This past Saturday (January 21), Oakland, California’s legendary, multi-platinum producer and “Oaktown Funk” originator the “Big Badass” Ant Banks had his illustrious and prolific career celebrated during the Soul Beat Concert Series Presents: Menace II Society event hosted by Lord Rab and featuring MC Eiht of Compton’s Most Wanted, Pooh-Man, and Too Short.
Too Short, who made several gold & platinum-selling albums with Ant Banks either producing or mixing, came to the stage and challenged the crowd to listen to the albums in his catalog he made before Ant Banks and then to listen to the ones he made with him.
Ant Banks began working with Too Short on 1992’s platinum-selling Shorty The Pimp album, and the dynamic duo would go on to release Get In Where You Fit In in 1993, Cocktails in 1995, and Gettin’ It (Album Number Ten) in 1996, along with selections on platinum-selling soundtracks like Booty Call, Menace II Society, and Juice. As the output from Banks and Short would slowly begin to dissipate, Ant Banks still produced a small batch of songs for subsequent albums from Too Short like “What Happened to the Groupies”, “Where They At?”, “Talkin’ Shit”, “Cali-O”, “Domestic Violence”, and “What She Gonna Do?”, and Too Short declared, “ain’t no bass like Ant Banks bass, period!”
Short lauded Banks for bringing him “the bass”, and even admitted that after 1996’s Gettin’ It (Album Number Ten) that his music got worse because Ant Banks wasn’t as involved in Short’s album process. He does give Lil’ Jon props for giving him hit records like “Blow The Whistle” and “Shake That Monkey”, but maintained that his music as a whole suffered without Banks behind the boards.
Check out the video of Too Short admitting his music didn’t sound quite as good without the Big Badass below: