Steve 'Flash' JuonThere are a lot of great samples of Earth, Wind & Fire in rap history. There are even great interpolations of Earth, Wind & Fire. You can hear Joe croon his own version of the “Beijo Interlude” on the classic Big Pun song “Still Not a Player.” I love it. What I don’t love is MC Shy-D’s “Got to Be Tough.” I’d rather hear an interpolation than this. It sounds like it was pulled through a pasta strainer that fed into a chainsaw that was played back on a Casio SK-1.
Truthfully that describes every part of this song from the album of the same name. No matter how good or how bad the speakers or headphones you use are, every part of this song sounds blown out. The bass is broken, the vocals are distorted, and hilariously the cleanest part of the track is when Shy-D is shouting out “a new, funky fresh record company, Luke Skyywalker Records.” If you’re not up to speed on the humor, here’s a quick synopsis. Luther Campbell struck gold with a couple of California artists who became Florida transplants — Fresh Kid Ice and Mr. Mixx — and once Brother Marquis joined the fold 2 Live Crew (already their name before moving) went on to become (in)famous around the world. Flush off this success he probably thought he could pluck any rapper from any part of the United States and strike it big, so he tried the same with Shy-D, a cousin of Afrika Bambaataa.
He was almost right. “Got to Be Tough” managed to just barely sneak into the Billboard Top 200 at No. 197, although it fared better on the R&B Chart and could be called a “modest success” by reaching No. 41. It did well enough for Shy-D to actually tour with 2 Live Crew in the 1980’s, and he got a second album on Luke’s label called “Comin’ Correct in 88.” He needed to come correct, that’s for sure, because in ’87 he was coming with raps that would have been fly 5 years ago. “At the age of 7, I thought I was 11/I was busting on the mic like two-four-seven.” Even if he had said “twenty-four seven” instead I wouldn’t have given him a pass for rhyming seven with eleven and then seven AGAIN.
I’m older than a vast majority of our readers, so I hope you’ll take my word for it that rap progressed very quickly in the 1980’s, and Shy-D was hilariously out of step with rap from any part of the country in 1987. His nursery level vocals could not hang with Rakim, Ice Cube, Kane, Ice-T, Slick Rick, Chuck D or anybody else want to name from the era. Even in the early part of the 80’s he would have been very average, which is weird when you consider that’s what his entire album sounds like. The stripped down drum beats and vocals of “Paula’s on Crack” sound like a PSA commissioned by Ronald Reagan.
At least it’s well produced, which is more than I can say for the title track, and truthfully most of “Got to Be Tough” is a charming degree of corny. Listen — when MC Shy-D says he’s “funky” he means like aged cheese. He was a throwback in his own time. He has an album ostensibly about being tough with a song called “Don’t Take Me Seriously,” and you can’t listen to it without picturing a higher pitched, less intimidating version of Schoolly D. You’re right Shy. I don’t take you seriously at all. The hardest thing on your song is a scratch saying “motherfuckah” repeatedly.
In fact the more I think about it the more I’m convinced Luther Campbell probably thought “Shy-D” would be his Schoolly D, achieving the same kind of fame and notoriety the Philadelphia rap pioneer had with hits like “P.S.K.” and “Saturday Night.” The similarity in their style and in their names can’t be accidental, but Shy-D doesn’t have the raw machismo to pull off the swagger of his Philly brethren. “You’re a soft emcee, who wanna be known/and I know you can’t rock the microphone.” If this was 1983 and Joseph Simmons said it, I’d buy it, but it is purely infantile in ’87 on a song called “I Will Go Off.” I just look at the cover art and laugh while listening. Did they shoot it in Jay Leno’s garage?
Unfortunately if there was anything MC Shy-D would prove to be good at it was ripping off the styles of better rappers to lesser effect. For what it’s worth that makes “Got to Be Tough” the quintessential album of his catalogue. He’d never get any better than this. If you are really nostalgic for an era of rap that was already gone before Shy-D ever got signed, he’s got you covered in spades, “and you can’t beat that with a stickball bat.” (That’s Busy Bee BTW, another far better rapper than MC Shy-D.) He wass so out of step with his contemporaries that he was doomed in his day but he’s now almost cute in retrospect. He said it himself, you can’t take him seriously, but you can still be amused by his raps.