MNEK Returns with Bulldozer!! and Queer Joy: 'I'm a Fat Black Gay Man. Try Selling That'

MNEK is filming a music video in a south-east London warehouse, and the set is, by his own admission, unapologetically queer. "It is very gay, you're not wrong there," he says while getting his makeup done.

The 31-year-old south Londoner, born Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike, is shooting the video for "Muscle Marys..", the third single from his second album, Bulldozer!!. The makeshift locker room around him is filled with semi-naked men — one suggestively adjusts a jockstrap, another removes his vest and fixes MNEK with a loaded gaze. Behind a vanity curtain, dancers film a shower scene under hoses. A runner on set assures a visitor that the water is warm. It is, the singer notes, a lot of sexual tension for a Tuesday morning — but such is the life of a pop star on a video shoot.

The new album arrives as a statement of intent: MNEK is putting queer joy at the centre of his work, and, he says, he is finally ready to enjoy himself.

That readiness has been hard-won. MNEK carries one of pop's most impressive writing résumés — credits for Beyoncé among them and two Grammy nominations — yet sustained individual success as a solo artist has eluded him. He is blunt about why. "I'm a fat Black gay man. Try selling that," he says.

The gap between his standing as a songwriter and his profile as a performer frames Bulldozer!!. Here is an artist who has helped shape hits for global stars while battling self-doubt over his own place in the industry — a tension between commercial visibility and personal authenticity that his new record confronts directly.

At 31, MNEK is signaling a shift in posture. The album's title, Bulldozer!!, with its doubled exclamation marks, and singles like "Muscle Marys.." suggest an artist no longer asking permission. The video's warm-water shower scenes, jockstraps and loaded gazes are not incidental set dressing; they are the point. Queer joy, in MNEK's framing, is the spotlight itself.

For a songwriter of his calibre — two Grammy nominations, work with one of the biggest recording artists alive — the second album functions as a test of whether the industry will finally sell what he has long offered it on his own terms. The interview, conducted on set, suggests MNEK has stopped waiting for an answer.