JJJ DASWORD - HIP HOP SESSION MIXTAPE 6

“Tone Up the Message When the Spotlight Gets Too High”
by Tikkek

Tikkek’s “Tone Up the Message When the Spotlight Gets Too High” is a defiant, genre-warping anthem about being seen for everything but your truth. Drawing from funk, gospel, electronic and dub elements, the track explores what it means to fight for your message in a world that fixates on how you look, where you're from, and how well you fit the narrative.

At its heart, the song is a sharp response to the pressure many people face when their identity—racial, ethnic, cultural—becomes a spectacle, a “diversity point,” or a label long before their actual voice is heard. Tikkek, the musical alter ego of a Maltese-Australian producer and multi-instrumentalist, wrote this track as a reclamation of narrative and tone: not toning down to be palatable—but toning up to be undeniable.

“The higher the spotlight shines,” says Tikkek, “the more distorted things can get. You start to feel like an exhibit instead of a person. So I made this track about turning that energy into fuel. If they’re going to watch, I’ll give them something real to hear.”

Musically, it’s layered and unpredictable—moody synths, distorted horns, looped bass, and fragments of gospel harmony float above a shifting rhythm. Just when it settles, it mutates. Tikkek intentionally resists being pigeonholed. That’s the point.

Lyrically, the track delivers poetic punches:

“They see the headline, not the handwriting / The pigment, not the paragraph.”
The message is unmistakable: people are more than how they’re perceived. And when the world gets louder in its assumptions, the response is not to shrink—but to amplify the truth.

With its cheeky yet serious tone (and a title that flips the old “tone it down” cliché on its head), the song acts as both personal manifesto and universal invitation: say what you came to say, even when the room wants to talk over you.

Key Themes:

Navigating visibility vs. representation
Identity beyond performance
Reclaiming narrative from cultural stereotyping
Speaking louder when asked to be quieter

Quote from Tikkek:

“Someone once told me they loved how ‘multicultural’ my music sounded. Like I was a playlist, not a person. I made this track as a reminder—to them and to myself—that the story behind the sound matters more than the surface.”

For fans of:
Moby, Saul Williams, Massive Attack, Moses Sumney, Prince, FKA twigs

“Tone Up the Message When the Spotlight Gets Too High” is more than a track. It’s an act of sonic self-respect. A stand against being flattened into categories. A groove with something to say. Loudly.

Tone Up the Message When the Spotlight Gets Too High

🎧 This is your call to feel.

Melbourne’s own Tikkek (AKA the Sonic Landscape, Musician, Collaborator, Video and Music Producer - Peter Mondy) is not just a sound—he’s a signal 📡. A pulse. A riot! The Music? A  fearless blend of postmodern blues, dub, gospel, funk, jazz, reggae, acoustic grit, pop shimmer, and hard rock edge—all lit up inside an alt-electronic dance storm ⚡🎶

👑 If Bowie painted stardust dreams…
👼 If Prince laced truth with groove…
🍷 If Amy Winehouse bled velvet pain into a mic…

Tikkek listens, absorbs, reinvents.

Echoes of “Life on Mars?”, “Purple Rain”, “Back to Black”, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Redemption Song”, “Personal Jesus”, “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, “Message in a Bottle”, “Get Up Offa That Thing”, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, and “Feeling Good” resound like old gods in a new temple 🔱

🎙️ Tikkek’s tracks hit like a conversation between soul and circuitry. His beats don’t just drop—they testify. His synths don’t just shimmer—they seduce. Each song is a manifesto carved in sound.

No genre, no filter. Just unfiltered emotion set to rhythm.
💔 Ballads of heartbreak. 💥 Anthems of resistance. ☄️ Journeys through the psychedelic, the sensual, and the sacred.

This is not background music.
This is the foreground of now.

The world is on fire 🔥. The soul is tired.
And Tikkek?
He is the soundtrack of the storm.

💿 Listen deeply. Move freely.
The revolution will be danceable. 🌀💃🏾🕊️

🕰️🌍 #Tikkek #FeelIt #SoundtrackOfTheSoul 🎵💡

Spotify link

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1IbkpsI4rdokpJg2tCCXAG?si=lwLuIlvJSOOcm7575ZQStg

Tone Up the Message When the Spotlight Gets Too High

Tikkek

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