About Me

I started playing guitar in secondary school. We had a guitar teacher who came in once a week to give us individual lessons.His name was Mr. Baulch and he only played classical guitar. I thought that was a bit limited at first but I learnt to play a lot of the guitar repetoire over the next couple of years. The teacher even took me to a segovia concert and I got segovia`s autograph. When I left school I kept on writing songs and played a lot of my stuff to earn a living. I eventually got asked out of the blue to sing on a track called "Closer to the truth " by a muscian called Alan Eastwood. Then a great bass player called George Oban asked me to play on a couple of tracks on his album on island records . I remember one of the tracks was called "Ethiopian Rhapsody". I heard that track got played a whole heap and some people must have done well out of that album. I did a lot of travelling and spent a lot of time in Africa and some time in Europe. I studied music at a University in London and in Sweden. I'm not sure what good it did for me, but I'm sure it didn't do me any harm. For a long time I was into the african guitar style and when I lived in Abidjan in the Ivory coast I got to know a guitarist called Vata Mambassa who is almost a legend. He came originally fron Congo Kinshasa, the true home of African guitar virtuosity. He really inspired me. I spent some quality time in Sweden and fairly long periods in the Sahara , in towns like El Golea, Guardaia ,Ain Salah and Tamanrassett and in the Sahel region. Music brings you into contact with so many different people. I wrote a book of guitar studies called "Essential African Guitar Studies", which I hope to release in the near future. Toks is short for ade tokunbo. Find Toks on youtube (acoustic) and myspace Review by Musician Magazine Toks started playing guitar at an early age, being encouraged by lessons in secondary school. He gradually developed a career playing with a wide variety of musicians across Africa and Europe. Toks then studied music in London and Sweden, before mastering African guitar styles, having been inspired by Vata Mambassa of Congo Kinshasa. His latest album contains uplifting, spiritual tracks all written, arranged and performed by him and recorded at Londons CMS Studios. Opener Mojama is a delightful introduction to the mans crisp playing and appealing vocals, and is followed by the percussive and danceable Gimme Water with its superbly timeless song structure. Lovely. .

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