If you’re of a certain age, the phrase “freaky tales” will forever conjure the voice of one Todd Anthony Shaw, née Too $hort, making good on the declaration that he was Born to Mack way back in 1987. Another generation will have a potentially different association with the phrase following the release of the 2025 movie of the same name. That movie was, of course, inspired by the music of Short Dawg—and also features the MC as narrator—which brings us the delightfully ouroboros moment that is VOL. 1 (FREAKY TALES). The 14-track effort isn’t the movie’s soundtrack, but it is full of Short Dawg-original stories spanning his enduring love for sex (“Still Mackin,” “Brain Surgery”), pimping (“Pimpin’ Like Kenny Red,” “Go Bitch”), and game-spitting in the Oakland tradition (“The Budget,” “Sucka Shit”). “These are the tales I tell so well,” he told us on the original “Freaky Tales,” but if you’re just now getting familiar, he is today who he was then: a storyteller of the highest order.