DJ Too Tuff Is Back to Wreck Shop

Or, how a hip-hop pioneer wrote his own comeback story

by A.D. Amorosi

Michael T. Regan

Joe Hicks has a lot to be grateful for.

Before the 38-year-old turntablist/producer ends our conversation, he'll have thanked everyone from his manager, Tim McCloskey, to his business partner, Jason Zotos, to his inspiration, Angelina Fox.

"I will always love her with all my heart — all day, every day," says the man known to most as DJ Too Tuff. "There may not be another moment in life for me to have such a thing to appear in print for this warm and loving friend of mine," says Hicks. He knows about second chances. He's grateful he's getting yet another shot now. See, North Philly's Tuff Crew was the toast of the city's hard hip-hop '80s. Along with Danger Zone-area pals Ice Dog, Tone Love and LA Kid, Tuff made scratch-heavy, cinema verité albums like Back to Wreck Shop and hits such as "My Part of Town," vividly depicting the Badlands through tension-filled lyrics and tenser-still sound.

It may have been the era of Schoolly D, Three Times Dope and Steady B's Hilltop Hustlers. But most admit: Tuff Crew was the bomb before the Bomb Squad dropped. Even Schoolly admits to me how formidable Tuff Crew was. "The '80s were about gangsters; holding your own ground," says Schoolly. "But everyone from other neighborhoods accepted Tuff Crew. They came. They rocked. They left."

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

No kidding Tuff Crew got accepted. "I was a fucking pioneer who did basement parties for on dollar [a head] and still made $400 per night," says Hicks. "Back then I rocked block parties at Eighth and Jefferson, 11th and Cumberland, 29th and Ridge, Fourth and Fairmount, Richard Allen Projects, 32nd Street Projects in Camden, Tasker homes. I was accepted because I worked my ass off."

After Tuff Crew packed up its 808s in 1991, Hicks kept spinning, making DJ albums like Behold the Detonator and other mix-tapes under the "Posse Alert" banner from his studio on Frankford and Girard when he wasn't playing clubs. He got himself in trouble with the law — drug-possession stuff. But he beat that and, by early last year, a Tuff Crew reunion loomed as did his place at the head of the raw rap mix table — what with DJs Z-Trip, Peanut Butter Wolf and Cosmo Baker singing his praises.

But no sooner was the August 2007 Tuff Crew reunion show at Tritone booked when Hicks got nailed on possession of marijuana. Only this time, Curran Correctional Facility held him without bail because of his previous record. Tuff Crew played on for their jailed DJ's legal bills. "The show went on because as professionals and as family, the Tuff Crew legacy would not and could not be deterred by my absence."

After seeing a DVD of the August show, Hicks makes reference to the Crew's stage presence that night — their crowd-pumping enthusiasm, their "golden nasal vocal tones." Even the sale of Free Too Tuff T-shirts impressed Hicks. The reunion album's nearly complete. That first show indicated that people wanted more of them. And it proved to Hicks that his crew — big and small C — would stick together through thick and thin. "When one is in need, the others are always there to step in and do what's needed. God has a plan for each one of us and I believe that his plan for me is to take the talent and gift I've been given and touch the world with my story and struggle to overcome against all odds."

Weirdly enough, Hicks calls this last incarceration a relief. Somehow he knew this would be the last time he'd do the "F." "My times in jail, which never went past county bids and never lasted more than 10 months, showed me that sometimes God has to lay you on your back so that you can look up at him," says Hicks, who committed to a workout regimen and shed 46 pounds while his Crew and management put all musical elements into place.

There's plenty of new and old Too Tuff and Tuff Crew music ready to surface: There's the Lost Archives — old stuff from Too Tuff, Tuff Crew and their local North Philly affiliates pulled from original four-track cassettes, circa 1988 to 1994. There's a new album they're calling ReUnion that brings the Crew back as one modern unit. There's Tuff management reaching out for artists who wish to have Too Tuff give them scratches and beats (myspace.com/djtootuff) and the launch of the Tuff Crew Web site that will show off the "slammingest beats and the dopest MCs on the planet."

Joke with Hicks about staying old-school — or this line from the black-humored "My Part of Town": "If you're not the future, you're history" — and he counters that evolution is not a concern for the Crew, since during their heyday they were 10 years ahead of their time. "We built up such an extraordinary lead during the formative years, our music is considered timeless to the true hip-hop listener," says Hicks. Is he ready to be good? "I do believe I am ready to be great — again."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)