Pronounced Toe-Nay

Album Review

Pronounced Toe-Nay showcases the surprisingly diverse skills of Tonex, a rapper/vocalist with Prince-like skills, capable of navigating through multiple musical styles with plenty of charisma, attitude, and personality. In fact, he even goes so far as to separate his tracks into seven sections: hip-hop/rap, retro/funk, the future, jazz, mellow grooves, soul/gospel, and bonus tracks. Of course, just as much acclaim goes out to producer T. Boy, who lays down some truly inventive musical foundations for Tonex to glide over. The fact that Tonex expresses such sincerity in regards to his Christianity also needs to be addressed, as it is nearly impossible to avoid this theme. The broad range of remarkable diversity along with the prominent religious focus should keep this album out of the mainstream, and that's unfortunate, since Tonex proves his talents convincingly here.