Tone & Poke Are The Trackmasters Mixtape

Let me tell ya'll a quick story about the devil. So one day a little boy walks outside the church and sees the devil crying on the steps of the church. He walks over to the devil and asks "what's wrong?" And the devil says "they're in there blaming me for EVERYTHING!" Now what does that have to do with Tone & Poke? Well, simply put I don't know any other producers in hip hop that get a bad rap as much as Tone & Poke do. And trust me I get it cause I was one of the people giving it to them. "All they do is loop old classic songs form the 80's." "They're not diggin in the crates like Pete & Primo." "They're wack and ruining hip hop." Which to some extent was 100% true. Rumor has it that Tone was the partying one outta the duo so he would be in the clubs and whenever the DJ did an 80s set he'd pay attention to what songs made the crowd lose their mind and then bring those songs back to the studio where Poke was and loop 'em up & sell em to whatever rapper was trying to knock the "underground" stigma off their shoulder. But again to us hip hop purists,  this way of making beats & music was sacrilegious. These two were literally the antichrist of hip hop & I stood by this statement 150%.

But then something strange happened the summer of 1996. One of my peoples from Sony sent me the advance copy of Nas' "It Was Written" and for the next week and a half I played a game trying to figure out who produced what. Now what I mean by that was back then word hadn't gotten to ear that the Trackmasters were producing the bulk of the album yet. So I, like the rest of the world figured we'd be getting beats from the same production line up from Illmatic. So I thought Pete or Large Pro produced "Watch Dem Niggaz" with Foxy & maybe LES or Large produced "The Message" and there was no way on earrth you couldn't tell me that RZA snuck his way into a Nas session and produced "Shootouts." So I'm sure most of ya'll can only imagine the look on my face when I found out that Tone & Poke produced those very tracks that I thought Pete Rock, Large Pro or RZA did. And from that day on, my perception of Tone & Poke changed drastically. They went from two producers who I didn't have an ounce of respect for to two producers who I STILL didn't like or agree with their production style but that I finally had to give them their props. Cause when these cats want to, they could mos def cook up some good ole fashioned hip hop. And if by any chance you disagree, (with the fact that they can cook up good ole fashioned hip hop when they want that is) then check out my Tone & Poke are the Trackmasters mixtape with some of their dopest boom bap on tap. Oh yeah...trust & believe their aren't any 80's loops on here.

Tracklisting:
Face Off - Jay Z feat. Sauce Money
How'd You Get A Record Deal - Big Daddy Kane
How To Get Robbed - 50 Cent
That Ain' Gangsta - 50 Cent
Blaze A 50 - Nas
Desperados - The Firm
NORE - Noreaga
Power of A Dollar - 50 Cent
Yabadabadoo - Chubb Rock feat.  Red Hot Lover Tone & Rob Swinga
Drunk By Myself - Nas
Throw Your Guns Up - The Firm
The Message - Nas
Ill Street Blues - Kool G. Rap
Respect - BIG
So Far - YZ
F&%K U Man - Kool G Rap
I Shot Ya (Remix) - LL Cool J feat. Keith Murray, Prodigy,  Fat Joe & Foxy Brown
Shootouts - Nas
Break Ups To Make Ups - Method Man feat. D'Angelo
Watch Dem Niggaz - Nas