After three days of focused creative intention to write an impactful song, it all came together in a divine moment one night when Emanuel heard the chord progression his producer John Fellner was repeating. Suddenly, Emanuel’s feelings, memories, and self-reflection came pouring out as he sang the first lines of ‘Black Woman’: “Cocoa butter kisses, wipe my tears away.”
‘Black Woman’ is a fulfillment of Emanuel’s Artist Manifesto, which centers on the renaissance of beautiful black art and wanting to contribute to that right now, music as a form of healing, album is about “us”. The Artist Manifesto goes hand-in-hand with the song being a form of therapy, talking through your inner reflection and feelings with a message of healing, and the intention of growing from them.
“There’s a very gritty question that they circle around in that conversation and when they talk about the relationship between the black man and the black woman and how does one support one another and what that looks like in a world filled with hurdles and glass ceilings and people really trying to break you down on both sides so how do you balance out affection and love and real support. That definitely sparked my pondering of my relationship with the black women in my life (mom and sister) and my reflection on the relationship between black men and black women in general from my view. So in that way, that conversation directly informed the type of thinking that I was in when I made the lyrics.” – Emanuel