The Etymology of Shorty in Hip Hop
Matthew Daniels
When 90% of the population hears a rap song about shorties, they imagine this.Or in urban dictionary terms, “a fine ass woman, or your girl.”

But if you’re hip hop-inclined, you know that shorty has multiple meanings, used to refer to a woman, kid, or man (one new to drugs, gang life, or rap).Shorty as a kid (Wu-Tang, C.R.E.A.M.): "Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough"Shorty as a man (2pac): "Shorty wanna be a thug"Shorty as a woman (Lil Wayne, Lollipop): "Shorty wanna thug"Here's the thing: up to the mid-90s, shorty referred to female, male, and child equally (~30% each). But by 2002, female bit rose to 70%.So by 2004, any mention of shorty was most commonly a female, which explains why the kids these days don't associate shorty with a gun-wielding, drug-selling thug.Why the dramatic change?

Hip hop invented shorty. Hip hop is responsible for changing its meaning. Let’s look at its history, from the first “shorty” in ‘85 to the first “shawty” in the late 90s.



The Birth of Shorty

Too $hort was the first rapper to use shorty. Ever. In 1985.

Listen carefully and you can hear it...

"Now everytime I see her she be doing it soon.
Like ninety on shorty in a motel room"

Shorty is likely the woman named throughout the track, though possibly himself (Too $hort’s nickname).

What's dope is that this first instance of shorty is a double entendre. Since the beginning, shorty could mean different things depending on the context.
By ‘91, there were fewer than 10 instances of shorty in hip hop history. By ‘93, the count increased to 50 and then doubled again to 100 by ‘96.

Here’s who introduced shorty to hip hop and was responsible for its spread.By ’94, anyone in hip hop, fan or rapper, would have heard shorty due to the commercial success of Biggie, Tribe Called Quest, and Wu-tang (who, on C.R.E.A.M., recorded the iconic “life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough”).

But what caused the rise in ’94? Why the sudden change in rappers who were using shorty in their lyrics?

Pre-’92, the ~50 songs that used shorty weren't even popular. No artist was prolific with the word.

Influential albums like Apocalypse 91 (Public Enemy), All Souled Out (Pete Rock), and Midnight Marauders (Tribe Called Quest) each had a track with shorty, so it’s possible that a handful of songs exposed the word to nearly every aspiring rapper.

What’s fascinating is how hip hop culture took an unknown word and made it part of every rapper’s flow.

Shorty is now in 7% of all hip hop songs (as of late ’12) – as popular as words like sex, glock, rims, pussy, and drugs.And how a few artists could move a word from a handful of instances to mainstream in the stretch of 5 years.Why the Meaning of Shorty Changed

By ’96, shorty’s meaning started to tip toward female.

Why? Southern hip hop blew up.Southern hip hop created shawty. It created Crunk music. It’s responsible for Lil Jon, credited with the first shawty in ’97.

(Yes. Lil Jon, the rapper we most often mock, should receive all of the glory that comes with adding shawty to the hip hop lexicon. Refer to the historic Who You Wit on Lil Jon's debut album).

Southern hip hop went mainstream by ’02, with Outkast’s Stankonia, T.I.’s Trap Muzik, and Ying Yang Twin’s Salt Shaker, and the fabric of rap music started to change.

Southern hip hop and Crunk music shifted the setting of rap songs to the club, and with it, a focus on eying, attracting, and dancing with shawties. All of those songs about lady shorty would soon drown out the other more traditional meanings.


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Interestingly, these songs not only focused more on women, but written conversationally as if rappers were speaking to one.

You're probably familiar with this style of rap...Here, 50 and Ying Yang Twins give instructions to shorties – now a common theme in hip hop for the past 10 years.

Southern hip hop brought another interesting change that added to shorty's prevalence. Shorty became an element of flow, meaningless lyrical filler (the “WTF?” in the above graph).The above lines from T.I. and Lil Wayne sound like they're battling – shorty as a fictional recipient/adversary.

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So there you have it: shorty's birth in '85, popularization in the mid-90s, meaning shift in the early '00s, and Lil Jon getting a whole lot of credit.
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 2013, titled "The Etymology of Shorty in Hip Hop", by artist "Matthew Daniels".