Fade
The Beat Strangler
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illest o.g.
Straight out of Perth Amboy, NJ, Tone Liv has been dropping albums for quite a while and honing his craft at the same time. With a rugged east coast style of delivery, this MC has a unique voice that is able to set the tone of any track that he drops his vocals on. Tone took a time out to speak to IllMuzik about his music, past, present, and future.
Tell us about yourself, your name, and where you're from.
I'm just a real Hip Hop head, I try to stay humble as possible. I got my name from my dude Hassy Bee. I used to have a habit of saying "I'm living instead of chilling" back in the days. He started just calling me Tone Liv, I just ran with it. I'm from Delaney Homes Projects out of Perth Amboy, NJ. They knocking the building down but I learned a lot growing up in those parts from everyone in that area. It was a blessing growing up there.
How come it took me a while to finally hear about you? I guess I'm slippin'.
I have no idea my g. I dropped a lot of albums last year and I've been featured on a lot of music. Now you know me and hopefully I could be a household name in a few months and years to come.
What's your inspiration when you're writing?
I believe anything could inspire you to write music, it really depends how you look at stuff. I just listen to a lot of people or just go off what had happen to me. A lot of times the beat just lets you vibe out. The beat could take you to a place in your mind that you never knew you could go to. So life just helps me to vibe out and do my music.
Your choice beats have been discribed as - "Beats that make you feel like you have warped into a psychotic decaying street kingdom", what is the drive behind this discription?
I believe I pick beats that are very raw and grimey, the type of beats that have your head nodding and zoning out. I try to keep that traditional Boom Bap East Coast type sounding beats. I do play around with 8-bits sounding beats but I make sure that it goes with my voice and delivery.
Your vocal skills are said to deliver anthems that convey street authenticity as well as creative evolution, please explain.
I just stay in my lane and be true to myself. I tell stories that I know of or heard through other parties. I think I have a strong voice that helps me get my point across. My flow just represents for some cats that can get to be heard. In my travels, in my life I dealt with a lot of people in different situations. So I try to reflect that throughout my music. So a lot of people could relate to my music.
Tell us about the whole Green Llama movement and your appearances on their releases.
Well the Green Llama movement was a movement that started off on MySpace with friends. At first it was Decay, Selfish, Fluent, Ill Don, and Vincent Price. I started to work with Vincent Price on some projects. He asked me to be down with the movement, so I was down from there. Around that time Butta Verse and Dibiase joined the movement. We put out albums called, "Decay Unlikely Villain" and "Green Llama Llamaville" (they are free downloads). Everyone does their own projects but we all feature on everyone's album. It's fam all day with them but everyone is spread out across the USA so that helps everyone get out to different cities throughout the music. We got some new crew albums coming out very soon so be on the look out for that.
You were also featured on City Slick - The Money And His Fool, how was that experience?
City slick is a part of the Green Llama movement, so working with them was second nature. I was featured on their first album so it's like working with family, it's always fun and creative to do music.
Your skills have been compared to some of Hip Hops greatest - Ghostface Killah, MF Doom and Freddie Foxx, did these guys inspire you to "bless a mic"?
Yeah those are some of my favorite artists that I looked up too. I looked up to them because they kept very Hip Hop without changing with the times. They didn't dumb it down just so they could get on the radio, they stayed true to their lane and made some dope music in the process. So that is what I'm trying to do in this Hip Hop game, just be real with myself and hopefully other cats will respect my music that I put out.
What is the main goal you would like to achieve in Hip Hop?
I would just like to leave a stamp from NJ Hip Hop. I would like to be one of the cats that keep that flag up for the dope Hip Hop that comes out of my state. If I could do that and inspire other emcees to do music and do it to their own lane, I would be good with that.
Any shout outs you'd like to give?
Peace out to IllMuzik for the love. All Hip Hop out of NJ. Everyone on the grind doing it for Hip Hop. I gave y'all love. Don't forget to download the Jersey's Junk Yard Dog, also check out the other projects that I got out. Peace and love.
Check out Tone Liv:
