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Rapper / Actor
Birth Name: Anthony Terrell Smith Tone-Loc was an '80s rap pioneer, the second rap act ever to reach #1 on Billboard's album charts. (The Beastie Boys were the first.) His album Loc'd After Dark (1989) spawned the hit singles "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina"; they remain Loc's best-known tunes. After recording his 1991 follow-up album, Cool Hand Loc, the singer put his familiar raspy voice to work on TV and in film, landing roles on the TV series Roc and in films including Jim Carrey's breakthrough flick Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and the animated sci-fi epic Titan A.E. (2000).
Tongue-in-cheek Los Angeles artist (b. Anthony Smith - his stage name derived from his Spanish nickname, Antonio Loco), Tone Loc's hoarse raps boast of incredible personal sexual allure, allied to a background of smooth jazz, soul and bluebeat. His debut album featured the two worldwide 1990 hits, "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina", both built on sparse rock samples. The songs were written by Marvin Young, aka Young MC, "Wild Thing" going on to become America's second biggest-selling single of all time. It also created one of the strangest moral panic scares of its era, when certain pundits suggested it gave rise to the "Wilding" craze, where young black men prowled the streets in order to rob, rape and kill. This was simple paranoia, and clearly had nothing to do with the career of Smith, whose alarmingly deep, husky vocals always enabled a sense of humour and self-deprecation to permeate through his recordings. Loc'ed After Dark made the US number 1 spot, only the second rap album to do so. "All Through The Night", the first single from his follow-up LP, featured the Brand New Heavies in support. However, its failure to crack the Top 20 indicated a small reversal in his fortunes. He also contributed dialogue to the animated film Bebe's Kids, and starred in Posse