YNW Melly’s breakout single, “Murder On My Mind,” received renewed attention in February 2019 when the Florida rapper turned himself in for double murder charges. Although many fans interpreted the SMKEXCLSV-produced track as a confession, it was actually written in 2016 and then released in March 2017, more than one year before the murders he’s being charged with. SMKEXCLSV recently sat down with Genius to explain how the beat was made.
SMKEXCLSV first connected with Melly through Facebook. He initially gave the beat to the rapper for free because Melly was incarcerated at that time. According to SMKEXCLSV, he started off the beat with the piano. “It’s literally just a stock plugin that comes with FL,” he said. “As soon as this melody was laid out already, it kind of gave me that dark vibe so that’s what I wanted to go with.”
From there, SMKEXCLSV added the percussion. He programmed the claps, followed by the snares, hi-hats, a kick, and finally the 808. The next sound he threw into the mix was a vocal sample. “It’s literally a stock in vocal,” he explained. “You just go to packs, vocals, and it’s this one.”
To top the beat off, SMKEXCLSV found a flute. “I felt like it needed something else, so I just added this flute that I found in Symphonic Orchestra,” he said. “This flute actually reminded me of ‘Lux Aeterna.’ It’s like an orchestra song that you can look up on YouTube.”
Check out the full Deconstructed episode above to learn more about how the song was made, and read all the lyrics to YNW Melly’s “Murder On My Mind” on Genius now.
