The DJ/MC duo known as URF Tone released their debut album, All That Glitters.
While the sound is clearly inspired by Hip Hop’s golden era, it manages to avoid leaning too heavily into nostalgia and being sonically stuck in the past. Accordingly, the group is referring to their style as “new gold.”
Nevertheless, their influences are unmistakably those who mixed smooth flows and boom-baps, while also championing messages of positivity.
As it relates to the genre’s golden era, the group’s MC, Ila, denotes, “it was a time where different voices, feel-good energy, and unique creativity could all thrive.”
The World Famous N.I.C, the DJ half of URF Tone, adds, “its soundscape was largely defined by funky drum breaks, jazz, vinyl cuts, and real lyricism– which all sort of served as our muse and North Star as we began to produce the album.”
The pair officially emerged on the scene in 2020 and has since released eight singles from their project that have collectively yielded more than 600K views on YouTube, plus over 700K streams on Spotify, indicating a want and need for their positive spin on Hip Hop.
However, the full album cannot be streamed on the major platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. URF Tone made a conscious and deliberate choice to make their full project exclusively available for sale on their website, urftone.com. Their rationale points to the lack of intimate connection between artist and audience when streaming on popular apps, and suggests albums tend to get lost in the sea of music those platforms house. They ultimately hope to remove listeners from those crowded spaces, so that their intentional body of work can be better appreciated.
Not only does their website make the digital download version of the album available for sale, but a vinyl copy of All That Glitters can be purchased as well. Frankly, the latter feels like an appropriate way to digest the purity of URF Tone’s debut LP.