Mannywellz Served Small Chops. And Every Bite Hit Perfectly

Mannywellz Served Small Chops. And Every Bite Hit Perfectly.

Seven Songs. Fourteen Minutes. One Artist Who Knows Exactly What He Is Doing.

There is a particular kind of confidence that does not announce itself. It does not need a grand entrance or an overwhelming tracklist or a roster of A-list features to prove its point. It arrives quietly, takes its seat at the table, and by the time it leaves, you are already thinking about when it is coming back. That is exactly what Mannywellz did with Small Chops, a seven-track EP released on June 5th, 2026, that clocks in at just under fifteen minutes and somehow manages to feel more complete than albums three times its size.

This is the project that reminds you why restraint is its own kind of artistry.

The Name Is the Concept. And the Concept Is Everything.

If you know Nigerian culture, you already understand what small chops means before you press play. Small chops are the bite-sized appetizers that show up at every celebration, such as samosas, puff puff, and spring rolls, all of it served before the main course arrives. They are not the headline. They are the thing that tells you how the night is going to feel before the night actually begins. You taste them, and you already know whether the party is right or not.

Mannywellz built an entire EP around that energy. Small Chops is positioned as a final EP before his forthcoming full-length album, a carefully plated introduction to a larger artistic meal. It is the taste before the feast. And if this is the appetizer, the main course is going to be something very special indeed.

The project is also fully self-written and self-produced. Every decision on this EP belonged to Mannywellz alone. That matters. Because what you are hearing across these seven tracks is not a committee. It is a singular creative vision, executed with complete intention.

Photographer: Medina

Who Is Mannywellz? Let the Record Speak.

Born Emmanuel Ajomale, Mannywellz is a Nigerian-American singer, songwriter, and producer who has spent years building one of the most distinctive sounds at the intersection of Afrobeats, R&B, soul, and alternative pop. He moved from Nigeria to the United States at the age of nine, carrying with him the rhythmic sensibilities of his roots and absorbing the songwriting traditions of American R&B along the way. The result is an artist who belongs to both worlds fully, not as a compromise but as a synthesis.

Earlier projects like Mirage and SoulFro established an artist comfortable moving between genres without feeling confined by any of them. Collaborations with acts like VanJess steadily expanded his audience beyond the African diaspora. His Grammy-winning contribution to American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom added another layer to a story that is about far more than just the music.

Small Chops arrives as the fullest expression of everything that trajectory has been building toward. Warm, personal, culturally grounded, and sonically refined in a way that sounds effortless because the work that went into it was anything but.

 Photographer: Medina

Seven Tracks. Seven Reasons to Press Repeat.

The EP opens with “Do You,” and it opens on a sitar. Not a drum machine. Not a hard-hitting production flex. A sitar, warm and resonant, before a voicemail-style exchange eases you into the world of the project. By the time Mannywellz’s buttery, airy vocal enters the frame, you already know where you are. Somewhere intimate. Somewhere real. He is already so caught up in his lover’s presence that a single look could bring him to his knees: please don’t look at me like that, unless you want to leave here with a ring. That is the opening line. That is the standard the EP sets for itself from the very first moment.

“How It Feels,” featuring Wale, is the collaboration that has already been making noise before the EP even dropped. The visual for this track crossed one million views within two weeks of release, and it is not difficult to understand why. Wale floats through the record with that effortless, heavy presence, and together the two paint a picture of what falling in love actually feels like, not the cinematic version, but the real version. The bemused daze. The racing heart. The way a person occupies space in your mind, even when they are not in the room.

“Holy Father” takes the project somewhere sacred. Mannywellz looks at the person in front of him, and the only explanation he can find is that God made them specifically. Holy Father, how could you make someone this fire? It is devotion dressed as a compliment, and it lands exactly the way it is supposed to.

“You Are from God” is fifty seconds of pure exhale, a breath of gratitude and worship so concentrated it does not need more time than that to do what it came to do.

“Cry on You” shifts the energy into tender territory, a gentle promise to show up and stay in the hard moments. He is up at 2 am because the person he loves needs him to be. That is the kind of emotional specificity that separates good R&B from great R&B.

“Zeze” brings the dancehall-flavored energy that reminds you this is still an Afrobeats project at its core, even while it moves through soul and R&B textures. The dance floor finds its moment on this track, and it is a welcome turn.

The EP closes with “Wow,” featuring Lekan, two artists searching for something genuinely surprising in love, something real enough to leave them speechless. It is the right note to end on. Quiet. Wondering. Already looking forward to whatever comes next.

Photographer: Medina

Fourteen Minutes That Feel Like a Full Conversation.

What makes Small Chops work, what makes it feel significantly larger than its runtime suggests, is the emotional coherence across its seven tracks. This is not a collection of loosely related songs thrown together under a title. It is a movement through different phases of romance: the initial infatuation of “Do You,” the full arrival of feeling on “How It Feels,” the reverence of “Holy Father,” the tenderness of “Cry on You,” and the open wonder of “Wow.” The project takes you somewhere and brings you back changed, in the way that the best short-form storytelling always does.

Mannywellz has been quietly building toward this kind of statement for years. The streaming numbers have been growing. The collaborations have been landing. The critical recognition has been accumulating. Small Chops is the moment where all of that momentum crystallizes into something you can point to and say: this is the artist. This is the sound. Pay attention.

Photographer: Medina

This Is the Taste Before the Feast.

Small Chops is positioned as the last EP before a full-length album. That means everything you are hearing right now is the appetizer. The opening act. The taste that tells you how the night is going to feel before the night has even really started.

And if this is how the night begins, then what Mannywellz has waiting in the main course might just be the most important meal he has ever served.

Small Chops is out now on all streaming platforms. Stream it. Feel it. And remember the name because the feast is coming.