Words by Quentin Yarolem. Photo by Jude Appleby

Chicago rapper MFn Melo is making his is way in the city’s diverse hip-hop scene. Melo is set to release his debut project MeloDramatics later this year. The project will be his first release since 2013, when PIVOT dropped their mixtape Jimmy, a tape dedicated to their friend and fellow PIVOT member who was locked down. Check out our interview below, and make sure to stay on the lookout for MeloDramatics.

FSD: You’re part of PIVOT?

MFn Melo: Yes.

FSD: You guys put out Jimmy in 2013; who is Jimmy?

MFn Melo: Jimmy is my friend, and he raps with us. He name was Fresh Waters, but Jimmy is his government name. He helped start PIVOT with Joseph, and then Jimmy ran into some legal trouble. He’s currently incarcerated, and we thought that was shitty so we dedicated our tape to him!

FSD: Is there going to be another PIVOT tape?

MFn Melo: Definitely, oh definitely. I don’t have a time on that, so I’m not going to lie to you on that, but definitely.

FSD: How did you meet all of the guys in PIVOT?

MFn Melo: I went to high school with Joe. I met him when I was maybe a junior. Sab went to that school too, but he was a freshman I ain’t really know of him until after until after I graduated.

FSD: So you and Joe are older than Sab.

MFn Melo: Yeah, I’m either the oldest in the group — or me and Jimmy are the same age.

FSD: MeloDramatics, what can you tell me about that.

MFn Melo: MeloDramatics is my first piece of anything I’ve done by myself. Ever since I started rapping I’ve been in a group. I wrote songs on my own, but I never really put a project out on my own so this is my first little introduction to the world. I’ve been working on this for a very long time. I probably started working on it around the same time Saba started working on ComfortZone. I was just going through a lot of phases with it, and then Saba started picking up so I was just really trying to push the PIVOT more than myself.

Then came another point where I became more focused on doing my own thing because I knew that would make PIVOT stronger. Yeah, it’s my first full length, and I’m excited to see what people think of it. It’s just about there. I don’t have a date or nothing on it but I’m trying to drop it very very soon. Yeah, it’s going to be pretty cool I think, I’m looking forward to hearing the responses from it.

FSD: Can you tell me any of the features on it?

MFn Melo: Nah it’s PIVOTal. That’s all I can tell you. There won’t be a lot of features, so you won’t be like, “Oh my god I can’t believe he was on there.” Or you may see that, but don’t look forward to it…..maybe.

FSD: Have we heard any of the songs off of it?

MFn Melo: Yeah, a couple of the songs I dropped last year are on it. Probably like two or three of those on there, and then there will be like nine new ones.

FSD: You say that you’ve gone through phases with it, does that mean that like you scrapped a lot of it or started over?

MFn Melo: Just building on a lot of songs. A lot of them were good start-up. I maybe took one of my verses off and put somebody else on or maybe changed a hook. I did a lot of stuff post-production. I was just growing a lot as I was making it. Every time I would grow I wanted to get rid of it, but I had to pick and choose what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to work with, what I thought was salvageable.

It was just a process and I was really growing while I was making it. I feel like a lot of people try to rush the music just to be heard as opposed to actually giving them something they’ll actually enjoy, but that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to give you good music as opposed to rushing and giving you anything. As I was growing and building with my music I had to push it back because I was hearing that it could be better. Whenever you hear that right off bat, you gotta take heat to that. A lot of people don’t care about the music, but I really care about the music. Everything else comes second. That kind of hinders me sometimes, but that’s all I really care about. As long as the music is good, I feel like the rest will just kind of take over.