A lot of thought and deliberation goes into a debut project. It’s a statement piece that shows fans, new and old, what you’re about. For squeakPIVOT, it’s telling that he decided to cross this sacred rite of passage alongside one of his closest friends, MFnMelo. Talking via Zoom from squeak’s home, the two Pivot Gang members are getting ready to release their collaborative EP, #EnRoute at the end of the month.

squeak is one of the youngest members out of the prolific West Side collective, but until this project, he’d been conservative when it came to putting out records. He’s got a few production credits attached to songs by Kobe Jxrdan, Xone White, and Pivot, but before the pandemic, he was mostly known for deejaying and his mixes. Melo on the other hand is one of the group's elder statesmen, with a few solo projects and prominent roles in the Pivot 'tapes. A skillful emcee that weaves in introspective messages with secure boasts tightly packed around figurative language, Melo has established his unique style of raps with a buttery flow and a deep voice.

The dynamic between squeak and Melo had always been akin to a lil-bro-and-big-bro relationship, but in the wake of squeak’s actual older brother and Pivot Gang co-founder, Frsh Waters, having to do a stint in jail during the first half of the 2010s, the bond grew exponentially stronger. “Melo was my big brother when my big brother left. I instantly looked at Melo for guidance as far as teaching me how to move or just learning from him,” squeak remembers. “I wanted to learn after him, and I kind of told him like, ‘Hey, I want you to be my big brother,’ and he just embraced me like, ‘Make sure you straight. You're going to be you, and you're going to learn just being around me,’ and I accepted that.”

Melo understood the importance of his responsibility, especially since it came with a special request. “When Frsh went away for a minute, he was just letting me know, ‘Look, squeak's going to be around, watch out for him.’ And he didn't even have to say it,” Melo recalls. “I was going to do it anyway, but the simple fact that he told me that? I took it as even more of a responsibility.”

Within Pivot Gang, the roles often become interchangeable —both inside and outside the studio—and Melo found himself leaning on squeak during this turbulent period. “He was learning stuff from me, but as time went on, I started to learn stuff from him,” Melo says. “A lot of times, he held me up.”

With that foundation, they’ve continued to support each other through countless shows, a nationwide tour, and most importantly, becoming fathers. Fittingly, the overarching motifs found in #EnRoute revolve around trying to grasp the journey that is life and the transcendental power of friendship.

As they say, iron sharpens iron —and you’d be pressed to find anything sharper than a Pivot studio session. Considering that the group has been creating together for over a decade under these conditions, for squeak and Melo, recording an EP, at least at first, wasn’t an intentional move more than an acknowledgment of all the work they had put in together over the years.

“It's cool to see it all formulate and grow into this big #EnRoute movement that we're starting to push now. That's the beauty of it; it was all organic; we didn't really force nothing.” Melo says. “We had songs for a minute, but we just kept cooking and kept making it better; kept expanding on it and realizing what we were going to do. We ain't go out and set a purpose. We kind of just let the purpose form on its own.”

We got the first glimpse of the project with “LL Cool J,” a lustrous and lush smokers' anthem that dropped on 4/20. Not long after, they dropped “Handheld,” featuring Frsh, which confirmed what the previous release had signaled: Melo is undoubtedly in his bag. Known for his dedication to the craft, he’s always been intentional when writing raps, but working with squeak has unlocked a different pocket in which Melo is thriving. “That's why I'm excited about this project as well,” Melo says. “Not only in the process did it excite me, but in the music, it's a different bounce. All the music is different. It's not like Everybody Eats, it's not like Melodramatics, but it's pieces of all that in it.”

With timely singles, memorable artwork, and an intriguing announcement message (“The journey is never-ending but the destination has always been clear!”), the project’s impressive roll-out owes a lot to Melo’s knack for flair and learned experiences from previous projects. Melo enjoys surprising listeners, and in this project, they got a few in-store in the form of guest appearances, a “short story” within the skits, and the yet to be unveiled cover art (the one you’ve seen circulating? Just a tease of what’s to come).

What squeak provides Melo is an added bounce to his delivery and a shift in perception while recording. During their sessions, the producer’s invigorating energy rubbed off on the usually nonchalant Melo. “I think that's my favorite part about working with squeak,” Melo says. “When we get something done or when we got something on the way, he'll be excited for it. It's just another day for me and I got to learn how to keep that excitement. It helped me during the latter stretch of this [process].”

Over the years, squeak has crafted a signature sound that he stamped on the EP. “This project is just me releasing into the world what I've been crafting for me to love myself the last couple of years since I was first introduced,” squeak says. “It's just showing the elevation, I'm still getting better, I'm still pivoting. It's just showing that I'm just great at working with my homies.”

#EnRoute was also inspired by John Walt, who originally bestowed squeak with the alias Lil Pack, which years down the line molded the overall theme of the EP. “Lil Pack, that's just one of my many aliases, but that alias was given to me by my homie Walter —by John Walt aka dinnerwithjohn. That's something I had stored in my notes since 2015, 2014,” squeak says. “This is the introduction to Lil Pack, squeak is just on the beats.”

Melo drew from the alias and squeak’s self-reflection within his music to craft the story. “The premise of the story is: we're looking for Lil Pack, but me and squeak are looking for Lil Pack,” Melo says with a grin. “This is something that I ain't really even tell squeak yet. I think the beauty of it, going back to everything we just talked about right now, is that this was just him finding himself and I was just along on the journey. You're going to hear in the project that we're looking for Lil Pack, but he's really finding himself.”

The two are currently focused on promoting the project, but overall there’s the sense they’re just happy to continue learning something new about themselves with each passing day and recording session.

MFnMelo & squeakPIVOT Are #EnRoute