Tonedeff

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Tonedeff (born Tony Rojas) is an American rapper. He first gained recognition after winning a string of distinguished rap battles. His rapid-fire flow is alleged to be among the fastest in hip-hop history. He is also known to sing occasionally on his tracks, as well as self-produce many of them.

Tonedeff grew up in Chicago, Illinois before moving to Miami, Florida for most of his teenage years. He moved to Queens, New York at the age of 21. He began making a name for himself, winning several rap battles and opening shows for Common, Royce Da 5'9", The Beatnuts, Brand Nubian and Rahzel.

He founded the record label QN5 Music in 1997. In 2002, Tonedeff joined with QN5 artists Substantial, PackFM, and Session to form Extended F@MM, which released the album Happy Fuck You Songs.

In 2003, he made his first appearance in The Source Magazine and appeared in a commercial for Hip Hop Week on MTV.

In April 2005, Tonedeff's debut LP Archetype was released. The album apparently contains influence by many non-Hip-Hop artists, such as Enya, Tori Amos and Björk. Also in 2005, Tonedeff's QN5 Music was the first hip-hop label to release (publishing its first show March 5, 2005) its own podcast. It claims to be the first record-label podcast ever, but there is some debate as to if major label Virgin beat them to the punch. The show, called WQN5 radio featured commentary from label artists Session, PackFM, Substantial and Tonedeff as well as guest appearances by the likes of Wordsworth.

Tonedeff received national recognition while selected to perform at the August 2006 Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. He earned this nomination by garnering some of the highest vote totals throughout the "Last Band Standing" contest.

Tonedeff appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show in the mid-1990s. He was very young at that time, around 16 years of age, and appeared as a singer. He explains this incident on the song "More Than This" which defines his life and how he didn't become a big star like everybody else by singing "Whatever happened to Mr. Arsenio Hall?", explaining how people always mentioned his performance at that show in a very young age.

Tonedeff has made several appearances on Cunninlynguists albums, including Sloppy Seconds Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 and A Piece of Strange.

Tonedeff sang a part on Immortal Technique's Peruvian Cocaine, from Revolutionary Vol. 2.