There is Now a “Too $hort Way” Street in East Oakland

Too $hort has received an Oakland Street named “Too $hort Way” in the area’s Foothill Boulevard, where the rapper lived in the 1980s.

Too $hort has been honored with his own street in Oakland. On Sunday (December 11), the rapper was honored with “Too $hort Way” in the three-block stretch of Foothill Boulevard, between High Street and 47^th Avenue in East Oakland. The location is just outside of Fremont High School which Short, real name Todd Anthony Shaw, attended after relocating from Los Angeles in the 1980s. Those in attendance of the street naming event were Shaw’s fellow Mount Westmore member Ice Cube, Mistah F.A.B. and Sway Calloway.

“I have felt like I owe a debt to Oakland, and that nothing I do will ever repay it because of the life that I was given through Oakland,” Too $hort told SFGate. “There’s a few things that happened in my life that, if they didn’t happen, Too $hort wouldn’t happen, and going to Fremont High is one of those things. It was like our home base; we’d meet up at school and then we’d go to the house and make tapes, then we’d go out into the neighborhoods and sell the tapes.

The Mount Westmore member also discussed building a legacy in the Bay Area’s music scene.

“I was standing up on a foundation that was already solid, it was already built. So I really had to uphold the legacy of Oakland and the bay. It wasn’t like it was me who was starting this for the first time — big things had happened in the bay, it had a rich history. I’m not taking it lightly,” he said.