While next month will mark YNW Melly‘s 18th month in jail, all it takes is a short Instagram post for the 22-year-old rapper to rally his fans around the release of his newest project. In an era where a significant number of young rappers are finding themselves with extensive criminal records, none seem to have made the most of it like YNW Melly, real name Jamell Demons. Despite having one of the most gruesome and despicable charges one can get, Melly, or rather his team, have made sure the past year and a half haven’t gone to waste.
While contemporaries who are serving or who have served similar amounts of time– think Tay K, Bobby Shmurda— remain largely off the grid musically when behind bars, Melly has had some of the most successful moments of his career behind bars due to post-arrest releases. The release of Melly vs. Melvin, his debut studio album in late 2019, his viral “Suicidal” collaboration with Juice Wrld, and the TikTok hit “223’s” with 9lokkNine were all career peaks that happened while Melly was behind bars.
Continuing with his determined work ethic, YNW Melly’s upcoming project, Just A Matter Of Slime, will be released this Friday, just a week after the album was officially announced. The project has been teased with prominent singles, though doubts have been cast over its creative legitimacy. After all, five of the twelve tracks have already been released, only two of the tracks are solely YNW Melly, and one track is a remix of one of Melly’s old songs (but more on that below). With no end in sight to Melly’s legal issues, will Just A Matter Of Slime be enough to interest new listeners and keep old fans hooked?
Let’s take a dive into what we know about the project already.
Jerritt Clark/Getty Images
First Instagram Announcement
Fans were pleasantly surprised in early February when YNW Melly returned to Instagram after months of silence. His return came with pictures and footage from the set of Melly’s “Thugged Out” video with Kodak Black. By the time the end of the month rolled around, it seemed Melly was itching to put out more music as he posted several pictures of himself with the caption “Y’all miss me??? Who wants a new Melly album??” He seemingly had enough material at this point, but needed some more features to complete the songs, as he ended the caption with: “drop what collabs yall want to see in the comments n Ima get to it.”
“Thugged Out” thus became the first single from Just A Matter Of Slime.
WATCH: YNW Melly “Thugged Out”
“Na Na Na Boo Boo” – second single
Just weeks after “Thugged Out” and its music video dropped, Melly dropped the eccentric “Na Na Na Boo Boo.” Though the song’s title invites a playful and childlike energy, besides its bouncy instrumental, the song has more to do with violence than fun. The song received virtually no promotion on Melly’s social media but may still shape out to be the most popular single off of Just A Matter Of Slime, with a burst of TikTok fame. When the tracklist was eventually released in August, “Na Na Na Boo Boo” was confirmed to be only one of three solo songs on the project.
WATCH: YNW Melly “Na Na Na Boo Boo”
Instagram Teaser
Melly took another small break from social media after all the promo for “Thugged Out” died down. However, the Florida rapper hadn’t forgotten about March’s announcement, and finally returned to Instagram in June to further tease a new “surprise.”
“I got a surprise for everyone but I’m not telling what it is. In just a matter of slime,” Melly captioned the post. Alas, finally the album title arrived– though it wasn’t properly revealed to us at the time. Some disappointed fans rushed to the comments thinking the surprise was Melly’s release from jail, though the album announcement came instead.
Fredo Bang Confirms An Album
Just days after YNW Melly announced the “surprise” he had coming on Instagram, Melly was brought up in conversation during an interview with Fredo Bang on VladTV. The pair were friends before Melly got locked up and Fredo Bang still speaks to Melly on occasion on a jail phone. “He in good spirits, he working on his album right now, tryna put an album together and put it out” Fredo Bang told VladTV at the time. And thus, the “surprise” was confirmed. Apparently, Just A Matter Of Slime was supposed to include a song featuring Fredo Bang and the late King Von, though Von’s death occurred before the collaboration could come about. Von was a friend of Melly’s 14-year old brother, YNW BSLime, who saw Von as a mentor. However, Melly was still able to work with the late rapper before his death, with a feature on his Levon James album.
“Pieces” feat. Queen Naija – third single
On July 2nd, Melly released the third single from the album, “Pieces” featuring Queen Naija. The track, which was dropped out of the blue, finds Melly distancing himself yet again from the more cutthroat material of the past, and instead, embracing love. The song received its own music video.
WATCH: YNW Melly feat. Queen Naija “Pieces”
“Young N**** S***” feat. YNW Gunna & Hotboii – fourth single
Just two weeks later, another single from the album was released, this time featuring YNW Gunna and Hotboii. “Young N**** S***” also received its own music video, though the song itself was met with mixed reviews from fans. The track stays true to Melly’s more trap-heavy and gang-inspired performances.
WATCH: YNW Melly feat.YNW Gunna and Hotboii “Young N**** S***”
Best Friends 4L feat. Lil Tjay – fifth single
By the time August 5th came around, it seems Melly had his mind set on a release date. The Florida rapper kicked off his last round of promotion the night of, asking his fans to drop comments if they wanted the fifth single from the album. “Best Friends 4L” featuring Lil Tjay was promptly released the next day, alongside its own music video, which finds Melly tapping into the same romantic energy he displayed on “Pieces.” This marks the second collaboration between the duo, the first being 2018’s “Ready For War.”
WATCH: YNW Melly feat. Lil Tjay “Best Friends 4L”
Tracklist Revealed
Image via HNHH
With the release of “Best Friends 4L,” almost half of the album was already out, and so perhaps it seemed like the perfect opportunity to drop the tracklist. Just A Matter Of Slime boasts 12 tracks– five of the singles already released, as we’ve just ran through, a remix to Melly’s 2018 track “Freddy Krueger,” two new solo songs in the form of “Loving My Life” and “Greensight,” and a few new collaborations. “Mind of Melvin” featuring Lil Uzi Vert, the intro song to the album, was apparently leaked in 2018 and is well-known among fans. However, new high-profile features like Lil Baby and Lil Durk on “Take Kare” and Young Thug on “Caprisun Fun” are doing their part to build album hype.
Melly captioned an announcement of the tracklist on Instagram “Friday The 13th Melvin coming out to play,” pointing towards a release date of this Friday. Still, many fans took to the comments to criticize the album for lack of new content with many comments along the lines of “Half of the songs already got leaked” and “soundcloud users already got ‘Mind of Melvin.'”
Whether or not Just A Matter of Slime will be enough for fans truly depends on the strength of the album’s remaining unreleased songs.
As YNW Melly would say, only ‘slime’ will tell.
Let us know if you’re excited for YNW Melly’s upcoming album in the comment section below.
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