House of Melo

House of Melo was an interactive public exhibition honoring NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony and the Baltimore community that shaped him. Installed inside Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, the project sparked a conversation about youth access, community empowerment, and cultural identity through Anthony’s evolution as an athlete, entrepreneur, and activist.
Studio Resonate led the exhibition’s audio strategy and production. Our challenge was unique: create a high-energy, emotionally immersive experience inside one of the city’s most respected civic sanctuaries without disrupting the library’s atmosphere or operations.
Our solution was to use sound not simply as atmosphere or to tell the story, but to bring visitors inside Melo’s world.
Working closely with Carmelo Anthony, his longtime creative director Khalilah Beavers, and memoir co-author D. Watkins, we developed ten distinct 3D soundscapes, each representing a chapter of Anthony’s story. From the moment guests entered the exhibition, they were transported into 1990s Baltimore through layered city chatter, passing traffic, music spilling from car windows and the rhythmic bounce of basketballs echoing through public courts.
Music played a critical emotional role throughout the experience. Drawing heavily from 1990s Hip Hop, each environment carried its own sonic identity, with carefully tailored tracks supporting the emotional energy of each space. Whether visitors entered the Locker Room, the Boardroom, or On the Court, every environment was designed to feel spatially and emotionally distinct.
We combined archival material, environmental sound design, and intimate commentary from Anthony and Watkins to extend the visual storytelling into an immersive auditory journey.
At a time when youth sports participation increasingly depends on financial privilege, House of Melo highlighted Baltimore organizations actively removing those barriers and encouraged audiences to invest in their own communities and futures.
The project generated more than 1,060 feature stories, 1.49 billion earned impressions, secured more than $1 million in sponsorships and contributed to record-breaking visitor engagement at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.