Tony! Toni! Tone! guitarist D’Wayne Wiggins dies
SAN FRANCISCO, United States — D’Wayne Wiggins, guitarist and founding member of Tony! Toni! Tone!, has died, according to a social media post from his family.
The guitarist, who was a native of Oakland, California, had been battling bladder cancer.
“With broken hearts, we share with you that our beloved D’Wayne passed away this morning surrounded by family and loved ones,” the Wiggins Family wrote on Instagram. “Over the past year he has been privately and courageously battling bladder cancer. Through this fight, he remained committed and present for his family, his music, his fans and his community.”
Wiggins, 64, was a multi-talented guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. He burst onto the scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s as one-third of Tony! Toni! Tone!, a trio that injected the “new jack” swing of that era with elements of gospel and classic R&B.
From 1988 to 1996 the group placed no less than a dozen singles in the Billboard Top 10 R&B/hip hop chart, according to AllMusic.
Wiggins formed the group with his half-brother, Rapheal Saadiq and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley.
Following the group’s split Wiggins carved out a solo career, releasing his debut album
Eyes Never Lie on Motown Records in 2000.
Formed in 1986, Tony! Toni! Toné! released their first single, One Night Stand, the following year, which led to a deal with Wing Records, a subsidiary of Polygram. In 1988, the group dropped their debut album,
Who?, which featured production from Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, who also co-wrote several tracks with the group.
Who? featured several solid R&B hits, including Little Walter, as did Tony! Toni! Toné!’s 1990 follow-up,
The Revival.
While Tony! Toni! Toné! frequently fused contemporary R&B and hip hop sounds with older influences, they were often labelled as “retro”, a term the group came to chafe at. As Wiggins once told Billboard, “We’re not trying to be retro, we’re just being the bridge between old R&B and hip hop. We’re just using the music we grew up listening to, the music we always enjoyed as the basis for what we’re doing now.”
