really looking forward to what 'porno bitch' brings to the table

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1qRA2y76Mk

that said, this song sounds better than any odd future song ive heard but otoh it also sounds like it could have come out in the late 90s which might be why its less objectionable

thats kind of a red herring w/ this whole discussion though. there's nothing in ann's piece that implies she'd prefer odd future to too $hort per se, nor is the point that you can determine which artists are acceptable & which aren't. It's about being honest about your feelings & how you feel about the music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0BcJfqAKs0

alright, deej. so I'd be curious to hear why you find too $hort acceptable in 2012, what kind of horrifying alternate-reality he makes you confront your feelings on

didnt i just say that most of his recent songs give me a kind of creepy old-man-in-the-club vibe? i haven't REALLY fucked w/ a too short song since 'blow the whistle' & that was basically just about his legacy

ban too $hort

but let him post on Noize

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zUh9R-nd0M