Independent hip hop label New Dawn Records are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. In doing so, they’ve been revisiting selected tracks from their back catalogue, mainly their most recent releases in the past decade.
Today they mark the anniversary of one of their earliest singles by the group Belles in Monica, “Meltdown” having dropped on 12″ vinyl and CD formats on May 6th 2002. With remixes by DJ Nappa [Phi Life Cypher] and DMC finalist Krash Slaughta [Monkey Mafia & II Tone Committee] it was the second of three singles lifted from their album “Resistance is Futile” which dropped in October that year.
Following on from the single “Y’All Under Surveillance” and preceding “What D’Ya Need” it became one of the crew’s most recognizable joints.
It also became one of their most contentious cuts, with various interpretations as to the actual lyrical meaning leading to various conclusions. The least accurate of those caused the most consternation, including among a small select number of media at the time, while the title and concept was self evident to most. Not that this or just about anything else troubled the trio on the basis that “there’s no accounting for intelligence….“
Nevertheless, to mark the occasion the label have just released a new video using filmic reference points, the underlying themes of which metaphorically align to the general subject matter….of course you’d need to be familiar with the films in question in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there……
So for the benefit of the bewildered, on Youtube, New Dawn Records presents “24 YEARS LATER – BELLES IN MONICA ‘MELTDOWN’ [DECODED]” to either help explain, or add to to the confusion further…..either’s fine…..
Their final release before disbanding to live in the tranquil surroundings of remote mountain tops and wooded clearings for a life of quiet contemplation came in the form of the single “Smoke Filled Rooms” in the autumn of 2003. Never to be seen or heard of again….until in 2019 the label re-mastered most of their catalogue and released it for the first time in digital formats.
FULL VERSION OF MELTDOWN ON YOUTUBE
VARIOUS ON SPOTIFY
And there we have it, Belles in Monica, an enigma wrapped in a puzzle. Hear their feint echoes of caution from the past, tread carefully all ye entering the music industry, because yes, you too could end up like this….a timely lesson from history, not least for the confused… it’s all in the mind kiddos, it’s all in the mind…..