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.

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. 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. Early shows were at the 205 Club, but the show gained a larger following at the Sway Lounge. The duo began to tour internationally and to release music together. In 2013, they performed in France, Japan and Australia, including a set for the Island Vibe Festival on Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah). Personal electronics maker House of Marley sponsored a tour of North America in early 2014, including a performance at the "Do Over Party" in Palm Springs after the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. In June 2014, Electric Punanny played the Glastonbury Festival, at the Blues Stage in the Silver Hayes area. They played at the Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn in August 2014. The group's techno-dancehall mashup "Rosa Caleta" was their first release together in October 2014, the song named after a Jamaican restaurant in Berlin. After performing in China, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, the duo played SXSW in March 2015. In 2017, Electric Punanny released the song "Tiger Eye" featuring Donae'o. released on the EPINTL label by Beatport.

Musical style and influences MeLo-X brings together in his music many different musical genres, especially dancehall and reggae from his family's Jamaican heritage. His deejay sets often combine tropical grooves with various hip hop and electronic dance beats. MeLo-X cites Big Pun, the Hot Boys, and rapper DMX along with his producer Swizz Beatz as inspirations for his own music career.

Photography After taking a trip to Equatorial Guinea and South Africa, MeLo-X had a showing of his photography in 2014 at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York.

Production discography