The World Famous Tony Williams

Williams’ name appears on Kanye West’s albums as Tony “Penafire” Williams which is the pseudonym he uses when crediting himself as a writer. He was a co-writer of two songs on The College Dropout, the Grammy Award winning 2004 album, following which Williams was invited to write for all of West’s subsequent albums.

On the 2005 MTV documentary, Composing History The Making of Late Registration, he was featured producing vocals for Brandy on the song "Bring Me Down", which he co-wrote. During that documentary, West described Williams as being “a great writer with a cutting edge voice.”

Kanye West performing at Coachella while backed by Tony Williams in Indio, California, 2006.

Tony Williams first became noticed as a singer when he debuted on Kanye West’s Grammy winning album The College Dropout, singing a version of the gospel hymn "I'll Fly Away". By the second album, Late Registration, Kanye was giving Williams shout outs on the song, "We Major" which gave rise to the line Kanye fans use in reference to Williams, “I gotta say what’s up to Tony Williams”. On that same album Tony wrote the hook for the song, "Roses", which featured him singing with Patti Labelle. This album not only promoted Tony Williams name, but for the first time fans were able to match his voice and name with a face. He was featured on the song and the video for "Drive Slow". Later, he was seen singing with Kanye when West was featured on the MTV television series, Life and Rhymes of Kanye West.

By the time Kanye went on the Touch the Sky Tour, Williams was known as the background singer that always accompanied West, including on several world tours.[4]

Williams is one of a few performers who have performed at two different Inaugural Balls; the Neighborhood Ball where he performed with Jay-Z on the song, History, and the Youth Ball where he performed with Kanye West. His voice is recognized on some popular Hip Hop songs, having performed with, for example, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nas, Game, and Rick Ross.[5]

In March 2010, Williams released his first mainstream project in the form of a mixtape, The World Famous Tony Williams: Finding Dakota Grey which was released with the GOOD Music stamp.[6] This project was a collection of original music, covers, and remixes, including the "Dreaming of your love remix" with the French rapper Matt Moerdock.

In October, 2010, Williams released his first single "Everything About You" from his debut studio album, King or the Fool, which was released on February 14, 2012.

The first time Williams experienced artistic autonomy was in 2007 when he made an appearance on Kanye's Can't Tell Me Nothing mixtape, singing a song he had written and that that was produced by Kanye, "Dreaming of Your Love". This legitimized him as a featured artist. It was at that time that Williams added "The World Famous" to his name to differentiate himself from the famous drummer with the same name, and because in the vocal sample of the song "Dreaming of Your Love" the intro says, "You're listening to the world famous". Williams has had songs played on Brazilian airwaves, where he sang some of the vocals in Portuguese, and some musical chart success in France.