A Conversation with: MELODOWNZ

Going on tour around Aotearoa next month to celebrate the release of his latest album “LONE WOLF”, we chat to West Auckland native & hip-hop icon MELODOWNZ.

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat! I’m really excited to talk with you about the album. First question, how did you get started with rapping and making music?

I started back around highschool. I got into music and different kind of genres, and I leaned more towards the hip hop genre. I was already a creator, I was drawing a lot. Eventually I found poetry, spoken word, and stuff like that and from there, I just really gravitated towards the art of rhyming. When I was growing up, we started drinking at house parties and stuff, and there was always a corner in the backyard with a group of people in a circle having a little freestyle. They used to call it having a cipher. I was like “yo, this is cool” so I started getting myself involved in it.

I come from the era of Bebo, so when I was in highschool, I think it was like the end-tail of Bebo. Do you remember Bebo?

Oh, a hundred percent!

So yeah, I had a Bebo page and I ended up making a funny as song and posted it on Bebo and then the next week it went viral around a few high schools and stuff like that. People used to Infrared and Bluetooth their their songs to each other, and I don’t know, for some reason this one song ended up going around schools. So I’d go to house parties and people would know the song and yeah, that’s how I got into music and started wanting to take it serious. So I used to turn up to like talent quests or like putting my name forward for like anything to be able to rap or perform. And I got a spot at the Pasifika - that was one of my first performances.

Then eventually, I got into a circle of like-minded people and I met some people that were like “we’re putting a gig on here”. Back then there was Khuja Lounge and Rakinos, so I started going to the open mics that were at Rakinos every Tuesday. Through that I met other artists like Bailey Wiley, ENO x DIRTY, SWIDT, and yeah, I just kinda stuck to it. And now we’re here, talking to you on Hype Medium!

Yeah, that sounds like such an incredible journey and so cool that you met all those amazing kiwi artists on the way! And I guess having a track that people knew is the motivation for you to be like “I love doing this and I want to keep doing this” and make more music. And congrats on your latest album “Lone Wolf” - it’s so sick! What were your main artistic and musical inspirations for this album?

So a lot of the inspiration came from almost 3 years ago when I did a trip to LA, and I had sessions with some real cool producers that work alongside TDE and Dr Dre, so I got to experience hip hop on a bigger stature if you know what I’m saying? That was my first time going to America as well, so that was overwhelming but at the same time I got to sit with people who work with J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and all these big names that I really look up to in terms of hip hop music. So yeah, that was like a big step up for me from the musical environments I had been in prior. A lot of the songs came from those sessions, and you might be able to hear some of the influences. Like one of the songs is “How It Be” I made with DJ Khalil. When I got back to New Zealand, one of my idols is Bootsy Collins, so I just flicked him a message. It was lockdown at the time so he couldn’t do anything anyway so he was keen. We got on a Facetime call and I was kinda talking about the direction I wanted to go and he was really with it so, just those organic moments.

Even old school, like listening to the Isley Brothers - growing up on soul as well. It’s not a direct influence but there are little moments in there that I’ve taken from my inspiration or influence from music I grew up listening to. To sum the album up, it’s just kinda a compilation or mixture of my influences and experiences from the last 3 years.

I know, especially in Australasia, if you’re talking about hip hop, what’s streaming the most is drill or that Australian sound that’s kind of trending right now and obviously I don’t fit in any of those boxes. So I feel like I’m on my own vibe at the moment, just making the sounds that I like. I’m not really listening to what’s trending or what the streams are or anything. I’m just rolling with what I’ve always had faith in and that’s my sound. I guess that’s what I’m saying, that’s what the lone wolf mentality is. It’s being content with who you are and where you’re going kinda thing. And I guess when you’re comfortable within your own skin, and who you are in your identity, you can walk in any kind of room. I can go back to the hood and I can chill with the boys, or I can sit in the Universal office and talk to Adam Holt, you know what I mean? (laughs) I’m a chameleon in the most artistic way - I can navigate through different spaces being this lone wolf. I encourage everyone to find themselves to just be resilient in whatever they do because I feel that’s how you find yourself, and that’s how you get through some of the challenges that life may bring.

Yes, I love that! I think that’s so important to embrace your uniqueness and do what you feel is genuine to you, and you are definitely an inspiration to others in that way. Of course, that shows through in your music as well.

Appreciate that.

You’re always bringing incredible messages into your music and I want to talk a little bit about that with “Money” because there are some powerful messages in that song. What would you say you would want people to take away from that track?

That’s the thing - as an artist, it’s all perspective. You could listen to money and be like “I could go and get a “real” job” or “I need to go do this” or “man, this guy’s too deep” or I don’t know (laughs).

When I was writing this song, I came from a space where I was just expressing how money has conditioned us as a society. Many people have physically tolling jobs and by the end of it, they’re just stuffed. When retirement comes, their body doesn’t even work - I’ve seen this with my own eyes! So it’s crazy that we live by this structure that we have to have a certain currency or money to even survive when a lot of us, especially us working class people, should just be thriving anyway. But obviously we can’t because we gotta make money, and to make money you gotta sacrifice a lot of your time including time away from family.

I guess it was just me coming from a working class standpoint and if you just look at it, a lot of people study then right out of high school they have a student loan, and once they pay their student loan off they need to get married. Then once they get married, they want to have kids. Then when they have kids, they’re like “I need to buy a car for my woman” or house for their spouse, you know what I mean? (laughs). Like, what if we didn’t focus on that and just tried focusing on the more simple things in life which are like family, or walking down the road you could see a beautiful rose and that could be a moment you appreciate.

I fear a lot of people, even including myself, we’re always on our phones and iPads and on our devices - always hustling to try and make things happen so we can make money. So in the end, we can have that time off. But really, we could be having that time throughout it all, if that makes sense.

A hundred percent - we can do whatever we want in the present moment, and you don’t have to sacrifice all your time and money to get to that place because you can access that at any time.

Yeah, she gets me, she gets me.

And another amazing song that you’ve written on this album is “Pray For More”, and on that track you’ve got Lisi from Australia and Mikey Dam who is another awesome kiwi artist. What was your concept and inspiration behind that song?

I guess at the time I wrote it, it was back in 2020 to be honest. It was during the first lockdown and I was actually listening to a song called “Heart on my Sleeve”, I’ve forgotten his name, but it had this really nice melody and you can really hear the pain in his voice when he was singing. And I was like “I want to make a song like that”. So I already had these chords from a producer and I sent it to Mikey and I was like “I want to make it a heartfelt, gospel vibe”. He sent me back a draft of the hook and it was exactly the vibe that I was after.

It was more of a nostalgic song for me - I was thinking back when I was in my teenage years and getting arrested and things like that, coming home and my mum’s having to bail me out of the cells or picking me up from the police station or those kinda things. In that song, that’s what I was writing about. I don’t know, maybe that night I just had a little trip down memory lane.

I sent it to Lisi, about two years later! I was sitting on that song for ages (laughs). And then he liked it and he jumped on it, and so yeah, that’s kind of how it came about.

Amazing! I love hearing about the journey of a song - sometimes it could come together straight away and sometimes you could put it down for a little bit and you could find inspiration for a song again later on.

Yeah, I can write verses and my own hooks and stuff. I don’t want people being like “man, he’s got so many features, is he too lazy to write a second verse” (laughs). But if you look at my past work, I can write for days so that wasn’t the case. It was just like, I really enjoy collaborating with different artists of different stature and different places, and I like to bring our two worlds together. Lisi is Samoan from Brizzy, and I’m from West Auckland. Within it, there’s a lot of similarities and I think merging the gap between Australia and New Zealand hip hop or whatever, you can really feel those similarities. Even though we have different accents - like I’ve got more of a Pacific-Kiwi accent and he’s got a real Australian accent, it still works.

Yeah it’s really cool! And like you said, you’ve got some mind-blowing collaborations on this album and they do bring so much value to the song with the messages you are trying to convey plus you’re bringing different experiences to the table. One big collaboration on there which I’d love to talk with you about is Denzel Curry on “No Mercy”! How did that come about?

Yeah appreciate it! Yeah that was another one of those fluke, kind of organic moments when I was in LA working with FnZ - so shout out Finatik and Zac. They’re like a producer duo who are from Perth I believe. But they’ve been situated in the States for the past 10 years almost, and they’re like Denzel’s number one producers and engineers I think. They share the same studio, and I had a couple of sessions with Finatik. I was sitting in the studio one day and I noticed that there were all these Denzel Curry plaques on the wall just sitting there and I was like “woah this is crazy”. They had like A$AP Rocky plaques and all these accomplishments that they have had as producers, and I was like “yo, does Denzel record here or something?” and they were like “yeah yeah, this is his studio”. And I was “oh shit”, I was buzzing out (laughs). And I was like, “I’ve got this song that I can hear him on” and I played it to the bros. Then they said he was going to be back in America in like the next couple of days, so I waited around and they got in touch and were like “yeah, Denzel’s heard the song so if you want to pull up to the studio”. So I pulled up with my manager and one of my bros Baz and yeah.

He listened to the song and he was vibing to it. We spent the day together just creating, talking shit, talking about culture. I was telling him about Samoan culture and he was telling me about Miami culture. Just being a person of colour, doesn’t matter if you’re African or Samoan or whatever, there’s this common ground that you just have I guess. And it was cool to be able to talk about that stuff and other funny things. That’s kind of how it came about. Obviously, being the artist that he is, there’s legalities and stuff you have to do as well so I left that up to management. But apart from that, that’s how it came about. I was literally in his studio and then I showed his producers the song that I was working on and if they could show it to him. They showed it to him, he dug it, and next minute, we’re in the same room together. So yeah, it’s cool.

Yeah totally, if you don’t put it out there then you never know what will happen! That’s so sick.

Yeah for real.

And the other song I want to talk to you about is “That Love”. So you’ve got the incredible Troy Kingi on that one as well as the Avondale Intermediate Choir which I think is really cool because I know that Avondale means so much to you! What did it mean to you have them on the track and what’s the importance of Avondale to you?

At the time, I was thinking I wanted it to have a gospel situation within the song, because the Rhodes and the chords are gospel-like. It kinda reminded me of church. So I was like “oh, I should get a choir on” and because I was in the choir back in intermediate, I was like I should just hit up the sis because a friend of mine is the choir teacher at Avondale Intermediate. So I just hit her up and she was keen as.

I ended up bringing a camera guy and engineer to Avondale Intermediate for a day. I think there were 40-60 students. It was so crazy to be able to write something down, give it to the teacher, and then the kids sing what I’ve written. It’s just - you can’t really describe that feeling. I feel like it was one of the most significant moments, in terms of creating something, that I’ve experienced. If there’s 60 kids singing it, that’s 120 lungs - do you know what I’m saying? Like, that’s how much oxygen is going into this piece of work. That just goes to show how much energy is going into what they’re saying. And what they’re saying is we just need that love, and if you sing it yourself, you’re telling yourself what you need, and that’s love. So I guess it’s a very powerful moment. People might just listen to it and hear a bunch of kids singing, but for me, that’s how special it is.

Yeah, and that would be amazing live I think as well! 

When I do play my shows, one thing I do really want is the choir to join me on stage. I reckon that would be a moment. Because I was in that choir back in intermediate, that would be a full circle moment.

That’s so beautiful and they sounds so amazing on it.

And it was technically a part of their school curriculum because it was during school hours.

Oh really?! That’s so fun! Also I’d love to know, who are your favourite kiwi artists and what your favourite songs are right now?

Oooooh that’s a hard question. Troy Kingi for sure - he’s probably my favourite New Zealand artist. This is a controversial statement but I think he’s the greatest New Zealand/Aotearoa musician to walk this land.

That’s a big statement! But I’m sure many people would agree.

The reason why I say this is, if you don’t know his 10 albums in 10 years situation, it blows my mind. And each album is a different genre and a different theme, and each theme has a different band when he does live stuff. And it’s like, how do you do that on top of, I think he’s got like, 5 kids?! And he’s just won music awards like an APRA award, and AMA for Best Hip Hop Artist with the Panthers stuff for a TV show, so he did the whole score for a TV show. Like how do you even? (laughs) Yeah I don’t know, it just blows my mind. I’m saying, he’s the greatest to ever walk this land in terms of a musician in this country.

So he’s one of my favourites. Diggy Dupé is another brother of mine. He released his EP called “Hues” with Haz’ Beats and there’s a song on there called “Flying High” and it’s a song about kava if you listen to it. Tom Scott released “Trees” - I like that song “Flying Pigs”. That song is crazy - big ups to Tom Scott. Bailey Wiley has been dropping some real cool stuff - I really love her neo-soul R&B kinda vibe. That “Put D’Angelo On” is like a classic to me. Oh and Brandn Shiraz is next up. He’s going to be doing big things real soon. He’s crazy. And there’s plenty of other people out there.

Yeah, that’s a great selection! And my last question for you - you’ve had a long career so far so far, so what are the biggest lessons you have learnt so far and what advice do you have for other artists out there?

So one of the lessons is stick to your gut feeling. I feel where you get to the point that I am or other people are, you have a lot of influences around you that are telling you that “you should do this” or “do that”. “You need to be doing this”, “you need to be doing that” or “add this to your art”. But if it doesn’t feel right inside then just roll with that feeling I guess. It’s not that I have any regrets but sometimes I wish “maybe I should have said something earlier” or done this or done that. It’s all love but yeah. 

If you really want it, you really have to have your mind in it, your soul in it and your heart in it. And you have to put 100% of everything you have into it in order to get the results that you really want. It’s cool to release a song and wait for things to happen but, there’s so much outside of creating the music that plays a big part in executing your end vision, or your vision for the direction you want to be in. And it takes a lot, like always being on social media or always having content out there and stuff like that. So before you do all that, you gotta check in with yourself and make sure you’re good to carry on and stuff like that. So yeah, that’s kinda my advice I guess and just love what you do. Be unapologetic and don’t take shit from anybody and opinions do not matter except your own. Even your own sometimes don’t matter (laughs).

Yes, I loved all those pieces of advice! I think we should think about those things every day. Is there anything else you wanted to mention?

Yeah I haven’t told my management or anyone yet but I’ve got a new record coming out in the next year. And I’ve got all these singles that I’m sitting on now and I really want to drop them soon but I probably won’t be allowed, just in terms of the timeline. I’ve got a new kava range out and I’ve got merch for sale!

Well thank you so much for all the words of wisdom that you’ve shared with us!

It’s an honour. Thank you for putting artists like myself on your guys’ platform.

Make sure to catch MELODOWNZ on tour, or keep up with him on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify or Apple Music!