Tonedeff has been at it for a long time. But after all this just might be his first official proper non-mix-cd, non-ep album. Don’t quote me boy, cause I ain’t saying shish though. But it just might be. What however means that you have had several chances of getting to know this quick tongue rapper, who can actually repeat on stage what he does on record. And so even though it may sound a little bit like someone hit the fast forward button, this guy is actually rapping like that. Did then, does now (see “Case Closed” with a Domingo beat).

“Archetype” is the album, mainly produced by himself. There’s unfortunately no Tori Amos or Fiona Apple sample on here, and sometimes we actually miss it. Because Tone strays away from most samples or at least synthesizes much of the Soul and Jazz out of ‘em. But for those genre’s, there’s contributions by other people and the odd Tone beat too, like the great party stomper “Let’s Go.” As for contributors there’s Versifier on “Disappointed” with a quirky hook and Tone doing some funny wordplaying. Kno does what Kno does: produce dope beats. And “Loyal” is definitely that, even though it does that squirrel hook thing. But the drum programming is masterful, the sample is proper and Tone really carries the tune philosophising about ‘loyalty.’ Further Elite does a rather standard “Issawn” and E-L does the chippy “Pervert.”

One good thing about Tone is his humour. So whenever you hear something you’ll be like: ‘dude, did he just say something I don’t like?’ And he probably did. And he probably did mean it. Or didn’t. Heck, sometimes sarcasm transports very badly. But this album is not really an email (or a review for that matter), so you can listen between the lines on a song like “Masochist.” And if you put your hand to your heart, you’ll actually find much to agree with on the song “Archetype” where Tone pulls down the pants of some purists and mainstream military at the same time. Even that is approached with the necessary tongue in cheek, as is “Politics” or the again-so-fast-it’s-hard-to-follow-Tone “Heavyweight”, which was not done over the best of beats.

One trend that must end now, and if not now, yesterday, is all rappers that start to sing. There’s Aloe Blacc doing it, there’s louis logic doing it (even though he actually sounds good), there’s Nas, Eminem and there’s Tonedeff doing it. And his voice is kinda good to rap, but so-so to sing. He does “Porcelain” on the album, where he croons for a big part. Or “Gathered” a fully sung song. And we feel kinda bad to complain about this, as Tone really tries hard, and if good is 100%, he reaches about 80. The melody is nice too and so is the whole composition. But his voice – it’s just not quite there yet. One more whiskey and just a tad bit of roughness to his voice and Tone is one dope singer on top of one dope rapper. So when he leaves the singing to Anetra on “Children”, in all honesty, he’s actually already better than she is.

We’d rather listen to “Quotables”, a big monster posse cut with Substantial, Wordsworth, PackFM, Session, Supastition and Rise all doing ‘damn, did he just say? Oh, snap!’ So of course there’s mixed feelings on this album. That’s no surprise really. It still feels good to finally have a Tonedeff album though. It was about time this cat gets his full length out.