Oxford Circus

Don’t need no satisfaction
It wastes my time
Don’t need no hard reaction
love being that I’m prude
 
I have my books to read and
My teachers to please
Who needs romance when
I have all of these?
But I’m still alone
I am still alone
 
Who needs romance when I walk
Out the car to my room?
My pants are soggy but who cares
I had fun with you
 
But I’m still alone
But I am still alone
 
And who needs to love when it always ends so brutally?
And who needs to waste their time kissing? Oh no not me
 
And who needs to love
When it’s just as easy to think about?
Or go to the movies and pretend
That your life is just complete
 
But no you are still alone

I am still alone

Still Alone

Written by: Khamari
Produced by: Khamari
Sample: Darondo - Didn't I

Hot breakfast in the morning
Coffee by your bedside
French toast and bacon
'Cause that was your favorite
Trying to make my wrongs right

We'd talk for hours
Rooftop wasting daylight
I'd sing "Knocks Me Off My Feet"
Be your jukebox
And you'd ask my advice

Didn't I treat you right now?
Didn't I
Didn't I do the best I could?
Didn't I
Didn't I give you everything?
Didn't I
I tried my best just to be around
Didn't I

Moments fleeting
We’re just train cars passing
The way you slipped through my fingers
Cold ice glaciers, never lasting

This heartbreak hotel I checked into
Still hoping to hear your knocking soon
It was only with you I was see-through
Down to the soft tissue

Didn't I treat you right now?
Didn't I
Didn't I do the best I could?
Didn't I
Didn't I give you everything?
Didn't I
I tried my best just to be around
Didn't I

Right My Wrongs

Forever Thing

Written by: Khamari
Produced by: Khamari, Trackside

I've been tongue tied
Down and out these days
Words don't come easy these days
Hand on the pen, let the ink run dry
Rather say nothing
Keep what little piece of mind I've got
Nurture this little piece of zen I've got
And say a prayer for all the friends I've lost
'Cause I ain't fluent, no Shakespeare
I got trouble making clear
The things that I feel

'Cause sixteen ain't enough
These emotions piling up
Neck deep in thoughts, need bailing out
Bars running out, need more
'Cause sixteen ain't enough
'Cause this sixteen ain't enough

Trippin' over words I ain't even said yet
Vivid nightmares got me waking up in cold sweat
Troubleshooting, over thinking, the ship is sinking
Yelling, seem nothing is cutting though
Gotta wonder if I'm speaking things clearly now
Only want to make you care the same about it
But I ain't fluent, no Shakespeare
Having trouble making clear
The things that I feel

'Cause sixteen ain't enough
These emotions piling up
Neck deep in thoughts, need bailing out
Bars running out, need more
'Cause sixteen ain't enough
'Cause this sixteen ain't enough

Wish that I could wax poetic
Paint a Picasso with these words like Kendrick
I'd be spitting off the dome in the moment
Flowing like water, words and poems I'm composing
This symphony that I'm composing
Going in

'Cause sixteen ain't enough
These emotions piling up
Neck deep in thoughts, need bailing out
Bars running out, need more
'Cause sixteen ain't enough
'Cause this sixteen ain't enough

A Brief Nirvana

Wax Poetic

Where R We Now

Used To

Used To (feat. Jordan Ward)

Ghosts Don’t Get Royalties

Silence

The Jungle Is The Only Way Out

Sandstorm (feat. JID)

Alt Therapy Session 2: Transformation

Magazines

When we hear a piece of music that heals us, we pull the song close to our hearts and bring the rest of the world with it. Emanuel is a student and creator of R&B that makes the listener shudder with passion, delight, or pain - sometimes all three - but his chief concern is getting the listener to experience the same curative transcendence that the music’s creation provided to him. This is the crux of Alt Therapy, the title of Emanuel’s debut album and his artistic manifesto; “The idea of healing in my music is the most important thing,” he says. “If I was on stage just to have fun, I wouldn’t take it as seriously. It has to be deeper in order to take me further.”

The Alt Therapy paradigm came to Emanuel when he was working in a hospital. “I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t settle for anything but what I felt was my purpose.” To fan the flames of this first spark, Emanuel drew on the rich texture of his life’s soundtrack: As a child in London, Ontario born to Ethiopian parents, Emanuel was exposed to music from around the world and absorbed it all. His mother played songs from across the African diaspora, while his father introduced him to Western classics, specifically Motown. 

Emanuel learned how to sing with no formal training at age nine, huddled next to his family’s computer with YouTube and his sister as guides. Boyz II Men, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, and Bob Marley were the foundation; projects like Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly made him want to make music that can live through us long after the song ends. “I would listen to these albums sometimes in my darkest moments,” he says solemnly, “Those songs would affect me powerfully. I don’t want to deify these individuals, but something special was happening while I was listening to the music.”

Session 1: Disillusion, Emanuel’s debut EP released on Juneteenth, is the first collection of songs that will appear on his full-length album Alt Therapy. It contains his breakout single “Need You,” a piano-driven ballad where the yearning drips off Emanuel’s voice like the sweetest honey suffered by the sharpest sting; “Thought It’d Be Easy” on which Emanuel cascades down dreamy guitars to recount how carnal encounters can never solve matters of the heart; and “Addiction,” a funk-infused groove about the ups and downs of drug-fueled debauchery.

Emanuel’s musical journey is inexorably tied to his upbringing. “Black Woman”, the lead single from Emanuel’s second EP Session 2: Transformation, is a love letter to the Black women in his own life and around the world. “I was singing about my mom when I was writing it,” Emanuel says, “and it branched off into me thinking about a more unified view of how Black women have affected history and the communities around me.” Emanuel guides the song from a luxurious sparseness into a swirling orchestra, recognizing the unrecognized and assailed caretakers, providers and warriors as acts of God, and asks them to absolve him of his own shortcomings. Instead of choosing to preach, Emanuel humbles himself before the listener, his voice a diamond-tipped tool that burrows into our heartstrings and consciences.

Magazines

EMANUEL