by Cydni Elledge, Outlier Media
May 26, 2025
This story was originally published by Outlier Media.
Beats and brushes: The art of being Sheefy McFly
Tashif “Sheefy McFly” Turner is Detroit through and through — from his signature style to the way he talks. You’ll rarely catch him without his Cartier glasses, and he can easily pull off finger waves, gators and a fur coat. He grew up near Payton and Morang on the eastside, but these days he identifies as an “all-sider” because he’s got love for the whole city.
The 35-year-old painter, rapper, producer and ghettotech DJ also known as Edward Elecktro when he’s spinning says the city shaped his creativity.
“Everything in Detroit I’ve been inspired by — from the city, the art, the history — always felt like I had a birthright to everything I’m involved in.”
Turner’s work often reflects nature’s rhythms, shifting with the seasons.
“In winter, that’s when I do a lot of my music … and in the summer, that’s when I do a lot of my murals and art shows.”
He didn’t grow up around traditional artists, but he remembers sketching with his mom and watching his uncles draw on their clothes. Still, he felt pressure to follow a more conventional route — like getting a job at an auto plant, a common career path for many Black Detroiters. Becoming an artist felt “far-fetched.”
“It’s hard being a Black creative because (of) people telling me go work at GM or something like that. … But I feel like now the world is made for multifaceted thinkers. The world is made for people that’s just cranking and moving, you know? So I feel like, back in the day, I was getting ready for this time.”
Turner graduated from the Detroit School of Arts in 2007 and spent two years at College for Creative Studies (CCS). He didn’t finish his degree, but he continued to hone his craft as a painter.
Over time, he found the freedom to fully express his vision — something no single medium could contain. He paints to explore symbolism and makes music to document his life in real time.
“Painting, for me, is more descriptive … I don’t have to say it, but I can help you see it,” he explained. “And then with music, I’ve just been realizing it’s like an autobiography almost. So I can hear myself. If I listen to old stuff, I can hear where I was at that point. I can hear pieces of myself in the music as well. That’s not as descriptive as the art sometimes.”
Remixing the greats, teaching the masses
Detroit has birthed musical icons like DJ Assault, Amp Fiddler and J Dilla, and Turner finds inspiration from them all. But ghettotech is where he thrives. The electronic genre fuses Detroit techno, Chicago ghetto house and Miami bass, and yes — Turner has DJ’d Detroit’s Movement music festival in the past. But this year, he’s more about the after-parties.
“We got such a robust history that was just right in front of me,” he said. Realizing that Detroit helped shape the genre made him want to become an ambassador for it.
Emulating the artists he admired helped him discover how he wanted to create his own sound.
“I had to do that to actually form my own style, just like in art, when you copy the masters’ works to create your own identity.”
For inspiration for his visual art, Turner has traveled to New York, Miami and Los Angeles — where artists like Romero Britto, Keith Haring and Lawrence “Naturel” Atoigue helped him develop his bold and colorful style.
Drake Phifer, an event curator and occasional DJ, owns a Sheefy McFly piece — gifted to him by his mother, who is an artist.
“You want that sophisticated (perspective), but you want it hood — you’re gonna go to Sheefy because he’s universally aware, but he’s also individually understanding of his role in the environment,” Phifer said. “I think he understands how the world perceives him, but he doesn’t bend to that. He creates the world that he wants us to see through color. … He has Andy Warhol sensibility with hood intonations.”
Turner channels and celebrates Detroit’s identity in his paintings, music and murals around the city. But he’s also taken his hometown pride on the road — painting murals in places like California and Bosnia.
“A lot of my murals are like a love letter to Detroit (with) a lot of reoccurring symbolisms — with the jit man or different sayings, (like) ‘Detroit never left’, ‘Techno house is black music,’” he said. “I try to put these things on several walls, so it just becomes memory and fact for Detroiters that don’t know this. I try to leave Detroit breadcrumbs for Detroiters that’s ignorant to their own history.”
As well-known as he is for his art and for his fresh music sets, Turner isn’t chasing celebrity status.
“I’m not focused on being, like, famous,” he said. His goal is to move the crowd — physically or emotionally. A big part of his creative process involves channeling the energy of Detroit’s past.
“I try to think of myself DJing like at the River Rock or something, or FM 98 back in the day, when I used to hear it as a kid,” he said, referring to the popular club WJLB-FM often broadcast from in the 90s and early 2000s. “I try to mix that feel with my new production every time. And it’s always a party when I do that.”
Catch Sheefy McFly’s next monthly set at UFO Bar on June 21. He’s crafting a new track just for the night. You can check out his art and music at sheefymcfly.com. His artwork is also at the Scarab Club as part of the “Something’s Hot” exhibition, on display through June 21.
This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.