Tonedeff needs more sub-bass & crescendos.

I’ve been a producer for dumb long…actually, just about as long as I’ve been rhyming. Back when I was in my kid rap group, RBM Crew, I produced all the tracks we recorded as demos and the subsequently shelved Calligraphy album. Hell, even the joint I did on the Arsenio Hall Show as a kid was produced by me. I basically told the band what parts & melodies to play and they made it happen. (That shit was fun).

On the whole, I enjoy making music more so than anything else, to the point where I’ve pretty much relegated my passion for animation & illustration to barely a trickle since I tackled the task of building up the label. I’ve sincerely made an effort to step my game up as a musician and producer over the years and create songs that really push the boundaries of what’s expected of “hip hop artists”.

Looking back on the body of production work I’ve amassed over the past 7 years alone is kinda nuts. I’ve ran the gamut from Drum & Bass, to classic boom-bap, to piano ballads, to grimey street bangers to chia pet samples. From Session’s “Don’t Do It” to “Porcelain” to PackFM’s “whutduzFMstand4?” to “Bring It” – these songs couldn’t be any more different than they are. But when you look under the hood, you’ll realize they all have one common thread – they’re ultra-clean, super-textured and melody-driven.

Dirty VS Ultra-Clean

Granted, everything is a matter of taste. Some folks might prefer the gritty streetloops that Domingo brings to the table, the movie soundtrack-michael-bay-makes-beats style of Elite, the southern 2-twigs-snapping-a-mile-away-in-a-forest-under-808’s style of Deacon or the multi-layered melancholic melodic montage Kno is renowned for.

But, I grew up in a household where all we listened to was pop radio, classic Santana albums & La Lupe. So basically, that makes me a virtual encyclopedia of 80’s rap, r&b, pop and salsa (thanks Mom!). I think that has something to do with why my sound tends to be ULTRA-clean and crispy. Of course, I dig dirty beats and the like, but I feel like people seem to forget that there’s an art to making something sound polished and produced and what I do gets marginalized as a whole.

Now, I still chop the shit out of loops and I still mine for samples in dusty crates. I have a pretty nifty collection of records. I’m an old school production head. I’ve been through through the ringer. Hell, I remember recording to Ampex tapes in a 16-track analog studio when I was 11. The engineer didn’t know what to do with himself, as he was taking orders from a kid with a busted flat top and a big kool-aid grin. I remember when recording on a DAW was a “big deal” or when getting more than 2.5 seconds of sample time out of an SP12 was a major accomplishment.

I done paid my production dues dammit!

And here I am as a grown man, having produced tracks for alot of your favorite MCs along with my own. Artists hit me up moreso for beats than rhymes. Sometimes I gotta remind folks and say “Hey, I rhyme too.” aha. But at the end of the day I’m still fighting the good fight on the production side – even if people forever refuse to consider my eligibility for Diamond D’s coveted “Best Producer On The Mic” title.

So, with that, I bring you:

Tonedeff – “Deffinitions Vol.1” (Instrumentals) [October 2007]

TRACKLISTING:
01. Don’t Do It
02. U Talk 2 Much
03. Stoopid
04. Rising
05. T.H.E.Y
06. Alive
07. Route of Evil
08. Stomp
09. Bring It
10. Give It Away

Maybe this will help my case.

Hollerate!
Tone