Tumelo Thando “Melo V” Vilakazi born on the 12th of November 1991, this is a South African hip hop recording artist, producer and sound engineer from Springs, Kwa-Thema, also noted as a record producer under the pseudonym DHD (Double Headed Dragon)
Melo V Started making music at very young age and later on went on to study Sound Engineering at Emendy College where he gained a lot of knowledge about his mixing and mastering, although he could not finish his course due to performances, he then ran his home studio, engineering songs for local artists as he raised funds.
He started his own indie record label DTRL/Drug Muzik and later on met a great producer by the name of Lord Jazz where they merged companies / ideas to form Splendid Drug Muzik.
Melo V released his debut mixtape (The Genesis Tape) on the 12th of November 2012 which was a compilation of the tracks that he produced and mixed with different artists rapping on them.
Galactic Myth Vol 1 by DHD was released on the 22nd of July 2013 where he introduced a new a different sound mixing jazz elements with syths to form what he describes as a Groovey spacey house, he also introduced his alter ego DHD (Double Headed Dragon)
As a recording artist, Melo V shifted away from production and let’s Lord Jazz to go ahead and handled all the production of his projects, they then planned to release an alien trilogy EP series in 2014, yet only one EP dropped from the trilogy which was Love Live Life EP, they managed to work with an international artist from the UK by the name Vipz.
In 2015 Melo V released another EP entitled Friday The 13th (Something Happening on a horror flick), this gave him his first online presence, with the wave set he dropped his debut Mixtape Pink Walls which he and Lord Jazz describe it as an experimental project that somehow worked out, it received online reviews across Africa and also gave him his underground presence and had more than 5000 downloads where he was als recognized by big names such as Spoek Mathambo.
2016 He dropped his 2nd mixtape The [I] TAPE which received the amount of love like Pink Walls did, they described this project as ‘Innovating Art’, with songs like Money, [I]nsane and Conversat[I]ons getting radio air play was set to be a good year for the artist but he unfortunately had a car accident and was hospitalized, this caused him to take full year break in 2017.
In 2018 under new management by Pros he is set to release a new project The Butterfly Age.
He has gained street cred in his hood and Pretoria by performing in shows and sessions and working with a lot of indie artist such as Dee-Tokx, K scripts, Tee skillz, Steezy Stylish, JSK and Gatez also producers like Mango FBD, Musa Del Rico, LV and Winston Underdog.
I am a poet and loved words all my life, I think that gave birth to the hip hop inside me.
My big brother Mlungisi was a hip hop and kwaito fan, I remember him playing me Lauyn Hill The Miseducation for the first time, till today I can’t describe the feeling I had, that album was the beginning of Melo V, at a very young age I started doing cyphers and was just a rapper back then. I met a friend in PTA while I was studying, he had studio convinced me to lay some bars I did and the rest is just history.
I've had good experiences with hip-hop, dropping my debut tape Pink Walls getting good reviews from it and exceeding my expectation via downloads, my best moment was getting in boxed by Spoek, it's a passion for me and culture. I don't focus much on the industry, I just focus on my craft, the bad experience in this is sacrificing time from your loved ones, this is a dream and chasing it consumes a lot of time, I have kids with my girl and I hardly spend time with them because of this dream .
I don't wanna be like any rapper Lol… I use to flow a bit like Big L but through creativity and talks I've had with Spoek, he made me realise that finding yourself is the most important thing to do in this rap game.
I'm not intimidated by any rapper, I believe all rappers should never feel that way.
Look at it this way, this is a competitive sport you need to always feel and know how you defeat the opponent, if you are in a room as a rapper and it's filled with other rappers, you need to always feel like you are the best.
