Fresh off his second Grammy-winning project, Northern Kentucky native DJ Corbett has already moved on to his next big project.
It’s not an album, it’s the Melody App.
The app makes it easier for artists and producers to find loops – a backbone of song creation. The app also has an added bonus, it makes it easy to give credit where credit is due in the “wild wild west” of loop making.
"It's basically us in app form," Corbett said. "This is already what we do for a lot of other producers, like for Hit Boy. I'm sourcing ideas for him – these little building block ideas – handing them to him and he’s making these songs."
While collaborating, Corbett was wondering how to make sharing loops easier than sending an email. The answer was the Melody App.
The core team of the Melody App is Corbett, who acts as CEO; COO and producer Armand Auclerc; app designer and chief experience officer Jordan Crone, and their attorney Karl Fowlkes.
While there are other apps for loops, Corbett said he didn’t find anything that was “laser streamlined” like Melody is. He said other apps can be overwhelming and act more like websites, where Melody is built to be an easy-to-use app.
It’s like Tinder, if you swipe right, the loop saves. If you swipe left, you never hear it again. You can also easily share loops. The download is free and there’s a monthly subscription fee for usage.
“This app is an extension of how we exist in the music industry,” Corbett said. Corbet worked on "King’s Disease" by Nas, which won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2021, and Nipsey Hussle’s “Racks in the Middle,” which won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance in 2020.
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Check out my Melody
Producers can also submit to be creators for Melody. When they opened applications on day one, more than 100 applied. Auclerc oversees those applications and onboards producers to Melody, which helps expand the loop library.
“It was more than we expected, especially for the first day – I guess that's a credit to us – but if somebody just launched something, I wouldn't say 'let me go apply for this random website,' ” Auclerc said.
Aside from making loop-finding easy, it’s beneficial in other aspects.
"There's a lot of wildness in the melody or loop world. I think one of the benefits of this is that we're helping put a foot down in the name of these producers,” Auclerc said.
Producers on Melody get paid through royalties. If an artist uses that beat, they’ve agreed to pay those royalties and give writing credits to those artists as well.
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Other apps let you use and download loops for free, which can cause issues in the long run for artists.
“People make hit songs with royalty-free loops. A lot. That happens a lot now,” Corbett said. “You could be driving in your car hearing your music, making no money.”
Corbett said artists can go uncredited on songs or those loops could be axed altogether on a track and get replaced. Auclerc said some labels won't use loops from websites that have given them trouble over credit and ownership.
“They’ll just completely kill the song,” Auclerc said. “There’s some 18-year-old in their bedroom who could be this close to an opportunity and it just fades away. They have no idea.”
Melody currently has 19 million loop streams and 35,000 subscribers, according to a recent post on Facebook.
“We’re trying to shift the conversation in the wild wild west of loop making,” Corbett said.
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More on the horizon
Keep an eye on Corbett, because he's got his eyes set on the future.
“If all I ever did was just make songs with people, I would still just be happy doing that because it's fun. I used to want so bad for just someone to rap with. Sometimes I lose that perspective with all this other stuff going on and the joy of it can go away," Corbett said. "When I think about making the beats in my mom's house and then being here, it's crazy. It’s amazing. We’re here talking about Grammys.”
He's got big plans – from working on a documentary series on producers and creating music with more artists to opening a "state of the art" studio in Northern Kentucky somewhere down the line.
"I want kids here to have a chance to get that big city studio energy without them having to extend themselves to Atlanta or Chicago,” Corbett said. “That’s a big part of the vision."
Corbett and Auclerc both said it's only a matter of time before someone local makes it big.
"It feels like it's close. It's getting closer and closer. Cincinnati's the next one," Auclerc said.
Want the app? It can be downloaded in the Apple App Store or via Google Play.
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