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It was only just over a year ago that Too Short last graced the Miller High Life Theatre stage, accompanied by an assortment of notable peers, but never one to stop hustling, the legendary Oakland MC was back at it again Saturday night, this time bringing along a mostly new set of talented contemporaries. Appropriately dubbed the “Return of the Kings” tour, Short’s new traveling revue delivered all the raunchiness and rap star-power fans have come to expect—but relatively sluggish ticket sales compared to last year’s easily sold-out show seem to suggest that even the kings are subject to the law of diminishing returns.
Starting off the evening, as many people were still navigating the serpentine, gender-specific security lines, was Michel’le, a R&B chanteuse whose association with West Coast gansta rap goes all the way back to the World Class Wreckin’ Cru. While capable of powerfully belting it out all the way to the back rows, her natural speaking voice sounds something like a helium-inhaling chipmunk, which she seems to have a lot of fun with, gamely getting laughs by playfully modulating between the two, teasing the audience with a few bars of something like “Turn off the Lights” before breaking the spell with one sassy aside or another.
After some time-killing between-set banter from local comedian D-Rock came Texas underground originators the Geto Boys, whose psychotic brand of gritty horrorcore is still as edgy as ever 30 years later. Despite the full trio being in attendance, they tended to share the spotlight, with Scarface or Willie D. deftly delivering their verse of some cult-classic like “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” and then drifting back offstage—or jumping offstage, as the diminutive yet imposing Bushwick Bill chose to do at one point. He disappeared into the sea of people for so long that his comrades seemed to get a little concerned (or at least impatient).
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Next up was the ringleader himself, Too Short, who eschewed songs from his brand-new album The Pimp Tapes in favor of X-rated classics like “Freaky Tales” and “Life is… Too Short.” To be fair, he had decades worth of crowd-pleasers to pack into a set that, clocking in at under an hour, was overly brief (I could have opted for the obvious pun; you’re welcome). He highlighted his old-school output and new millennium bangers like “Blow the Whistle,” but a few songs the audience didn’t already know the words to would’ve been a welcome addition among all the time-tested usual suspects.
Once Too Short casually wrapped up his performance, D-Rock rushed on to assure the audience that, although they had been heretofore unmentioned, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were in fact in the building and ready come in. Having already seen the ostensible headliner, and given Bone Thugs’ semi-regular appearances at the Rave, more than a few folks took the opportunity to slip out. Yet, as familiar as they are, hits like “1st of tha Month” or closer “Tha Crossroads” were worth sticking around for, even if they were bringing up the house lights before the group even finished, awkwardly wrapping up an exciting, if by now somewhat predictable, evening.
