Some people are simply born with music in their bones. For them, it’s almost involuntary to pick up an instrument and transfer that flow of energy into the chords, notes, riffs and sound that embody their very being. Dywane Thomas Jr., aka MonoNeon, knows this all too well, having picked up a bass guitar at the age of four as a tribute to his father of the same name – a Memphis legend who played for years with the legendary Bar-Kays, Pops Staples, Rufus Thomas and others.
Without formal lessons, MonoNeon began gigging professionally in Memphis before he was a teenager and within a few years was playing with jazz and R&B elite all around the world. It wasn’t long before he released his 2010 debut album, Polyneon, which has since been followed by a dizzying array of solo projects and collaborations marked by a unique blend of technical skill, innovative style, a vibrant and colorful personality and little or no adherence to genre. MonoNeon, who often takes the stage in a knit green mask and other neon accessories and plays his purposefully right-handed instrument upside down, was also the last bass player to regularly perform with Prince before the latter’s death in 2016 – an experience so powerful that he still finds it difficult to describe in words.
All these talents are on display on MonoNeon’s new album, You Had Your Chance … Bad Attitude, which finds him backed in the studio for the first time by longtime onstage cohorts such as keyboardists Davy Nathan and Charlie Brown, guitarists Xavier Lynn and Peter Knudsen and drummer Devin Way. Recorded both at Iceland’s Floki Studios and in Memphis, You Had Your Chance is a beguiling peek into MonoNeon’s impossible-to-classify inner world, where Prince-style funk (opener “Bad Attitude”), ‘70s soft rock (“You’re the One That I Like”) and sincere, synth-tinged R&B (“All U Need Is Love”) collide freely into fascinating new forms.
It’s also an extension of MonoNeon’s irreverent personality, which has become familiar to hundreds of thousands of online fans who eat up social media clips of him playing bass atop popular meme videos, jamming with friends and strumming gospel songs with his grandmother on vocals. “I’m in this space where I don’t want to compromise anything,” MonoNeon says. “It doesn’t matter how high I want to go or how successful I want to be. I’m always going to do what I want to do, because that’s how I keep myself alive.”
Nearly all the You Had Your Chance material was cooked up on the spot thanks to MonoNeon’s intuitive interplay with pals such as Nathan. “We write songs pretty quickly because he’s like a big brother to me,” MonoNeon says. “He knows my quirks and my little idiosyncrasies.”
Throughout, the artist pines for the places where he can just be himself (“City Life”), ponders whether the music of a certain pop superstar might be the key to a woman’s heart (“Beyoncé”) and cedes the spotlight to blues maestro Christone “Kingfish” Ingram for a ripping guitar solo (“Mama I Really Love You”). At its heart is a desire for understanding and connection – a journey epitomized by MonoNeon’s evolving relationship with his father, who moved to Europe when the former was a young kid.
“The reason I play bass is because of him,” he says. “I wanted to find a way to connect with him, and now it’s all full circle, because he’s playing one of my signature basses and he also gave me the bass he used to play in the Bar-Kays. We talk almost everyday. I can’t even explain how deep that is for me.”
You Had Your Chance enriches a dizzying MonoNeon catalog that includes nearly 20 distinct solo releases, collaborations with Mac Miller, Ne-Yo, Sudan Archives and Georgia Anne Muldrow and crucial contributions to Nas’ King Disease, which won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2020. He’s also released his own signature five-string bass through Fender and Whammy pedal through DigTech – a testament to both his virtuosity and the respect afforded to him by studio pros and amateurs alike.
“I wish I could explain myself and my music a lot better, but it’s all just a feeling,” MonoNeon says. “I’ve just got to keep doing it.”
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