Words: Kel Murphy
If you’re in NYC, more likely than not you’ve been to a party where Melo-X has rocked. He’s opened for hip-hop heavyweights like Clark Kent and 9th Wonder, but for the self proclaimed “renaissance man,” spinning records is just the beginning. Besides moving the crowd via turntables, Brooklyn-born Melo raps, writes songs, photographs, produces and even pimps (yikes). At 22 years old, he cites J-Dilla and Erykah Badu as inspiration for his recent instrumental album, “Dusty Time Warped Vibes.” We recently caught up with the Jack-of-all-trades to talk about the project, why he dissed the Jay-Z on it, and how reggae vibes make him get damn near butt-naked.
Well, your buzz is growing and you’re past the basement bashments so how do you feel? I’m happy right now. I’m on the come up so I’m opening for the big DJs. I opened for DJ Clark Kent at Lotus. He killed it! 9th Wonder, that was crazy. DJ Premier was there. It was like 400 people and we doing it monthly.
So you produce, you write, photograph, DJ… I’m an MC too. I been rapping since 9 years old. The reason I started DJing was cause I was getting equipment to make beats and I got two turntables so I was like I might as well collect records, so I started collecting records to sample.
Wait, list off all the shit you do… DJ, MC, producer, audio engineer, photographer, graphic designer, writer…umm I guess thats it…part-time pimp too [Laughs]
Damn. OK so talk about the Time Warped Vibes album… Well, I was working on it, and it was gonna be a double album, an instrumental album and a regular album. When I heard the Erykah Badu album I was like ‘Yo, I need to put this shit out.’ So, I put all the old stuff I had from what the instrumental album was gonna be and I added some new stuff and I just put it out.
One joint that sticks out to me is “Fuck Jay.” [Laughs] A lot of people think that ‘Fuck Jay’ is Fuck J-Dilla cause the whole album is reminiscent of J-Dilla, but I heard the sample that Jay-Z had on “Roc Boys” and I wanted to get a sample like that to mess with but I couldn’t find anything. I ended up finding something else so that’s why I titled the song “Fuck Jay.” I don’t need that sample I got my own…
So you taking shots at the thrown already? [Laughs] Not shots at the thrown but shots at the sample.
You’re a pretty mellow dude, but I seen you get crazy at a ‘Rice And Peas’ party at Sway. You even took your shirt off! What was that about?! [Laughs] Yo, that doesn’t happen a lot cause I’m a scrawny dude!
Was it the vibes or the liquor? It was a combination of a whole lotta shit…a whole lotta fuckery as Jamaicans would say. But the reason that happened was [because] it reminded me of an old school Brooklyn basement bashment party…like those parties where you could bang the ceiling. It gets really hot so you gotta take your shirt off. That’s why I took my shirt off.
I didn’t go to the most recent one, was it crazy? I took my shirt off again!
For all things Melo-X visit melo-x.blogspot.com
