Mike Melinoe

One Liner: Local rapper making art rap and odd electronic music

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but I'll say rap, hip hop, and experimental electronic.
Home:  Austin!

Poster Position: 22 - bottom row!
Weekend Two Only.

Saturday at 12:05 on the VRBO Stage.

Thoughts:  Local guy making solid rap.  And a good story about how he came to be local - he came to Austin to see his girlfriend, and although he was living in Detroit, he just decided to stay. " “She posed the question like, ‘What do you have, basically, at home?’ I wasn’t doin’ music or shows too much in the city. I couldn’t get the bigger gigs. I was like, ‘Sang, if I go back, what would I be going to - a job?’ I had $8 in my pocket, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna stay’.”  A few months after moving to Austin, Melinoe became homeless."  Jeez!  Since then, he's gotten back on his feet, and even had Mayor Adler declare November 14, 2019 as Mike Melinoe Day.  Hooray for Mike Melinoe Day!

He only has two songs with more than 10k streams, so he hasn't quite hit the mainstream just yet.  Neither of those are on his proper albums.  The first one, creeping up towards 20k streams at 19,055, is "Costco."

Well, that was weird!  Okay track - good beat to it.  I just shopped at Costco yesterday, so now I feel attacked.  But I very much like that he held his (?) baby for the first couple bars of the video.  That was a little tiny baby.

This one kind of sounds like Andre 3000.  "Her Name."

His most recent album, 2021's Puu, is an instrumental album.  The opener is a more than 6 minute long track of spacey synths and trappy clicks.  And the album just keeps unspooling into strange sounds and boppin' beats for the remaining 14 tracks. "No Clouds" is pretty groovy.  "Detroit Sluts" is a completely different track - I need to learn what that style of music is called, because it just makes me think of that Ghost Town DJs track about the lady singing "AT NIGHT, I THINK OF YOU."  Miami Bass, apparently.  "Finger Love," which is a great name, is a sleepy slow jam that sounds nothing like a normal rap beat.  Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this album, I'd rather have the man rap over these beats, rather than just meandering my way through a bunch of beats/sounds.

The disc before that one, 2019's Clajidu (currently laughing at jokes I don't understand) mixes up a more traditional rap sound ("Waldo," "Love is a Joke") with a handful of arty tracks ("Lifetime," "2:22").  "4:44" has an off-kilter beat, but "3:33" brings a tough beat along to a brawny rap (with some little asides in the background that call A$AP Ferg to mind).  Wasn't 4:44 a Jay-Z album?  Here is that track:

Before that, 2018's Oo has more singing than I would like to hear (kind of reminds me of my less favorite Childish Gambino stuff), and before that 2017's Caveman and A Night, with Hanabi, are each more raw rap sounds.  But "Dlog Taog" is kind of hard.

His 2020 EP Bukneu has his second most streamed track, and I dig the laid-back feel on this one.  "Waves."  11,025 streams.  

I have no clue what it is about - he hates a lucky person's eyes but doesn't think a donkey should be surprised?  39 total views of that video.

I won't be there for the second weekend, but honestly, I'd go check this guy out.  Kind of intrigued by the weird mixture of rap and art that he has going on.