Joining Chicago’s extensive and thriving hip-hop scene is newcomer Melo Makes Music, an independent artist from the city’s South Side.
To not give credit to the successful year Chicago had in music would be a disservice to both the city and art as a whole. From the Chicago scene and beyond the Midwest, this past year has been a rewarding and accomplished one due to the number of new coming artists it has produced.
For the most part, Chicago entertainers—despite being from different parts of the city—all know each other due to the independent music scene that has developed over the past few years. Whether it was from open mic events back in the day or attending the same grammar schools, one of the largest cities in America has a surprisingly close-knit artist community.
“I kind of was on my own thing back then. I got into music because it became a hobby of mine to write songs in my old dorm room, and I started missing class because of it,” said Melo. “Really my journey is something I take alone in a lot of regards as far as creativity.”
Melo recorded for the first time in a studio back in 2015. The result of his new endeavor at the time landed him a debut EP that consisted of only three songs but produced over 73,000 plays.
“My initial EP was something I needed to do because it taught me about putting together a project and a piece of work like that and taught me more comfortable on how to be in the studio,” said Melo. “I never recorded in a studio until I made that project. My mom actually inspired me to make the decision to pursue my dreams based on the fact that she felt as though my time was better spent doing that. She could tell I cared about it a lot more. Ever since I made that decision I’ve been working really hard.”
When working on projects, Melo describes his process as a methodical one. The time it takes to work on the actual music itself can be a correlated to the time it takes to develop the creative direction behind his projects.
“The creation part of it takes a long time just because for me I have to grasp exactly what I am going for and getting my ideas articulated in the right way,” said Melo. “Working on this current project has been fun, it’s really honest, it’s been cool.”
Throughout the creative process Melo has also found his mom to be a big influence. Although she encouraged him to drop out of college to pursue his dreams, she also unknowingly influenced his music style.
While she was playing music like Nirvana and Prince during her day-to-day house tasks, Melo was memorizing, reciting and becoming inspired by the lyrics he was constantly hearing.
“I think it all kind of shows in my music, like Nirvana is a huge influence, I’d be literally listening to it in my house and not realizing it was out of the ordinary. That’s a big thing for me,” said Melo. “I love a lot of old Atlanta hip-hop like T.I., Lil Wayne and sometimes I’ll also be playing George Michael, Prince and Michael Jackson.”
With an extensive list of musical influences, Melo’s latest influence was not one in the music industry, but the movie business.
“For this EP, I wanted to make what a Tarantino movie looked liked into music,” said Melo. “And it sounds kind of crazy but I wanted to do something different, really larger than life and really grand — something that would leave an impression.”
Considering there are a number of artists who arguably dress the same, Melo has always found a need to stand out as an entertainer in 2017.
“It is important for artists to have a unique thing about them but it also is important that the artist be themselves, because to be perceived as being unique is just a side effect of being yourself. The more an artist clings on to the things that make them happy and inspires them; that is what makes you more genuine, said Melo. “I think that artists just have to stay true to themselves and the stuff that they like, and then people will see what’s true to you – that’s what really shows.”
