The origin of my music name, Funketone, pronounced “funk tone,” is a blend of my affection for funk music, particularly the James Brown style, and “Tone,” derived from my nickname, Tony, and its musical connotation. Originally, the “E” in Funke wasn’t silent; it replaced the letter “Y.” However, it later became silent when a rapper in a group I was making beats for used it and it stuck, so I kept the pronunciation.

For years, I only created instrumentals, and it was a fun creative outlet hobby. I imagined being a music producer in the music industry, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle and the cutthroatness that I’ve read and heard about in the business, so I just kept it as a hobby for many years. So in 2021, I decide to make an album to release to the public. I learned that it was easier now to release music as an independent artist, but I’m not an artist, even though my art is producing or creating music compositions. Instead of making an instrumental album, I took on the task of really producing by having vocalists on my tracks and instructing them on what I want and need from them to perform on my tracks. I also thought I might get more listeners to maybe want to listen to my music instead of doing instrumentals, but I also wanted to hire real musicians to play real instruments on some of my tracks for the first time ever. This first album with lyrics, which is my weakness, is why I hired writers and lyricists to help me with my songs. I never cared for lyrics; even as I listen to other artists’ music, I hear the words, but I almost always focus on the production, the melodies, the arrangements, and the vocal tone of the singer singing the notes.

There was more to this than I thought. The challenges of hiring musicians and doing it exclusively online were crazy and fun. I might tell some of those stories in the future.
Now that it’s done, and it took almost four years to make this album, I’ve learned a lot.