When I first listened to Melissa B, I was taken back by her soulful, powerful range that I felt coming through the speakers. Raised as a military kid, Melissa fell in love with music while simultaneously discovering salsa, meringue, and what she refers to as “my old school R&B music.” I was so happy to connect with Melissa virtually to pick her brain on her creative process, new LoFi release, and more.
Name an album that everyone should have in their collection:
Genesis – B. Howard. It’s a hidden gem of sounds and music that stands the test of time. Great album.
How long have you been making music? Has it always been something you’ve seen yourself doing as a career?
I have been singing since I was 5 years old but making music in the past 5 years alongside my co-producer Michael Ashby, who is also my engineer. Honestly, I steered away from trying to produce as I was never really encouraged to do that. I was always told to just stick to being a singer but my dear friend Spencer Bassiest actually pushed me to produce my first song for him. He saw it in me and he gave me the confidence to believe that I could do it. Once I did my first song which was ” Permission To Love” with him and Ashby that’s when I truly believed I could do this and make it happen, It came out so beautiful that it makes me cry when I listen to it sometimes. Cause I can’t believe I created nothing into something. I wanted to try something different with LoFi by experimenting with my sound and vocals.
What inspires your sound?
What inspires my sound is the spirit in me. I just go with how my spirit speaks and pay attention to the sounds that catch my attention. I am an R&B singer first so when you sing you hear harmonies all the time. So I have been inspired by the sound of the R&B genre all my life. But I love the sounds of nature and just incorporating them into my music.
What can new listeners of your music expect with this new album?
Well this new little EP Album is all LoFi that we are currently working on. It’s gonna have that sensual, R&B, hip-hop Lo-fi sound. This is not the norm of what my fans hear of me as this is gonna be more instrumentation and some vocals. This whole project is produced by me and co-produced by Micheal Ashby. The name of this EP will be called Sugar Black.
Go check out Melissa’s newest and first-ever LoFi release, Vacation, out now on Lifted Lofi Records. Thank you, Melissa, for inspiring others with your music.