Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g. 50% of the crop). Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have encompassed the system. Some are governed by tradition, others by law. Legal contract systems such as the Italian mezzadria, the French métayage, the Spanish mediero, or the Islamic system of muqasat, enshrined in the Shariah, occur widely.^{[citation needed]}

Sharecropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the croppers. It encourages the cropper to remain on the land throughout the harvest season to work the land, solving the harvest rush problem. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares of his harvest, owners and croppers share the risk of harvests being large or small and prices being high or low. Because tenants benefit from larger harvests, they have an incentive to work harder and invest in better methods than in a slave plantation system. However, by dividing the working force into many individual workers, large farms no longer benefit from economies of scale. On the whole, sharecropping was not as economically efficient as the gang agriculture of slave plantations. In the U.S. "tenant" farmers own their own mules and equipment, and "sharecroppers" do not, and thus sharecroppers are poorer and of lower status.

Nitty-gritty, Nitty Gritty, etc. may refer to:

Stoney LaRue (born Stoney Larue Phillips in 1977) is a Texas Country/Red Dirt artist. Born in Taft, Texas, LaRue was raised in Southeastern Oklahoma and began playing country music at a young age.

LaRue moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma and began to play in the various bars around the college town, as well as his brother, Bo Phillips and sister, Hallie Bertrand. He befriended Jason Boland and Cody Canada and the three moved into the infamous "Yellow House" where they would have late night jam sessions and entertain other various musicians around the town, like Mike McClure and Brandon Jenkins.

In 2002, LaRue led The Organic Boogie Band and released Downtown, recorded in private sessions at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. LaRue's 2005 follow-up, The Red Dirt Album, reached the Billboard sales charts in its debut week. The next year, Stoney released his first live record Live at Billy Bob's Texas.