SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details about the singer eliminated on Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) episode of The Masked Singer.
There are typically two kinds of celebrities who get revealed on The Masked Singer: ones who the judges and studio audience simply can’t pinpoint because they’ve adjusted their vocals and mannerisms just enough to go incognito and ones with such an unmistakable, signature tone to their voice that it’s pretty obvious from jump who they are.
Wednesday night’s (Jan. 21) boot-ee was one of the latter. If you’re old enough to have shopped for CDs in the Bush 1.0/Clinton era, then you probably sussed out the identity of Handyman from the second he took the stage last week. While the artist was hidden in a bright yellow, Jack-of-all-trades outfit — complete with hard hat and prominent tool belt — when he got funky with Peaches & Herb’s 1978 Billboard Hot 100 No. 5 disco classic “Shake Your Groove Thing,” a lightbulb likely popped up right away.
And while he was hidden behind a metallic mask as he waved his wrench arms and sang into a screwdriver microphone, the low, throaty growl and laconic delivery was pretty much a dead giveaway. The first clue package was also kind of obvious, with a reference to his “wild guy face” and a crew of past big-screen co-stars including Robert DeNiro (Heat) and Courteney Cox (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).
Then, on Wednesday night’s Clueless-themed episode, he joined the rest of the cast for a run through Kim Wilde’s 1981 classic “Kids in America” alongside fellow season 14 contestants Pugcasso, Scarab and Snow Cone, with his voice again reading pretty obviously after he described the childhood accident that gave him his signature rasp. His vocals really popped during his run through A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?,” which got both the crowd and the judges on their feet as he showed off his impressive rhyming skills, with the audience enthusiastically chanting “yes you can!”
When it came time to guess, panelist Rita Ora went with Vanilla Ice — based on a clue featuring an ice sculpture of a microphone — though the more “gravelly” voice made her think Ice-T. Always wrong Ken Jeong was all the way off with his pick of A-Team legend Mr. T. He was, naturally, totally in the wrong ballpark, as the real man behind the mask was none other than “Funky Cold Medina” rapper and occasional actor (Poetic Justice, Posse) Tone Lōc.
Billboard caught up with Lōc (born Anthony Terrell Smith), 59, before his elimination to find out why he didn’t even try to disguise his instantly recognizable voice, who convinced him to appear on the show and why the show may have convinced him to get back in the studio for the first time in three decades.
You said your daughter dared you to do the show. What did she say?
She grew up with me and she was like, “There’s no way you would do something like that.” I had never seen it, but she had and now I see what she was talking about. [She said] “You would not put on a mask and costume and dance and sing.” Once I saw it, I said, “Yeah I’ll do it.” Most people who called after the first day [I was on the show] saw me on there and had no idea I was doing it.
What did they say?
First they said, “‘Shake Your Groove Thing?’ Huh?”
Were they able to figure out it was you right away?
Oh, immediately. “Oh, dude, first voice we heard, we knew.” I didn’t realize [my voice] was that noticeable. It is kind of, a little bit, I think.
C’mon! You have such a distinctive voice, one of the most distinctive in rap, really. Did you even try to switch it up to fool people?
I mean, I think I did try, but I couldn’t change it. It’s basically is what it is. When I try to change it even slightly, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is, it’s who I am.
Sometimes singers will purposely pick a song out of their genre, like you were saying with Peaches & Herb, but then tonight you went with a Tribe song, which kind of made it more obvious who was under the hard hat. Did you do that on purpose?
I didn’t really know. I couldn’t hear it [in the costume] but it was kind of cool. I don’t know how it came out sounding, but I liked it. I didn’t pick Peaches to throw anyone off… they had some songs they wanted me to sing that wouldn’t have worked out well. I think my agent decided, “Let’s try Peaches & Herb.” I don’t know what was on his mind. Tribe was cool, though.
You’ve been doing the I Love the 90s tour for a couple years, but haven’t really been on the music scene that much. Why this show to come back to singing on a big platform?
I’ve been doing that tour for like six years and I did this, like I said, because of the dare. I’m still doing shows; I have never stopped doing shows. I’ve always tried to keep it pushing, maintain the people who like Tone Lōc, stay in my lane.
The Handyman was a bonkers costume. Why did you pick that one?
They handed it to me. It’s a big costume with a big helmet and head. You have to be committed, because that’s a serious costume. You have to make sure you have everything tight. I like Handyman, that was the most masculine one I’ve seen, that worked out quite well.
It’s been 35 years since your last album, 1991’s Cool Hand Lōc. Any chance you’re working on a new album now?
Oh man, that long? Man. I wasn’t working on a new album, but I think I will now because of the big song I do have now that is bigger than [my other hits]. It’s called “Hey, What’s Up?” and I haven’t recorded it yet. I do it live on tour and the audience response to that is way higher than “Funky Cold Medina” or “Wild Thing.”
The judges’ guesses were hilarious: Vanilla Ice, Ice-T Mr. T…
The ones who don’t know, who have no idea who Tone Lōc is. Then you have people who know exactly who that is from the first word or two out of that graggily-ass voice. Now I see how my voice sounds to people, I had no idea.
