The deluxe edition of +‘s nineteenth album. Download to hear new remixes and tracks, featuring Sol Patches & Sasha NoDisco Tycko!
For the first time, almost all 40 of +’s albums, EPs, and mixtapes are available for streaming and free download š
The deluxe edition of +‘s nineteenth album. Download to hear new remixes and tracks, featuring Sol Patches & Sasha NoDisco Tycko!
For the first time, almost all 40 of +’s albums, EPs, and mixtapes are available for streaming and free download š
MFn Melo is one of the warmest people I’ve ever met, perhaps the warmest. His voice is warm, his dreads look warm,Ā his beats are warm, I’m telling you. I get to perform with him again for the first time in a long time at Township on December 15th. We’re sharing the bill with one of his PIVOT homies DJ Squeak Pivot (PIVOT = Melo, John Walt, Saba, Joseph Chilliams, and more. PIVOT = a lot of melodic, jazzy raps and versatile lyricists), Ash Wednesday, M.U.T.T., Hank McCoy, and DJ Stepchild. 2200 N. California, Chicago, IL;Ā doors 8 PM show 9 PM $10 @ door!
THE INTERVIEW
What’s your favorite color? Red
Who is your favorite athlete? Kobe
What is your favorite poem and why? Roses are red. It’s a legend
What is the name of your fictional autobiography? MuhfuckinMelo: What it looks like.
How tall are you? 6’1
What is the title of the earliest work of yours you can remember? “Call me Melo” sampled “umma do me” remix by Rocko. Rick Ross first line, it was “ima true baller bitch call me Melo” lol
What is the title of your most recent piece of work? MeloDramaticsĀ
Tell me about it? It’s my first solo project I’ve been working on forever. Maybe one day I’ll put it out
How did this show Thursday come about? Ash Wednesday is thee homie. She asked and I’ll never tell her no
Where is home? Burb life
What is home? My room
Who is home? My nephew
Whose home are you? Depends on who’s looking for shelter
What is your favorite plant? Cannabis
Who is your daddy and what does he do? He retired
Who are you? I’m Muhfuckin Melo
What do you do? I take care of my nephew and write about my thoughts in my spare time
Who would you like to collaborate with? NoName
Where are you going? To the top
Where did you just come from? Studio
Where are you right now? Studio
Who is Vashti Bunyan? Google say she sing. Ima check her out in a minute
TELL me some impressions of the other performers? Ash is T’d. Energy always high. Great person.
Riki cool as hell. Vibes go crazy
Why are you still performing? Cause that shits fun. Best part of being an artist. To know that people connect with me while I’m up there makes me feel. Feeling is cool
What does a free world look like to you? Papa doc and nem
An essay. Read.
āBut unlike his earlier solo efforts, Sign “O” the Times wasnāt a record by an ambitious kid trying to make impression. At 28, Prince had already made himself into a pop superstar Ā (and movie star too), and he easily sold out arenas. In one sense, he had nothing to prove. Yet Sign “O” the Times is the most varied, accomplished record of his prime 1980s period, a testament to the range of his gifts and the bold artistic ambition that gave his music shape.ā ~ Pitchfork
The reason why itās not STARBOY is because Drake isnāt sounding like Michael Jackson in the future, heās sounding like Drake in the future. The reason why itās not The Life of Pablo is because Views is easier to listen to. The reason why it’s not LEMONADE is because Views is easier to listen to. Drake is, if you want to listen to it that way, furious throughout for sure. Just like Pablo and Bey, Drake is terrified and at the end of his rope and fighting for his fucking life and the lives of his family and friends.
But he never screams his heart out or has a multi-part breakdown. He and his collaborators stay ice cold~ even the warmest, most bounciest beats have a grim determination undergirding them. Thereās an unshakeable momentum to the music, a timely airtight-ness. VIEWS is the album that got humanity through this year, it’s the sound of the biggest star in the world on the eve of revolution.
The reason why itās not Coloring Book is Drake doesnāt sound like Kanye anymore. I mean, everybody sounds like Kanye but Chance the Rapper REALLY sounds like Kanye; he sanded the edges off Graduation and brought it to the present. However, candy-coated Christianity can only take one so far in the real world and Lord knows itās taken us far enough, thank you but please no thank you! Drake keeps it real. Chanceās āBlessingsā arenāt actually coming for you: you’re not as handsome as he is and your dad isnāt friends with Obama. You’re not going to blow up without a record deal! But you might be able to get your ex back if you can grit your teeth for long enough through all of lifeās beat changes and let da riddim guide you through the God-less, gunshotted summer. Better yet, you might even find someone new. Imagine that.
The reason why itās not Solange is because that album is too slow. The reason why itās not Blonde is because that album is too sad! The reason why itās not your album is because your album isnāt this sexy or well-produced and it doesnāt have āHotline Blingā as a bonus track.
More Life is on the way.
This piece originally appeared in Side by Side Magazine.
I quit my job this week. This is why:
I wake up at four, angry, dark as the sky. I lay in bed a few seconds, then throw my upper half up. I change the music on my laptop and start working out. Around 4:20 I alternate between making lunch and working out. Iām making spaghetti. At 4:55 I take a shower. I start wrapping up the odds and ends of my morning: snacks, keys, decide what Iāll be listening to as I leave out the front door. Itās old jazz. Itās February so Iām on the 30s in my jazz discovery program. Next month itāll be the 40s.
Itās cold, Iām still angry. The walk soothes me, somewhere deep inside. Iām still smiling on the bus, on the train. āGood morning. Thank you!ā We huddle.
I brush my teeth at work. I look in the mirror. I look good. I go out to the floor.
Thereās always something. Thereās always something not right when I get to the unit, something to compensate for, to ask a supervisor for, to restock, to reorganize, that just isnāt there but should be. Iām angry and Iām moving fast. There is no trickling in for me, I am the bowl.
I am the Expediter.
That means I have patience, discipline, balance, speed, strength, empathy, and hopefully, eight hours of sleep. It means I am everything I was not growing up. It means that when I f*ck up, or when someone tells me I f*ck up, it soaks me deep. It means Iām angry. It means Iām grinding my teeth. It means thereās nowhere else in this building Iād rather be. I only started grinding my teeth after I started expediting. I started expediting around the same time I got back in school. The employees who were doing it before me all quit. An employee and her friend, the supervisor, got me to do it one day, two days, three days, weeks, and now theyāre both gone and itās my job. Time flies when you donāt have enough of it, and I have mail falling always. Always containers getting full, always containers to pull out and dispatch, always containers full of mail designated for a flight thatās leaving in 30 minutes 20 minutes 10 minutes right now itās late, always people asking me to make a new container, always something late, always something they canāt find, always homework to do, always lover, always lonely, always independent, always an attitude, bury the attitude with love. By noon Iāll be fine. Iām just underrating the day because Iām grumpy. But this is my life, this is all I have, this is work, this is production, this is beautiful. Look at all these people. I love them. And I am the expediter. They depend on me. Always never knew Iād be here.
Written summer, 2014
One of the last things Bruce told me was āDonāt Panic.ā He told Benjamin I had a good heart. He told me I was a kid, that he was in high school in 1992, a year after I was born. Bruce was working 7 days a week, 4 hours overtime. Bruce was in the Marines eight years, was a sergeant. Bruce got there an hour early every day, at six, to get paid, but also to clean. āI hate chaos,ā he couldnāt work in an unclean area.
Iāve been trying to reorganize myself. Make this writing thing happen, make healthy veganism happen, make being a weed smoking genius artist happen, befriend everybody everywhere. Watching Bruce, talking to, working with Bruce is the most fruitful work relationship Iāve ever had.
It happened fast. I was asking him and Marcus to stop making fun of me, they had taken to calling me āMIGOS!ā I donāt know why, and chuckling to themselves. Iād been āexperimentingā with sticking up for my self. I asked them, in front of another guy, to stop calling me āMigos,ā I had asked Marquez if he was making fun of me for my pink hat. Both experiments changed their attitudes toward me, toward one of quiet respect and deference, both confrontations rattled my bones and made me anxious as hell.
Then, the holidays started again. I started telling Barbara I was going to need help expediting. For a while last holiday season every day someone or multiple someones told me I needed help. Expediters from other shifts, people in my unit, the military people watching the mail. This past November, I got Bruce.
I had just started listening to Dr. Dreās 2001. While playing some from his speakers, Bruce looked at me āBest producer of all-timeā I said āI dunno. Maybe Pharrellā he winced skeptically. The few days Bruce and I worked together before the speakers shorted out, every day at 2:45 PM, 15 minutes before closing time he would put on āStill D.R.E.ā I loved it. One time after the speakers shorted, I played it on my phone and showed Bruce my screen from far away. Itās been very hard for me to connect to black men, to feel comfortable to love. To feel worthy as a friend. Everyone at my job was my friend.
My job was rife with prostitution, illicit drug use, fat black women, tired mothers, nepotism, abrupt and unexplained regime changes, corrupt supervisors, an easily manipulated justice system, a corrupt and cantankerous union, white people in button-ups with power, brown people covered in dust, in-fighting, gossip, repression, oppression, safety hazards, sharp and drastic personnel changes (Firing/hiring hundreds of people in months), failures of command, gambling, sexist men, sexual harassment, fights, unsafe driving, and deaths on the workroom floor. I quit because thatās fucked up, and hopefully I can make it as an artist or at least a human being out here.
Oh, and it matters because these are these are the people in the system handling your mail.
Carl Nadig is a conductor of positivity in Dekalb, IL. He awesomely invited me to
perform at November’s Majakka Monthly Music Marathon, a benefit he helps
organize for the Dekalb Area Women’s Center. Carl lives life as a dedicated journalist, generous thinker, and he plays music in the duo The Pleasant Street Players and Human Drag.
THE INTERVIEW
Who is your favorite athlete?
You have to hear them.
Album 19: Pay what you want/DL/Free. Credits forthcoming.
An album about being in love and a chill ass individual.