Blow the Whistle feat. Too $hort

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Now, for this week's episode:

Before independent rap became a business model, Too $hort was already selling tapes hand-to-hand in Oakland. More than four decades later, Short Dog sits down with Donwill to trace the improbable longevity of a career that helped establish the Bay Area as its own hip-hop universe. He revisits hiding his earliest rhymes from his mother, producing his own records, documenting Oakland when New York and Los Angeles dominated rap's geography, and the run of albums that culminated in Gettin’ It (the record he considers the peak of his original sound) and the moment he got to work with his childhood hero, George Clinton. 

Too $hort explains how relationships with The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, UGK, Eric Sermon and Lil Jon expanded his reach without disconnecting him from the Bay and how “Blow the Whistle,” released deep into an already historic career, effectively bought him another 20 years. Along the way, he talks “raunchy rap”, censorship, protecting young artists from the streets and what it means to be 60 in a genre that once wasn't expected to survive long enough to have senior citizens. For Too $hort, the answer has been sitting in the title of his earliest project all along: don't stop rapping.  Too $hort breaks down:

How selling tapes independently in Oakland became the foundation for a 40-plus-year career

Why Gettin’ It represents the peak of his original Bay Area sound and what working with George Clinton meant to him

How Biggie, Jay-Z, UGK, Eric Sermon and Lil Jon helped open new chapters without changing who he was

Why “Blow the Whistle” became the late-career anthem that gave him another 20 years

What hip-hop can learn about longevity, protecting the bag and growing old without leaving the culture behind