Rising alternative R&B visionary MOIO returns today with his powerful new single, ‘Just A Man,’ offering a striking new chapter in his ongoing artistic and personal evolution. Listen here.
On ‘Just A Man,’ MOIO leans into the emotional core of his recent transformation, confronting the gap between who we are and who we strive to be. Fueled by a hypnotic bassline, head-nodding drums hold the track’s tempo in place, giving way to bursts of buzzing distortion. He leans into his high register and soulfully croons on the hook, “But I know in my heart that it’s out of my hands. I let my guard down. I can’t do it anymore. I know I can’t be what you think I am. I’m not a martyr. I’m just a man.”
“It’s about expectations,” MOIO reveals about the single. “You’re in a relationship and you’re self-aware enough to know you can’t give love the way your significant other deserves to be loved. You’re being honest and saying, “I wish I could be that person, but it’s not who I am right now’.”
The release follows a string of standout records that have solidified MOIO as one of the most compelling new voices in global music. His breakout single “Moments” has amassed over 25 million Spotify streams and reached #1 on the Spotify Viral 50 Chart in seven countries, including the US, UK, and Ireland. Previous projects, including his Earthday EP, earned praise from OnesToWatch and Hunger for their emotional depth and genre-blurring soundscapes.
Now, with new music, MOIO turns inward. “Just A Man” stands at the heart of this new journey, an unfiltered expression of self-awareness and the difficult, necessary work of change.
Beyond his solo work, MOIO continues to foster community as a co-founder of the creative collective Chamomile Club, alongside Monjola, Aby Coulibaly, and Thomas Kettle, championing a new wave of Black Irish artistry.
With “Just A Man,” MOIO doesn’t just ask listeners to feel he challenges them to reflect, evolve, and break their own cycles.
Australian singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jack Gray announces his debut album Swimming In Jeans out 4th September via Polydor Label Group. Available to pre-order now, the announcement lands alongside the release of his new single ‘Look At You.’
Based in Los Angeles but writing, recording, and performing between continents, Jack has steadily been building a global audience through self-produced, instinct driven singles. Swimming In Jeans brings that into full focus with a 12-track debut shaped by the blur of youth: impulsive decisions, late-night clarity, and the moments that hit harder in hindsight. Written across three years and completed in the last 12 months, the record turns personal stories into sharp, guitar-led pop that feels both immediate and unfiltered.
Produced almost entirely by Jack, the new album sees him experimenting with new sounds and instruments. ‘With this record I just wanted to put the blinders on and trust my gut,” Jack shares.
Jack’s new single ‘Look At You’ is a gut-wrenching awakening to a new reality, chronicling the aftermath of an infidelity confession with searing guitars and gently chiming electronics, begging the question “Is it bad that I wish that I never found out?”
Jack shares, “‘Look At You’ came from a story a friend shared with me, it’s that moment where everything changes – when someone tells you the truth and you’re left dealing with what comes next.”
The track follows a run of releases that have quietly gathered momentum: ‘Dumb Sh*t’, ‘Drive Her Home’, ‘Bluffin’, and ‘Tattoos’ (co-written with Peach PRC). Together they’ve surpassed 1.5 million global streams, contributing to over 50 million streams across his catalogue.
The official video for ‘Look At You’ reunites Jack with longtime collaborators The Matthews Brothers. Produced by The Brilliant Collective and Jillian Shea Spaeder, the video is shot in Italy, the visual leans into contrast – romantic on the surface, with something unravelling underneath.
Soul star James Emmanuel’s new single ‘Good Man’ is a celebration of fatherhood, looking back at the example set by his late father, a preacher back home in Nigeria – who graces the single artwork – and forward as he raises his own young family in Edinburgh.
“I was very close with my Dad,” says James. “We never had much money and there were ways he could have made more if he’d bent the rules a little bit. But he used to say ‘if you bend the rules even one percent you’ll wake up one day and you’ve gone to ten percent and you won’t recognise yourself.’ He made me join a choir when I was 11, I didn’t know I could sing, but here we are today. I want to celebrate the unsung positive male role models and give my father the flowers he never got in his lifetime.”
This sentiment takes on an interesting spin as the release comes in the wake of something of a viral ‘moment’ for James. He posted a TikTok reacting to offensive comments about women in Louis Theroux’s ‘Inside The Manosphere’ documentary, setting the clip against a performance of his 2025 single ‘Brothers and Sisters’. The song has exactly the opposite message to those in the film, from the point of view of being a father and son and, over two million views later, it’s safe to say he struck a chord.
“The reaction was a surprise but it’s such an important message,” he reflects. “Lots of women were supportive of me speaking up, and some were rightly saying it shouldn’t just be about respecting women because they’re a daughter or mother. Of course that’s right, but some men are so far gone down that ‘manosphere’ rabbit hole that you just need to find an obvious way to challenge their misogynistic thinking.”
‘Good Man’ recognises the men who quietly show up as a positive presence in the lives of their families and beyond. “There are so many men who carry that weight my father carried without being recognised for it,” says James. “I want to highlight them as positive examples of how we can be as men. Many people I know have great fathers, like I did, and they should be celebrated.”
“I have a daughter and a son. For them and their generation, we need to make it attractive and appealing to be a good man, so that if you show up with kindness, the world will celebrate you.”
James plays his own headline shows in Edinburgh and London in May. He performs at The Great Escape, TRNSMT and Love Supreme festivals as well as supporting Nile Rodgers & Chic at three outdoor shows through the summer.
- Email: neill@outloudculture.com
- Socials: @frazer.live
- @neill.outloud
