In 2014, MeLo-X released an EP called Yoncé-X, featuring remixes of tracks from Beyoncé's self-titled album. The EP caught Queen Bey's ear, and the Brooklyn multimedia artist was invited to contribute music to her 2014 On the Run Tour with Jay Z. Last year, MeLo began going to L.A. to work with Beyoncé for the sessions that would become her new album Lemonade, which was released this weekend. MeLo co-wrote and sang backup vocals on "Hold Up" and co-wrote and co-produced "Sorry." He also contributed music to the Lemonade visual album, and is working on music for the Formation Tour. (Last fall, MeLo also released CURATE, an EP and accompanying app. It featured Little Simz, Raury, and Kilo Kish. Listen to it below.) Pitchfork spoke to MeLo-X this afternoon about his work with Beyoncé on Lemonade and beyond. "She's hands on with everything," he said. "She gives direction on everything and is very involved with the whole process. It's inspiring to see an artist on that level be able to just still have an eye for certain things and an ear."
Pitchfork: When did Beyoncé first approach you about working together?
MeLo-X: I started just working with her from the On the Run Tour, but I was just doing more online stuff, just producing. I did music for the CR Fashion Book thing that she did. The video that they showed online, I did the music for that. And she put out a documentary at the end of 2014 that I actually scored. So I was just doing a bunch of different projects for her, a bunch of different things. And in the midst of all that I started to travel to L.A. more and work out of the studio out there last year. And from there I created a lot of stuff and would send stuff to her and go back and forth at the start of last year.
Pitchfork: When did you first start working on "Hold Up"?
M-X: I can't remember specifically when. But I heard the track and was very excited about it because I'm Jamaican. And anything that sounds anywhere near Jamaica is kind of my lane, I would say. I heard the track and I worked on some song ideas and wrote some stuff for it.
Pitchfork: Did you work with any of the other songwriters (Diplo, Ezra Koenig, Father John Misty) for that song?
M-X: I really know just my side of it. It was pretty much, maybe 50 percent complete when I heard it, and I just wrote a bunch of things from my perspective and my tone of voice or how I would sing it if I was an ill reggae artist, like Barrington Levy singing on that track. And wrote a bunch of ideas and melodies and things like that.
Pitchfork: So lyrics you wrote made the final cut of the song?
M-X: Yeah, definitely.
Pitchfork: And you also did background vocals?
M-X: I kind of put a bunch of ideas down. A bunch of harmonies, a bunch of different layers, and she kept a lot of that in. In the second chorus you can hear my vocals under hers coming in. It's cool that she kept that. I was just putting that there to create a vibe. I had like in my mind, I was thinking of Bob Marley and his backup singers, he had his wife, and how they would harmonize to a lot things that he did. So I took to that approach with the background vocals that I did.
Pitchfork: What do you think of how Beyoncé used Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Soulja Boy on the song?
M-X: I didn't even realize that 'til the credits came out, honestly. I still don't know how they were used. It's cool. That's what music is in 2016. All these different inspirations coming together to make something new. That's what life is about really and music has always been about that. As a collaborator with artists or as an artist yourself collaborating through different sounds, and ideas and techniques.
Pitchfork: How do you write from Beyoncé's perspective, and how does she tell you what she's doing with lyrics you've written?
M-X: Leading up to that, I heard a lot of the music and the subject matter of the music and we spoke about direction. And what's the theme and the ideas behind some of the stuff. I was able to write from a different perspective. And I think that she used a lot of what I did and pieced it together. She's a master of finding raw talent and including them in her projects. Like Boots, who she worked with before. I think artists like me and Boots are able to kind of zone in with the artist and speak from their perspective.
Pitchfork: When and how did "Sorry" come about?
M-X: That track was probably–I don't know the exact date when I wrote it but it was way before that [Justin Bieber] "Sorry" record came out. It might have been last summer. It was way before that song came out. I mean, it's funny. The two songs that I'm credited on in the album are the two dancehall-inspired tracks. I think it's key to the direction that I'm going in. And just like my history and where I'm from and the culture that I grew up in. But yeah so, that track was kind of like creating a vibe in the studio. We were just working on a lot of stuff and the idea came up pretty simple. It was just some cool keys, drum patterns, and we started putting down vocal ideas and lyric ideas. And throughout the month we added to it and Hit-Boy came in and sprinkled all these different sounds and layers to it and made it come together fully.
We created that vibe together. It plays a key part in the record because I think it's at a vital point in the record. It's all these different emotions and different sounds and different layers. And I think the album is very–there are no boundaries as far as genre goes. It jumps from indie rock to some cool ballads to R&B and you have reggae and I have the dancehall tracks. I don't think we went with the mindset of having all these different genres. But hearing all the music I was inspired to create something that was different even for me to create something like that.
Pitchfork: Did you contribute to music that didn't make the record?
M-X: Yeah, we worked on a lot of music. I'm pretty sure some of that music will see the light of day. I would hope. But yeah, Bey is kind of like 2Pac in that way. She has tons of amazing music.
Pitchfork: What's it like working in the studio with Beyoncé?
M-X: It's cool. I can bring a lot of weird sound ideas and choices and I am very experimental and she's open to all of that. Just the fact that I'm not, at the time when we were working, I wasn't the biggest producer in the country or the hottest name buzzing. I was just the kid from Brooklyn who fucking took her album and remixed that shit and put it out on SoundCloud. Definitely put in a lot of work to get into that space that would get the ear of somebody like Beyoncé. She respects artists that are unconventional and are true to their craft. So she definitely just listens to my ideas and is very collaborative when it comes to finalizing things and getting ideas out.
Pitchfork: Would she play music in the studio for inspiration?
M-X: Yeah, for sure. I played a lot stuff too. I would bring up classic dancehall songs. And classic reggae tunes and we would vibe off of shit like that. I was kind of like putting her onto some shit maybe she didn't know about and she would put me onto artists and music she was into. It helped with the direction as well.
Pitchfork: Were you involved with the Lemonade visual album?
M-X: Yeah, I scored the film as well. And I did the sound design for the songs.
Pitchfork: How was working with Beyoncé on the film different from working with her on the album?
M-X: It's pretty much the same. She's hands on with everything. She gives direction on everything and is very involved with the whole process. It's inspiring to see an artist on that level be able to just still have an eye for certain things and an ear. Even though she's considered famous the public doesn't necessarily give them that extra credit, that once you're famous or rich it gets easier. But I've seen first hand it doesn't get easier. It gets harder and you have to be way more on point with everything to do. And she's definitely involved with the whole process. And we would just sit down and go over with different things and different scenes and sounds and kind of put it together piece by piece.
Pitchfork: Are you working on the Formation Tour?
M-X: Yeah, I'm actually working, playing the same role that I did with the On the Run Tour. I would say it's almost like scoring a tour–figuring out different ways to interweave the songs and figuring out what the story she's telling with the performance. And finding the right sounds and the right elements. I do a lot of live production in what I do. And I bring that to her world with the tours and take songs she's probably not performing and take it and remix it and deconstruct it and give it a new life and have it live in the tour. So a lot of the interstitials and a lot of things that you hear, brand new remixes of things that you will probably only hear it at the show. Which makes it a really unique experience for fans that know all of those cuts and know her music well.
via Matthew Strauss
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