Its been a long time.

I haven't updated this blog in a while. Mostly because I've been concentrating on making music with my band instead of by myself.

Perhaps I will start using this more in 2012.

Doubt it...

Fun With Makossa

Makossa is a type of music that is most popular in urban areas in Cameroon. It is similar to soukous, except that it includes strong bass rhythm and a prominent horn section. Makossa originated from a type of Duala dance called kossa, with significant influences from jazz, ambasse bey, Latin music, highlife and rumba. While the makossa style began in the 1950s, the first recordings were not seen until a decade later. Artists such as Eboa Lotin, Misse Ngoh and especially Manu Dibango popularised the style outside of Cameroon in the late 1960s. - Wikipedia

I recently came across a beautifully infectious song by Manu Dibango called Soul Makossa. Infact, I don't think infectious quite covers just how deep into your subconscious the horn line plants itself. I must also note that this song provided the world with the equally infectious vocal line "mama say mama sa mama coo sa" made famous by Michael Jackson, The Bloodhound Gang and Rhianna to name but a few. This song features the original lyric "mamako, mamasa, maka makossa".

After getting the horns stuck deep in my head, I had to have a little bit of fun with it. This is my version, which just involves a lot of sample chopping and rearranging. I think I still captured the infectious nature of the tune, but that's for you to decide.

Anyway, here's the video.


Download Tony Two-Tone - Fun With Makossa as MP3

Pretty busy...

As you can see, I've been pretty busy lately. Maybe I'll get round to uploading some new stuff when I get the chance...

Photo Blog...

I've never been much into blogging, but lately I have been starting to quite like the idea of sharing my own brain-farts on the internet (whether anyone else reads it or not). So today I decided to photograph the humble beginnings of my record collection. Some of these records I've had for a long time, just gathering dust in my mothers house, but the rest of the collection I have aquired since moving into my own house with my girlfriend and my daughter. Most of these records cost me less than a pound, but all of these records hold a pretty big significance (even the Milli Vanilli one...)

I Never Killed Anyone

It's been a long time since I posting anything on here. I feel I should give an excuse, but the truth is...I don't have one. I just haven't had time to do anything lately. Anyway, enough of the idle chit-chat...

I made this beat recently, it features the fantastically charismatic Charles Manson as well as some other samples here and there. I didn't intend to upload this beat when I was making it, I was really just playing around with sine-waves and got a bit carried away. There's not really any room in there for vocals, but if anyone wants to contribute, feel free to email me because I still have the project file and I could easily rearrange the beat around any vocals. Well, without further ado, I present to you...


Download tony two-tone - I Never Killed Anyone as an MP3

Is This Dub?

Today I decided to have a go at remixing Is This Love? by the Wailers. At first it quite quickly became another one of those projects that gets started, and just as quickly gets given up on and thrown into some forgotten folder on my hard-drive. This was not strictly IMM as such, but it was an exercise in forcing myself to get a project finished (which is the ultimate goal of IMM), so I still feel it has a place here on this blog.




Download Tony Two-Tone - Is This Dub? as an MP3