Northerner Melé has long had a Southern leaning – he’s been melding southern hip hop snares & rhythms with a distinctive but undefinable UK sound since he started out producing as a teenager. His track ‘Lego’, released on his sophomore EP for Mixpak, brought inspiration for the first volume for our newly released Mixpak Pressure compilation, leading us to lock 10 producers all with a common investment in the dirty south sound.
Fresh from the success of ‘Beamer’, we met up in a London diner to talk about ‘Stage 2’, and find out how deep into the deep south he goes.
So let’s jump straight in with your track from Mixpak Pressure – ‘Stage 2’ – how did that come about?
I made [Stage 2] literally a few days after I made the ‘Beamer’ instrumental so I was still kinda trying to mess about with big pads and chords. [Stage 2] one of those things I was playing out now and again; it was just another track I made. But then I started sending it out and people really liked it, Dre [Skull] really liked it, and when he said he was doing a rap influenced compilation I thought it’d be perfect for it. We tried to add a bit of a vocal to it but it didn’t really work with the track so we decided to keep it instrumental.
