Mellow & Sleazy Open Up About Working Separately during an interview with Apple Music’s Africa Now Radio with LootLove. The South African amapiano production duo Mellow & Sleazy join LootLove via FaceTime on Apple Music 1 to talk about their latest track, “Chipi ke Chipi.” They also discuss showcasing emerging talent on their new album, ‘Midnight In Sunnyside,’ playing with experimental sounds, and how they developed their unique creative process.
Mellow & Sleazy on working separately
We’re almost never in the studio at the same time. He usually makes his own beats separately and I make my own beats separately, then we just exchange the projects and finish off each other’s projects. We just give each other space – he does his own thing, I do my own thing then once we’re done we’ll share what we have done, he’ll edit whatever I’ve done and I’ll edit whatever he did, then it becomes a full song.
Mellow & Sleazy on experimental sounds
So basically we’ve only tried experimenting with two genres, Bacardi and… I forgot the name of the sound but it’s from Angola so we’ve tried experimenting with those two sounds and a bit of soulfulness, because most of the people know us for being hardcore producers that make like loud music all the time, so we tried making it soulful but keeping that element at the same time. The whole EP is Bacardi, basically.
Mellow & Sleazy on exciting talent showcased on their new EP
The underground talent that we have on our EP… the first one is M.J, he’s a rapper and singer. He’s been on a lot of hits actually, he’s one of the vocalists that we always work with because he’s very versatile. He can do what five vocalists can do in the studio, so that’s why we’re always working with him. Another one is Matute Boy. Bacardi usually needs someone to rap fast, and with the lingo… and who else? Azi! Azi is a singer, we’ve just started working with him now, he’s very very new but he’s too much. I’ve never heard a voice like that so yeah, we’ll see where that takes us.