"Street Tuff" is a 1989 song by British producer and

toaster A toaster is a small electric appliance that uses radiant heat to brown sliced bread into toast. Types Pop-up toaster In pop-up or automatic toasters, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the toaster. ...

Rebel MC Michael Alec Anthony West (born 27 August 1964 in Islington, London, England), better known as Rebel MC and Congo Natty, is a British jungle producer and toaster. He has also gone by aliases including Conquering Lion, Blackstar, Tribe of Issac ...

and Double Trouble. Released as their second single from the debut album, '' Rebel Music'' (1990), it became a commercial success and the biggest

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

of both performers' careers, peaking at number three on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. It is the follow-up to their first hit, "Just Keep Rockin'", which made it into the UK top 20. Additionally "Street Tuff" also peaked within the top 10 in Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. A

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

was produced to promote the single.

Critical reception

David Taylor-Wilson from ''

Bay Area Reporter The ''Bay Area Reporter'' is a free weekly newspaper serving the LGBT communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest-circulation LGBT newspapers in the United States, and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' said the song is "one of the most infectious grooves we've heard all year." He noted that it "mixes the rhythms of Jamaican

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

with a

house music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...

beat. Just try and sit still when this one’s playing." Bill Coleman from ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' wrote that "clever rhyming powered by insinuating club beats could generate multiformat play to follow the U.K. act's previous smash, "Just Keep Rockin'"." A reviewer from ''The Network Forty'' noted that featuring the "sultry

Annie Lennox Ann Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the New wave music, new wave band the Tourists, she and fellow musician D ...

style vocals of Janet Sewall, this rap-dance record covers both musical realms with equal zeal."

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

External links

Rebel MC on Discogs

Street Tuff
- lyrics at genius.com 1989 songs 1989 singles Rebel MC songs Double Trouble (dance music producers) songs Hip house songs {{hiphop-song-stub