YNW Melly is a Florida rapper known for his raw, emotive expression of tragic life experiences. Melly’s song “Far Apart” featuring Kevin Gates from his 2021 album “Just a Matter of Slime” qualifies itself as an interesting subject of production because it includes sound that can be easily recognized as a collect phone call from prison. While this seems like a familiar style choice for contemporary rap music with artists like Drake, Rod Wave, Moneybagg Yo, and Yung Bleu frequently using scripted telephone calls and voicemails from loved ones in their music, YNW Melly’s artistic context is unique. YNW Melly is not using the sound of a phone to memorialize past conversations, relationships, or experiences. YNW Melly is currently incarcerated and has been throughout most of his rap career.
While it is probable that the phone audio that we hear in this song is arranged and achieved by manipulating equalizer frequency settings, it still raises questions about the ability to record sound, led alone produce quality music from prison. When stockpiled audio material runs dry, what are the social, physical, and legal limitations of producing music from jail? This example also challenges listeners to recall the evolutionary relationship between communication via the first telephone and audio production as we know it today. In other words, what are the quality differences between sound that we encounter firsthand with our natural ear, sound that is translated over a telephone, and sound that has been mixed and mastered in a recording studio ?
It is also worth noting that “Far Apart” is the only song on this particular album that includes phone call audio although Melly has demonstrated an ability to capitalize on the technique in past songs. I think this represents an intentional choice to enhance the message of the song. Phone call audio inherently implies distance between sender and receiver while simultaneously creating the illusion that thousands of listeners have been incorporated into the intimate life of YNW Melly.