Muddy Water Presents – Too Short

Saturday night Bay Area legend Too $hort returned to his second home of Atlanta to perform for a packed out audience at The Loft. Short Dog has a career that has spanned four decades so he’s probably done and seen it all. But what made this show unique was that he performed with a live band.

He wasted no time getting getting the crowd crunk as he opened the show with his verse on Lil Jon’s “Couldn’t Be A Better Player,” even bringing out Lil Bo of the Eastside Boys to do the song with him. Yes, he still carries around the gas container full of liquor.

From there $hort went on the please the mostly 30 years old and up crowd with his classics “Freaky Tales,” “Life Is…” and “The Ghetto.”

While the music itself made the show enjoyable, at times $hort got in his own way. Though he was backed by a live band that featured rapper/keyboardist Kev Choice and singer Martin “Martian” Luther, Too $hort’s bottle of Patron wound up stealing the show.

Granted everyone in the crowd was pretty tipsy, but when Too $hort admitted to being pretty “fucked up” before he got into his verse on Wiz Khalifa’s “On My Level” it became apparent that no one in the audience was going to be joining $hort on his level for the rest of the night.

As the night went on, less music was performed and more talking was done. At one point $hort went on an almost 20 minute trip down memory lane about how much he loved Atlanta. At first it was cool, with Luther freaking The Isley Brother’s “Voyage To Atlantis” into a ode to the A-Town. But the crowd began getting restless when $hort kept rambling.

By the end of the rant people started leaving and $hort pretty much stopped performing and allowed the fans that were left to come on stage and freestyle with him. He capped the night by bringing a heavyset woman on stage, picking her up and freaking her. Guess he wanted to show the crowd that at age 45 he still “got it.”

$hort and the band attempted to end the show with “Gettin It” but it never quite happened as one of his hypemen took the mic and thanked everyone for coming out.

Getting to see a long tenured artist like Too $hort is probably on everybody’s rap concert bucket list, as it should be. But let’s hope the next time he performs he leave the liquor in the dressing room…  @Maurice_Garland