MeLo-X
Sean Rhoden, known professionally MeLo-X, is an American disc jockey and record producer. MeLo-X co-wrote two songs for Beyoncé's Lemonade album in 2016: "Hold Up" and "Sorry".
MeLo-X is one half of the electro/dancehall/reggae duo Electric Punanny, along with Jasmine Solano. They have toured internationally, performing deejay sets at festivals such as Glastonbury, Afropunk and SXSW.
Early life
MeLo-X was born to Jamaican parents in the East Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn.Career
In 2009, MeLo-X toured with Theophilus London, serving as deejay. On the side, he remixed songs from other artists, without permission.A remix by Melo-X of Yuna's 2012 song "Live Your Life" is heard in Grand Theft Auto V, on the fictional “Worldwide FM” radio station within the game.
In 2014, MeLo-X remixed five songs from Beyoncé's album Beyoncé, the project titled Yoncé-X, which MeLo-X posted to various websites such as SoundCloud and YouTube. Beyoncé's label kept having the remix album removed from each new hosting site for copyright violations, but after seeing the uploaded video for "Drunk in Lust," MeLo-X's unauthorized remix of "Drunk in Love," Beyoncé invited him to make music for the On the Run Tour, a co-headlining tour by Jay-Z and Beyoncé. MeLo-X relates: "They already had the story and the outline for the tour. The whole story is like you're watching a film and it's narrated by the music that they created... We'd sit and talk about the sounds. Then I'd go and create something. It was a mix of my ideas, with Beyoncé and Jay Z. I'd try to complement them. I'd try to find a meeting point of what I do and what they wanted." MeLo-X said that, for a climactic car-chase scene, he took Kanye West's song "Hell of a Life", changing and chopping it in the trap EDM style, making it into a two-minute piece to fit the concert visuals.
After this, MeLo-X collaborated with Beyoncé and Jay-Z in writing two songs for Beyoncé's Lemonade album: "Hold-Up" and "Sorry". "Hold Up" was certified Gold in the U.S. and Australia, and "Sorry" was certified Platinum in the U.S. MeLo-X said he encountered the song "Hold Up" after much of it had been composed by Father John Misty and MNEK. MeLo-X wrote some of the song's lyrics, and provided background vocals, saying, "I love how my vocals were used because it feels like it's a sample under her voice during the chorus." The song "Sorry" was co-written and co-produced by MeLo-X and Wynter Gordon. As well, MeLo-X scored the music for Beyoncé's Lemonade visual album.
MeLo-X also created music and sounds for Beyoncé's The Formation World Tour. For instance, when a mechanical lift at center stage rises upward, a sound that MeLo-X designed is played to represent the movement.
MeLo-X released an EP titled Curate in October 2015. The EP took the form of a software application within which the listener can move a pointer to change the beat and the reverb. MeLo-X calls the octahedron-shaped pointer the "infinity stone." Songs on the EP feature performances by Little Simz, Raury, and Kilo Kish. The next year, PartyNextDoor hired MeLo-X to bring the same visual style to his Summer's Over Tour.
MeLo-X produced and performed on a remix of the song "Find Your Way Back" on the deluxe version of Beyonce's album The Lion King: The Gift which was released on July 31, 2020, to coincide with the release of the Knowles-Carter/Disney + film Black Is King.