Music has experienced several revolutions since the days when it was passed off as simple clapping, stomping, and chanting. With the advent of various technologies and human creativity pushing artistic expression to its very bounds, we’re now at a point where there are more musical genres and instruments in the world than most people would care to name. Of these, one of the more underground musical revelations has been that of the innovations made with beatmaking and sampling culture. Standing in the shadow of what most people understand as regular DJing, there’s a difference with beatmaking that is often unfamiliar to even those who consider themselves music aficionados. However, Melunn is not one of those people. While I’ve known about iconic beatmakers and samplers like J Dilla, Nujabes, and Pete Rock, when you meet someone like Melunn, they subvert your expectation of what it means to be this type of musician. Born in Japan, she’s soft-spoken and possesses a demure self-confidence. That being said, she doesn’t seem like someone who you would expect is passionate about beatmaking and yet she’s already done so much in this scene.
Melunn comes from Yokohama, the capital of the Kanagawa prefecture and the second largest city in Japan. Growing up, she experienced a relatively stereotypical Japanese childhood. Education took center stage and getting good grades was paramount, all for the ultimate goal of gaining admission into a top university and landing a nice job afterwards. Alongside education, some extracurricular activities were allowed, but even these tended to be curated to give the appearance of a “good student”. This is how the young Melunn got into classical piano. While music was a welcome respite from the pressure of having to excel at school—and she even got to try her hand at playing the keyboard every now and again—Melunn admits that her classical piano teacher was scary so she never fully enjoyed these classes. Besides this, Melunn notes how in classic piano, there’s little room for improvisation. Essentially, to play a piece well you’re expected to play it precisely as a sheet dictates which means that if you make a mistake by hitting the wrong note or messing up with the rhythm, you’ve failed to do the song justice. For the young Melunn then, piano lessons felt more nerve-wracking than enjoyable. Given that she was learning, mistakes often occurred which tended to result in a scolding from her teacher. This continued until middle school when her piano lessons stopped. This period is when some Japanese parents get extra serious about their child’s university prospects and so studying became Melunn’s full-time occupation. Given how stressful her piano lessons often were, she wasn’t exactly sad she had to stop playing music.
By the time she was in her late-teens, Melunn’s efforts had come to fruition. She enrolled as a media design major at one of Japan’s most prestigious universities. It was, both in Melunn and her parents’ eyes, a victory—she’d paid her dues and reached academic success. In some ways, she was free to do as she pleased and at that point, Melunn took full advantage. She joined filmmaking and dance clubs and through the latter, got to know more about different genres of music. A lot of her friends were also DJs which piqued her interest in that area. For the girl who’d grown up taking classical piano lessons, DJing was an entirely different world. She loved the fact that you could play songs you liked and try to get a crowd going by mixing and matching tracks together. It seemed immediately more intimate. By removing those barriers that occasionally exist between a musician and their audience, Melunn placed herself right in the heart of the action. After graduating from university, she also returned to her musical base of piano by forming a band with colleagues from the IT company she joined. Only, rather than focusing on piano, this time she started to get jazzier with the keyboard. With her band, Melunn started playing at gigs and events in Tokyo. Primarily a jazz/funk group, there were eight members consisting of two keyboardists, two saxophonists, one trumpet player, one guitarist, one bassist, and one drummer. They played a few covers at the start but it didn’t take them long to write originals that were inspired by musicians like Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. Melunn was back in the music game, and more importantly, on her own terms.
One day at a live house, Melunn got to talking with a keyboardist called Lidly who played in another band. During their conversation Lidly told Melunn that he also liked to make beats. At that point the beatmaking community in Tokyo was just getting off the ground and Melunn, who didn’t know much about hip hop music—let alone what a beatmaker was—found the genre revelatory. She was intrigued by the fact that beatmaking was something you could do by yourself, as opposed to having to meet with other band members to practice or perform. Melunn started with a music production software called Logic and a MiDi keyboard. Essentially how it worked was first she’d sample part of a record and upload that into Logic. After that she’d use her MiDi to layer drums, bass, and synthesisers onto the track. At the start this was the perfect pairing for Melunn as her keyboard background meant there wasn’t too steep of a learning curve when she played the MiDi. It felt natural and she was quickly able to understand how to start producing her own sounds.
With these tools in hand, Melunn started joining Lidly at EN Tokyo, the beatmaking community he was a part of. They regularly met up at Jimbōchō, an area with numerous record stores and so meeting in the afternoon, they’d go digging for vinyl before rendezvousing at Bigakkō. The school was famed in the seventies and eighties for its countercultural approach to arts and music, and remained open to creatives who wanted to use their rooms. And so gathering in one of the classes, EN Tokyo members had a simple task: using the records they’d bought, stay at Bigakkō overnight in an attempt to come up with a song by the next morning. Playing their creations the next day, these ventures gave Melunn her first taste of beatmaking while bringing her closer to other individuals in the scene. This led her to start frequenting events popular amongst beatmakers in Tokyo. Clubs like Solfa in Nakameguro and The Room in Shibuya played host to these nights and after collaborations with the beat scene in LA and communities like Table Beats from Kyoto, Tokyo’s beatmaking scene began to get its time in the limelight. Being in such close contact with beatmakers all the time, Melunn also noticed that the majority of them used a piece of equipment known as the Roland SP-404 for live performances. Considered one of the most influential sampler units in modern beatmaking, the Roland SP-404 has become iconic for its use in underground hip hop, lo-fi, and sampling culture. Considered—for those reasons and others—to be the true mark of a beatmaker, purchasing one showcased Melunn’s commitment to the genre and desire to grow in the field. Nowadays, she’s also got an OP-1 to her arsenal. A synthesizer, sampler, and sequencer all packed into one small, portable unit, the OP-1 allows Melunn to add more creative flair to her production.
When the Covid pandemic took over Tokyo, the nightlife scene died. Beatmaking events were put on hold but Melunn still occasionally met up with small groups of friends to play. As a result of the pandemic, Solfa in Nakameguro also introduced live streaming opportunities where beatmakers could perform. Melunn was chosen as one of the performers for this which gave her an opportunity to continue showcasing her beatmaking skills online. Once the pandemic calmed down, Melunn started seriously thinking about moving abroad. She’d always wanted to travel and her job had shifted to remote work as a result of Covid, so she knew she’d have a chance once travel restrictions were lifted. Until then, she thought about where to move to. Initially, Europe was on her mind but she decided against it for two reasons. First, the Japanese Yen was weak and second, she wasn’t confident enough in her English to believe she could live there. This was when the thought of Southeast Asia came about. Out of all the places, one of her friends in Tokyo had some friends living in Saigon, who she connected Melunn to. She decided to do a test-run and upon arrival, was surprised by how developed it was. She ended up loving the city and felt that compared to more developed places like Singapore or Thailand, Vietnam still had room for growth—making it more appealing for her to start building something from the ground up. In September of 2024, Melunn made the permanent move over.
Before she’d moved to Vietnam, Melunn had done some traveling around the world and found that in most places she went to, so long as she brought her SP-404 with her, she’d be able to connect with beatmakers from the region. When she moved to Vietnam, Melunn was under the impression that the same thing would be possible but she was quick to find out that despite her intentions, there simply wasn’t that much of a beatmaking scene in Saigon. In regards to the SP-404 specifically, she wasn’t ever sure people knew the machine existed. As for beatmaking itself, while she’d eventually meet individuals who enjoyed the musical form as much as she did, at the start she didn’t know where to go to get integrated. So Melunn went online. Using Noise Saigon—a Saigon specific gig guide—she found out about a bar called Cipherz (now closed) and decided to check it out.
When Melunn went to Cipherz, she happened to go on an evening when a group of reggae DJs had an event. One of their friends, an American guy who happened to be able to speak Japanese, started speaking to Melunn. Once Melunn told him she was a beatmaker and was looking for a place to play hip-hop, he introduced her to members of the reggae crew. From that night onwards, Melunn started getting invited to various events. She made it a point to go to as many events that piqued her interest as she could—something she continues to this day—and credits this with connecting her not only with DJs and beatmakers, but individuals from all walks of life. As a result of that first evening at Cipherz, Melunn also got her start performing in Saigon. A lot of intrigue surrounded her performances. As stated, not many people in Saigon knew what an SP-404 was and then to have a Japanese woman be the one behind the music added an extra layer of fascination to her shows. Word quickly spread and soon Melunn was playing at venues like Cipherz, Bar Commune, Café des Stagiaires, La Scène, as well as numerous other spots in District 7. For her shows, Melunn likes to create a beat beforehand then mess around with her SP-404’s various effects while playing it live to give the song a twist. Her style is defined by lo-fi, chill beats, and sampling a lot of jazz, funk, and soul. All in all, she said making music with her beatmaker is like jamming. When you jam in a band you’re listening to the other musicians play and from that, determining the notes and melodies to play yourself. On the other hand, with beatmaking you’re playing every single part by yourself, which makes for a kind of one-person jam session.
Melunn found her footing in Saigon. She'd played a few shows, connected with like-minded creatives, and was able to enjoy the city to its fullest. Still, something was missing. She thought back to Tokyo and how fun it’d been to see the beatmaking movement grow. There’d been so much energy, a youthful exuberance among people who had come into contact with the art form and Melunn, remembering those days and beatmaker friends who were now more like family, missed how exciting the period had been. She started to wonder: why couldn’t the same thing happen in Saigon? She already recognised how much love people in the community had for music, but more so than that, there was a wealth of musical talent abounding in the city and Melunn wanted to see what some of these individuals might come up with if they ever got into beatmaking. And so the Saigon Beat Collective was born. At its core, Melunn founded the collective because she wanted the beat scene in Saigon to grow like what she’d experienced in Tokyo. Doing so would create more opportunities to hear this genre of music that she loved so dearly. Saigon Beat Collective aimed to do this through events and workshops that made beatmaking and devices like the SP-404 the center of attention.
So far, Melunn’s put on several events through Saigon Beat Collective. There’s been one where beatmaker friends from Tokyo have played, as well as a collaboration with breakdancers to put on an all-in-one showcase of underground hip hop at its best. More recently, Melunn was contacted by a representative from Roland (a Japanese electronic instrument, equipment, and software manufacturer) and asked to collaborate on an event demonstrating how to use their SP-404 MKII. Swee Lee, one of Vietnam’s premier musical instrument shops, also took part for an evening at Neo- where a mix of locals and expats gathered for a chance to learn more about beatmaking. Melunn, the SP-404 MKII’s creator, Shirato-san, and Vietnamese producer, Soju Peanut, each played during the workshop before guests could mess around with the SP-404. The evening ended with a silent disco party on Neo-’s rooftop where more beatmakers played. All in all, the event was a success and pointed to an optimistic future for beatmakers in Saigon. Melunn was surprised by the number of Vietnamese people who joined, proving there was a community who had an interest in the genre. For Melunn, it was another step in her desire to grow the city’s beat scene.
Melunn’s story is a lesson on building communities doing what you love. She is, when you first meet her, somewhat unassuming. You wouldn’t think this is the type of person that would be making beats influenced by D’Angelo, Slum Village, or Donny Hathaway, and yet watch her perform or get to talking with her and you’ll see how deep her love of music runs. This makes her a kind of unexpected beacon for beatmaking, someone who’s following in the footsteps of the greats and yet paving a path that only she knows how to tread. In the future, Melunn wants to continue hosting events through Saigon Beat Collective with the aim of continuing to spread the gospel of beatmaking and inspiring the next generation. Music, then, has always been with her and it will never leave. Even when she didn’t get many opportunities to pursue music when she was a child, I’m certain that the young Melunn always had some songs playing in her head.
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