Too Short’s brother killed in Oakland
Too Short‘s brother has reportedly been killed in Oakland. The older brother of the Bay Area rapper died on the morning of January 29th after he was shot during a failed robbery in East Oakland.
Police said 61-year-old Wayne Shaw was shot at around 7am on Wednesday during an attempted heist at a marijuana grow house in the 1200 block of 49th Avenue. 911 calls and a gunshot detection system alert led officers to turn up at the location, finding Shaw wounded multiple times. After being taken to Highland Hospital, he died several hours later.
According to Mercury News, Oakland Police Department Deputy Chief Frederick Shavies said the shooting occurred after a car crashed into the marijuana grow house to get inside, causing Shaw to walk outside and suffer multiple gunshots.
At around 3:30pm that same day, a man exited the 49th Avenue building where the shooting took place and met another person outside. Both declined to comment on the shooting, but one of them said, “That was one of the worst days we’ve had.”
Police are searching for several suspects after no arrests were made; the incident marks the 12th death Oakland police are investigating as a homicide so far in 2025. Hip-hop producer Terry T, also known as Mr. Community, had high praise for Shaw, calling him a “guardian” for Too Short.
“The streets really respected him,” he said during an interview. “He really was somebody who people looked at for advice. It’s not easy living in the shadow of a brother who was famous. And he was one of the greatest shadows you’d ever meet because he embraced the shadow.”
58-year-old Too Short has been a influential figure in West Coast hip-hop since the 1980s, best known for singles such as ‘Blow the Whistle’ and ‘The Ghetto’. He was born and raised in Los Angeles before moving to Oakland with his family in 1980. In 2022, Foothill Boulevard in Oakland was renamed Too Short Way in his honour.
He released his last album, Snoop Cube 40 Short, a collaboration with Snoop Dogg, E-40 and Ice Cube as Mount Westmore, in December 2022.