Canadian Musician Jahmal Tonge Demands Credit From Ebony Bones

A Canadian songwriter and producer claims that British electro-punk newcomer Ebony Bones, whom he worked with on her debut album 'Bone of My Bones,' is taking too much credit for the music.

Jahmal Tonge, one-half of the Toronto-based duo the Carps, tells Spinner he met Bones in London in 2007, and at first, the two hit it off, bonding over a shared love of synthy, funky R&B-influenced punk rock. The following year, Tonge agreed to write some music for her still-in-progress album. He wound up sending two tracks, which he claims Bones turned into 'Story of St. Ockwell' and 'In G.O.D. We Trust (Gold, Oil & Drugs),' both of which appear on 'Bone of My Bones.'


"She didn't give me any idea what she wanted," Tonge says. "I crafted what I thought she would sound good with. I pictured her band in my head and said, 'Let me give a job for each of the band members.' So I crafted lines on synth and bass and drums. I pretty much tracked everything in my apartment and sent over some beats, and the beats were pretty much fully done, but they were a minute long, like loops."

If Tonge's claims are true, they contradict what Bones told Spinner in an interview earlier this year. "I go into the studio, literally, with an engineer, and that's it," she said back in January, insisting she made 'Bone of My Bones' with minimal help from outside musicians. "So there's no one to ask, 'What do you think?' I really wanted to rely on my own opinion for my sense of sanity within the tracks."

"She forgets to mention that I [provided] her guitar parts and bass parts and drum parts and full songs, including horn sections," Tonge says in response. "It's not just me. I'm just the only person who doesn't give a s--- enough about it to talk about it in public."

Tonge says his beef has nothing to do with money. He's fine with the $100 he was paid for his work, and as far as he knows, he's properly credited in the album's liner notes. He'd simply like for Bones to acknowledge his contributions.

"I'm still a young guy," he says. "I'm 26, and all I want to do is spend my days producing records and making good music. I said to her, 'Listen, the only reason I care is if you let people know, 'I worked on this song with my friend,' it'll help me get more work.' It's simply about getting more work down the line. I never looked at the work I did as my work. It was always a collaborative effort, but apparently, she didn't see it that way."