“Rocket Man” by The Real Meladee

Simply put, it’s obvious The Real Meladee will do whatever it takes to get the attention of her audience around the world in the blunt “Rocket Man,” the latest in a string of melodic hip-hop releases that have brought the up-and-coming Miami powerhouse quite a bit of attention from critics and fans this season. In the last few months, Meladee has built up an impressive cult following that has spread the word of her music across the scenes that comprise the greater hip-hop universe, and though she’s still a new face to most of us, she has the swaggering execution of a seasoned recording veteran in “Rocket Man” and doesn’t sound the least bit foreign to smoking hot beats, I might add.

Times are changing for rappers around the world right now, and while there will always be a place for the old school rappers and hardcore hip-hop stalwarts, artists like The Real Meladee are bringing the genre into the future with boundless experimentations, the best of which can be experienced in this brand new single.

There’s a lot of raw, unfiltered emotion in this track, but I don’t think that Meladee’s lyrics get too personal to be accessible to the masses at all. A lot of alternative trap-influenced songs, including those both boastful and introspective the same, discuss similarly-themed subject matter as “Rocket Man” does, but rarely do they articulate themselves with the deeply collected tone that this player utilizes here.

There’s never any questioning where she’s taking the verse, and never any regret as to how she addresses a particular aspect of her narrative. Meladee seemingly goes out of her way to avoid rehashing elements of her other material in this track, and even more impressively, she doesn’t draw from the same creative well that so many of her peers have been in making music about being confident and driven to rise above the rest. There’s a chilliness to the vocal created by the indulgent bassline attached to it, but other than that, this is a startlingly warm and inviting single, especially when we consider how icy its lyrical content tends to get.

I fully expect this young songwriter to break through the barrier between herself and the mainstream scene this year. The Real Meladee is simply too on-point in “Rocket Man” to be dismissed alongside the thousands of other rappers who are making a play for the big leagues this season, and for what I look for in smart hip-hop, this track meets everything that I would expect an edgy indie single to include.

There’s no debating that she’s got an unvarnished tonality, but if anything, I think that it gives her sound a sensuous texture that pretty much no one else in her scene has got these days. The fans will be the ultimate judge, but at any rate, I would highly recommend checking out “Rocket Man” for yourself and seeing what all of the hype has been about if for no other reason than to experience what could be one of the best new voices in Floridian hip-hop.

Mindy McCall