Future Sound: James Emmanuel
Our column celebrating new music to watch continues with James Emmanuel. As his latest EP is released, the Edinburgh-based soul singer talks about the power of positive male role models, being inclusive and gearing up for TRNSMT
James Emmanuel has a recipe for success: ‘Sunny side up, a little bit runny, with a lot of herbs and seasoning to give it that oomph.’ That’s the recipe for getting his son to eat eggs. The recipe for recognition as a singer is more of a slow cook, as outlined in recent single ‘Time’ which features the lyric ‘the clock is not my enemy/It’s a friend in disguise’. ‘That’s my life,’ he says, ‘specifically in Edinburgh, trying to chase this dream when you’re 30 years old and you’re trying to do soul music.’
Emmanuel has walked a long road to reach this point: signing to Decca Records, releasing two EPs and winning the Spotlight Award for emerging artists at the 2025 Scottish Music Awards. This son of a preacher man discovered his voice by accident when he joined the church choir as a way of keeping out of trouble. Following the death of his father, singing was sidelined when he left his native Nigeria with a plan to provide for his family. He pitched up in Edinburgh 15 years ago, working as a cleaner and catering assistant while exploring his voice through the city’s karaoke nights and open mics. Eventually, he was encouraged to start writing his own songs, scored a residency at the Jazz Bar and scraped together the money to record a high-quality calling card, ‘Lonesome Man’.
The unhurried approach has started to pay dividends for this old-school soul man. ‘This has been the best year I’ve had as a songwriter,’ he says before going on to outline some of his freshly minted songs around the theme of manhood and fatherhood. The title track of his current EP Good Man is modelled on his own father. ‘Why can’t we say “my dad was great”?’ he asks. ‘What about the good men? They tell you all the time you need to be tough but being tough doesn’t necessarily make you a great man. The older I get the more I realise that being subtle and gentle is more powerful than trying to overcompensate all the time. When I’m at home, I want to be goofy, let my guard down and exist.’
Another contender for inclusion on his debut album, which he hopes to release later this year, is ‘Who We Hating Today?’, written after witnessing the homophobic treatment of a colleague. ‘This is another thing I’ve learned in Scotland: we’re either going to stand for everybody or we stand for nobody,’ he says. ‘I want to go to my show and see all kinds of people there and it doesn’t matter what the back story is; they just feel accepted.’
His next opportunity to spread the word is a slot on the River Stage at TRNSMT. ‘They’re throwing me in at the deep end! I remember when Capaldi played it a couple of years back and I was thinking, “one day, hopefully”. I can’t wait to get onstage this year. I’m ready to go.’
Good Man is out now on Decca Records.