MonoNeon
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Dywane Thomas, Jr., also known as MonoNeon, is an American bassist andexperimental musician and native of Memphis, Tennessee. He is known for hispresence on YouTube playing bass guitar and known for being one of the lastpeople to work with Prince. Thomas is a Grammy Award-winning artist, for hisparticipation on the 2020 Nas studio album 'King's Disease'.
While Thomas is right-handed, he plays left-handed upside down on a right-handed bass guitar, which allows him to use heavy string bending on the upperstrings. Thomas' slapping style/technique is unique because he is executingeverything upside-down, but he still uses the thumb for slaps and fingers for
pops. He also uses fingers and palm muting to create a warm, muffled timbre and have a little more control overthe length of notes. In a free/improvisational setting, listeners may hear the use of Indian melodicinflections/embellishments in his playing, including the use of gamakas. Another attribute in Thomas' playing styleis the use of randomness and personal mistakes in performance, eventually moving the mistakes frommeaningless to meaningful. Thomas' overall playing style on bass can be described as "funky with unusualcharacteristics". Even musicians like Marcus Miller have noticed his playing style. His musical background isheavily influenced by southern soul, blues and funk. In a Bass Player magazine interview, Miller mentionedThomas as one of several "young bad cats" he has met on the scene.
In 2009, Thomas was featured on the GospelChops Bass Sessionz Vol.1 project with Andrew Gouche, HadrienFeraud, Damian Erskine, Janek Gwizdala, Anthony Nembhard, and Robert "Bubby" Lewis. In 2010, Thomasreleased several solo albums, including Aleatorick and Indeterminacy. Also in 2010, Thomas played bass on theLibra Scale album by Grammy Award-winning artist Ne-Yo, and the album Directions by Forest Won withGeorgia Anne Muldrow. In 2012, Thomas joined David Fiuczynski and Planet Microjam. Also in 2012, hereleased his solo avant-garde album, Down-to-Earth Art as MonoNeon. In early 2013, Thomas released analbum called Southern Visionary under the pseudonym MonoNeon. He also released an album entitled UncleCurtis Answered The Lobster Telephone. MonoNeon performed with Sheri Jones-Moffett (2010 Grammynominee) at the Recording Academy Chapter 40th Anniversary Celebration at Levitt Shell. MonoNeon teamed upwith producer Kriswontwo to release an EP called WEON. July 2014, MonoNeon made his debut performance asthe bassist for Screaming Headless Torsos at Jalisco Jazz Festival in Mexico.
In 2015 MonoNeon began playing bass with Prince and his prot g , Judith Hill. Some of the live shows havebeen at Paisley Park. On 11 January 2016, Tidal released the track Ruff Enuff by MonoNeon, only four and ahalf days after its initial recording. The instrumental track features Prince as producer and on keyboards. Thefollowing day, the track was replaced with a vocal version with lead vocals on vocoder by Adrian Crutchfield.