"Shy Guy" — Diana King
The dancehall-pop single from the Bad Boys soundtrack that made Jamaica's Diana King a global name in the spring of 1995: number 13 in America, number two in Britain, number one across Europe.
Diana King was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, on November 8, 1970, and worked the hotel circuit with the band City Heat before a 1991 solo single, "Change of Heart." The break came through hip-hop: King sang on The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Respect" on Ready to Die in 1994, Sony signed her, and a cover of Bob Marley's "Stir It Up" for the Cool Runnings soundtrack reached number 53 on the R&B chart.
"Shy Guy," written by King with producer Andy Marvel and Kingsley Gardner, took ten minutes to write by King's account. It samples Average White Band's "School Boy Crush" and takes its chorus from Charlie Chaplin's 1989 dancehall cut "Cool the Violence." Released on March 13, 1995 on both King's debut Tougher Than Love and the Bad Boys soundtrack, it got two videos, a black-and-white one by Marcus Nispel and a Bad Boys cut by Michael Bay with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It reached number 13 on the Hot 100 and went gold, peaked at number two in the UK, where it spent seven weeks in the top 10 and went platinum, sat at number two in Norway for seven straight weeks, went platinum in Australia, and topped the Eurochart Hot 100, Finland and Sweden. Tougher Than Love, out April 25, 1995, went to number one on Billboard's reggae chart.
King followed with "I Say a Little Prayer" for My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997, a number 38 hit, and the album Think Like a Girl, which entered the reggae albums chart at number one that September. In June 2012 King came out as a lesbian in a Facebook post, described as the first openly gay Jamaican artist, and came out as non-binary in 2018. "Shy Guy" kept circulating: Mýa covered it in 2008, and DJ Mustard and Nicki Minaj's "Don't Hurt Me" borrowed the chorus in 2016.
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