A Clearing in the Noise During Art Basel 2025: The Twilite Tone at Dante’s Hi-Fi

The intersection of music, art, and meaningful dialogue converged into a rare kind of intimacy on December 6th, during Art Basel, inside the sonic sanctuary of Dante’s Hi‑Fi, nestled in the heART of Wynwood. What unfolded was less an event and more a communion—an evening where presence, intentional listening, and truth took center stage.

Guided by tastemaker, cultural archivist, and Dante’s Hi-Fi owner Rich Medina, members were ushered through a deeply personal listening session with The Twilite Tone. The night celebrated the release of Tone’s latest single, I Still Need ♥️ 2, featuring Maddison McFerrin and Common—pressed on wax, no less—an intentional nod to permanence in an era of disposability.

Between the needle drops, a carefully curated dialogue unfolded—one that illuminated not only who Tone is today, but what truly matters to him now. With clarity and grace, he reflected on pivotal life experiences and internal reckonings, speaking to the importance of remaining a transgenre artist—one who honors and weaves together the best of all musical worlds without submitting to the confinement of labels or boxes that stunt human and creative evolution.

In a fast-paced industry increasingly driven by tech and metrics, Tone emphasized the radical necessity of stillness. Know thyself, he offered—not as a cliché, but as a creative imperative. Loving oneself, he shared, must be integrated into every step of the artistic process. Despite a career that includes collaborations with Gorillaz, Kanye West, and Common just to name a few, Tone spoke vulnerably about a persistent feeling of being unseen. Worldly success, it turns out, does not guarantee self-recognition.

He candidly acknowledged how an internal voice—rooted in doubt and conditioning—led him to dim his own light, often choosing to play the background for other brilliant artists. In doing so, he realized he had played it safe, inadvertently limiting his ability to fully create a lane expansive enough to hold all of his gifts. The result was a delay in crystallizing his own singular vision—one capable of engaging music not just as entertainment, but as a tool for evolutionary impact.

Tone described a recent internal clearing—a convergence of all his former selves, now integrated through a fresh and holistic lens. His latest project stands as both a burial and a birth: the laying to rest of a fragmented, compartmentalized identity, and the emergence of a harmonized, sovereign creative self. No longer divided. No longer asking permission.

There is something profoundly powerful about witnessing one artist interview another. The chemistry between Rich Medina and The Twilite Tone was undeniable—an exchange rooted in mutual respect, lived experience, and deep listening. Together, they offered the audience a rare glimpse into the minds of two master creatives arriving at resolution: choosing who they know themselves to be over who the world has attempted to define them as.

In that room, on that night, music was not just heard—it was felt, remembered, and reclaimed. And for a moment, above the noise of Basel, clarity reigned.