Quavo and Lana Del Rey debuted their new joint single “Tough” in June at Del Rey’s Fenway Park show in Boston.
Videos by American Songwriter
Del Rey announced her first country album Lasso is coming in September. She said, “[Producer] Jack [Antonoff] has followed me to Muscle Shoals [Alabama], Nashville, Mississippi, over the last four years” because “we’re going country.” She also told her audience that “the music business is going country.”
She’s not wrong. “Tough” is a country-trap collaboration that follows the recent trend of pop’s biggest stars like Beyoncé and Post Malone turning toward country music. However, Quavo and Del Rey don’t sound far from home on their new hit.
Like a Diamond
Quavo and Del Rey use country music tropes to find the sweet in the salty. The song follows a couple expressing their grit, surviving humble beginnings as they navigate life together.
Tough like the scuff on a pair of old leather boots
Like the blue-collar, red-dirt attitude
Like a .38 made out of brass
Tough like the stuff in your grandpa’s glass
Life’s gonna do what it does
Sure as the good Lord’s up above
I’m cut like a diamond shining in the rough
Tough
During Quavo’s verse, he raps about his struggle to find love. His voice is reverb-laden, and the cavernous quality makes him sound like he’s delivering his message of hope from another dimension.
Come on, take a ride with me
Like the 808s beating in the trunk in Atlanta, it was tough
It was kinda hard for me
Crawling through the mud, I couldn’t find love, then we came up
Look at what we are, baby
Standing through the storm, still shining like a diamond in the rough
Still shining, and that’s hard
If you ever lost someone that you love
Lana Has a Vision
Clayton Johnson, one of the co-writers, recalled working on “Tough” with Del Rey in Nashville. He wrote on Instagram, “Back in January, Lana and I sat in Nashville freestyling songs on an acoustic guitar about imaginary animals and Oliver’s chew toys. I showed her a few songs I had been working on, and played her a song idea from a different session.”
Johnson further explained that Del Rey and her producer Jack Antonoff called and asked if they could rework an idea from one of Johnson’s voice memos. He said Del Rey had a vision for the song and “the rest is history.”
As is the case with modern pop songs, there’s a mass of writing credits including Del Rey, Quavo, Johnson, Antonoff, and the track’s producers, Andrew Watt and Cirkut. (A full paragraph of names accompanies the songwriting credits.)
Motown and Quality Control Music released “Tough” on July 3.
Tough Love
Wyatt Spain Winfrey directed the music video for “Tough.” There’s a Hummer and a mansion, a shotgun and a guitar, lots of diamonds, all interspersed with rural clips and semi-trucks.
Like most of Del Rey’s music videos, it’s filtered in nostalgic tones. One scene shows Quavo helping Del Rey aim a gun toward a beer bottle she later shoots. They drive away and playfully sing to each other as fuzzy dice dangle from the truck’s rearview mirror.
Quavo and Del Rey’s Americana
Atlanta rapper Quavo came to prominence fronting the hip-hop group Migos. As a solo artist, he’s collaborated with Post Malone, Drake, Justin Bieber, and DJ Khaled. Quavo appears with Bieber on Bieber’s 2020 hit “Intentions.”
“Tough” isn’t Del Rey’s first time dabbling in Americana. She collaborated with Nikki Lane on “Breaking Up Slowly,” from Chemtrails over the Country Club. However, American themes have been a part of Del Rey’s music for years, most notably on her sixth studio album Norman F—ing Rockwell!
It’s also not Del Rey’s first time producing hip-hop. “National Anthem” from her 2012 album Born to Die features Del Rey talk-rapping over a hazy hip-hop beat. A$AP Rocky appears as Del Rey’s husband in the music video.
Pop Goes Country
With the world’s biggest pop stars now performing songs with rural themes, it looks like the reverse of Taylor Swift’s career.
Meanwhile, Beyoncé made history with her country album Cowboy Carter. And Post Malone’s duet “I Had Some Help” featuring Morgan Wallen shot straight to No. 1 and where there’s success, the rest of the music industry will follow.
Purists may not like it, but it’s not too different from country songs by The Rolling Stones (“Wild Horses”) or The Beatles (“Baby’s in Black”).
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