MNEK Returns With 'Bulldozer' Eight Years After Solo Debut — SkimNews
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- MNEK released 'Bulldozer!!,' his second solo album and first in eight years, with the title drawn from his experience as a six-foot-four Black man 'very conscious of the space I take up' in the industry.
- MNEK has accumulated more than 1bn streams as a writer-producer for Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Little Mix, and Flo, and earlier this year received his second Grammy nomination for co-writing and producing Zara Larsson's 'Midnight Sun.'
- MNEK's 2018 solo debut 'Language' peaked at just No 81 on the charts, prompting a contemporaneous reviewer to attribute the muted response to homophobia and racism in the industry.
- MNEK was denied clearance to sample Lethal Bizzle's 'Pow!' for his track 'Reverse!!' because rights holders were uncomfortable with the song's explicitly queer lyrical content, despite the original being, as MNEK notes, 'hardly a song about morality.'
- MNEK's new record tackles body-image toxicity in the gay community on 'Muscle Marys..,' explores 'DL trade' culture on 'Dirty Little Secret!!,' and reinterprets Geri Halliwell's 'Bag It Up' as a gender-fluid statement on 'Lady!!.'
- MNEK says the album followed a separation from management that returned him to the 'pure desire of wanting to make a project,' after years of poor mental health, pandemic disruption, and writing commitments stalled the record.
- MNEK is touring the UK and Ireland in support of 'Bulldozer!!' through November 15.
Why it matters: MNEK's career crystallizes a tension in pop: as a writer-producer he has driven more than 1bn streams and earned two Grammy nominations, yet his solo work — both 'Language' and a Lethal Bizzle sample clearance for the new record — has been visibly held back by the industry's discomfort with explicitly queer Black male artists.
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