MIKE MELINOE
Mindfully mysterious, Detroit’s conscious riddler Mike Melinoe is a demigod. Combining psychedelic sounds and a low-fi internet-bred aesthetic with old-school lyricism, The Organic Geniuses founder deliberately swerves his way through drugged-out ballads with crisp clarity. Melinoe’s music exists in a plane that marries classic boom-bap to the intricate chaos that can only be summoned by a computer. Melinoe snarls with an elevated consciousness about his life, but eschews narrative for a collage of images. With impressive vocal elasticity, the artist treats beats as blank canvases for vocal exploration rather than a series of lines waiting to be colored within.