Introduce yourself
What’s up everyone, my name is Mfn Melo. I was born and raised on the Westside of Chicago and I’m a rapper.
How was life growing up?
I grew up on the west side of Chicago. My whole family lived on Douglas so that’s where most of my childhood happened. I then moved to Maywood, a west suburb, around 12 or 13. Im the youngest of 3 siblings and I got hella cousins which I’m also among the youngest. There’s a big age difference between me and my brother and sister so I spent my time with my mother and cousins or alone. Mostly alone lol. Which is why I’m mellow.
When did you begin to witness you had creative talents?
I always kinda knew I wanted to entertain I just didn’t know how I was going to go about it. I remember being about 6 or so and watching a Micheal Jackson World Tour VHS my mother had and being amazed. People were crying and passing out and to have that affect was something I wanted but never thought about music until much later in life.
I heard that you were heavy into r&b before rap….
I was put onto r&b and soul from being around my mother and her friends. Or in the car with my father. I just remember the rides home from the city. Sitting in traffic listening to V103. My sister also gave me usher album 8701 and I was hooked. I was unaware of a lot of rap until I got older.
How did you then start getting interested with rap?
I gradually got into rap from listening to Nelly then Juvenile and onto Lil Wayne. Then Joseph put me on to Eminem my junior year. I was never really into but the word play, but his word bending was amazing. From there I backtracked to a lot of the greats. But my introduction was at a late pace if you ask me. I was damn near ashamed.
When did you start making rap music?
A few years later I started. Not too far from around that time. But, I wasn’t doing it seriously. I was fucking around with it, maybe doing a freestyle every here and there. In highschool, a couple of my friends and I started a rap group called CMG, which were our initials. We used to just rap over G-unit beats. We really wanted to be G-unit. I started to really pursue music once I graduated High School. At the time, Joseph and Saba had already been rapping. There was another mutual friend of ours and he posted a picture on myspace of him in a basement, which was Josephs. I had no idea he was into rapping, but he told me to come over to Josephs crib.
I went over there one day because I was genuinely interested. I left that night, came back a day or two later, and ended up staying in the studio for a week straight after that. I rapped one day and recorded for the first time, and I thought to myself, I could really do this. I tried it again and since then I never left the studio.
You’re apart of the infamous Pivot gang. How did that come about?
Before we were pivot we were in a group called the Rally. It was me joe Sab justyn, moon, smoke, and Smooda. We just were cooking in the basement until people stopped showing up. After a while it was me joe and Sab and even I was over there less and less. We then linked up with Frsh Waters(Jimmy) who was in a group already with Kevo and Sway. And Walt who just found out about what we had going on just down the street from him. We all were working until we needed a name to call ourselves. Joe came up with Pivot from an episode of friends. That’s his shit.
I did some crazy research and saw that you had an idea of making an ode project to Solange… Is that true?
The idea came from Charles Hamilton making a tape about Rihanna. I wanted to recreate something like that to tell solange how much I loved here. She wasn’t lit then and I thought I had a chance. People really slept on “Sol Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams” Over the process of joe making the beats and me writhing the raps though I felt it wasn’t worthy and I ain’t want to do that no more. I tweaked lowkey.
It’s been three years since the idea of Melodramatics was getting dropped. What has happened? Is this something we could still be expecting or is the idea completely scrapped?
Damn 3 years huh? Lol MeloDramatics is very much so still a thing. It’s being wrapped up now. Over that time I’ve grown in so many areas of life that I couldn’t release it without updating it but also I just couldn’t put it out cause I was growing. I finished it like 3 times and ran into problems I created. So I had to try my best to salvage some of the old but add a nice amount of new to try and show the actual growth that took place while you waited. It’s on the way though. No dates but it’s coming soon af.
I saw one time you talked about a collab project with Ambi lyrics.
That project is going to happen. Ambi is the homie. I just have to drop Melodramatics first. Once I drop that, I will be free from that stress.MeloDramatics is my first project so I just gotta make sure it sets the appropriate tone for what’s to come.
Also, can we expect a Pivot project coming out soon?
Factual. We just working on ourselves which only strengthens the pivot. The last one was special and we felt they still sleep on it so we going to wake em up individually and bring it all full circle.
https://soundcloud.com/pivot-gang-music/sets/pivot-gang-jimmy-official
Lets talk about your recent single, Seeing Faces
Walt just passed and that was the only song I’ve made since then. This song represented where I was at the time. A lot of my music is about my reminiscing on older stories, but this one was recent and very fresh. It was interesting making it. I didn’t think I was going to like the record that much. I didn’t do it with the intention of making it for Walt, but the beat came on and it felt right. Once I started recording it and got it mixed, I ended up really liking the song. I started showing other people the record as well and they enjoyed it too.
Who are some artists you want to work with in the future?
Off top I gotta say Ravyn lenae and Pharrell. I’m just big fans of the both of them so I would enjoy that process. Feel like I’d learn so much not related to music.
When it’s all said and done how would you like to be remembered?
I just want to be remembered. Its up to you to take what you want from my music. I don’t want to force an opinion on anybody. I want people to take me as I am. I also just want to help. Whether its physically helping or you hear something I say and it helps you. I feel like I’ve only gotten to where I am now because people helped me and I want to pass that forward.
Words by: Nico Rud
Chicago Creatives 