Every Bay Area cookout has the same moment: that Club Nouveau bassline slides in, somebody's auntie says "aww," and the whole yard finishes the hook. The man who built that moment is gone. Tone Capone, born Anthony Douglas Gilmour in Berkeley and raised in North Oakland off Bushrod Park, died Saturday, Sept. 12. He was 59. KQED's Gabe Meline broke it Sunday citing close family; no cause was given. He'd been living outside Las Vegas since 2021.
## The record "I Got 5 On It" came out in 1995 and went to No. 8 on the Hot 100, which for an Oakland weed anthem with no major-market cosign was a small miracle. Capone flipped Club Nouveau's "Why You Treat Me So Bad" and handed the hook to Mike Marshall, his old Berkeley High classmate from Timex Social Club. Twenty-four years later Jordan Peele slowed it into the scariest thing in Us, and a whole new generation learned the song from a horror trailer. Complex has the arc.
## The catalog nobody credits him for The Luniz record is the headline. The résumé is the story. Per KQED, Capone produced Mac Dre's "Fire," "Not My Job" and "Genie of the Lamp," 3X Krazy's "Keep It on the Real," Celly Cel's "It's Goin' Down," E-40's "Ring It," and Devin the Dude's "Sticky Green." Then he went to Houston and did the heavy lifting on Scarface's The Untouchable, the 1997 album that debuted at No. 1 and went platinum. That's where "Smile" lives, with one of the last verses 2Pac ever recorded. Scarface put Capone on his all-time producers list in his memoir. Stereogum notes later credits for Z-Ro, Lloyd Banks, Black Moon and Benzino, and that he worked a hospital day job before retiring.
## Who got paid Here's the ownership story, because there always is one. "I Got 5 On It" has been licensed, sampled, remixed and synced for thirty years. The Luniz are the name on the record; the Club Nouveau writers hold the interpolation; the producer who made the decision to marry those two things is the person the general public never learned. This week, Vallejo put Mac Dre's name on a street. Capone produced three of the records that made that street possible. Bay Area hip-hop keeps losing its architects before the plaques go up.
No services have been announced.
## Sources - KQED, Sept. 13, 2026, Tone Capone, producer of "I Got 5 On It," dies at 59: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13993851/tone-capone-dies-producer-bay-area-i-got-5-on-it-hip-hop - Complex, Sept. 14, 2026, Tone Capone dead at 59: https://www.complex.com/music/a/tracewilliamcowen/tone-capone-dead-59 - Stereogum, Sept. 14, 2026, Tone Capone dead at 59: https://stereogum.com/2511375/tone-capone-i-got-5-on-it-producer-dead-at-59/news