After a year-long hiatus, Johnel’s return to recording feels deliberately timed. Once known primarily as a producer, and now carving out his identity as a music executive, he reemerges with “Galore”, his first single of 2025. The track arrives through Roc Nation Distribution and his own music company, Nnamani Music Group (NMG), and with it comes the sense of an artist using infrastructure as much as craft to define his next chapter.
“Galore” doesn’t kickoff like a typical comeback single, polished to the point of anonymity. It begins with a hard kick and percussive accents that lean closer to club friendly than lush R&B. The bassline carries a melodic curve, laying ground for Kay Jaey’s opening verse, a direct, unapologetic confession, less croon than confrontation. Johnel follows with a pleading counterpoint as he sings, “please don’t go away shawty / I can make you feel like you want me.” If his verse reads as an appeal, Ajeh Jaja’s contribution shifts the register: a longer stretch performed in Nigerian pidgin English, giving the track both a sense of rootedness and a refusal to over-internationalise its tone. Then, abruptly, the song ends on a femme-coded voice declaring “that’s how you win you know”, more statement than outro, the kind of detail that forces you to replay in order to re-interpret.
What “Galore” does best is situate Johnel’s R&B instincts within a hybrid soundscape: urban R&B dressed with subtle soul inflections, touches of traditional dialects, and an undercurrent of local cadence. It’s not the maximalist flex one might expect after a year away. Instead, it leans on texture, on space, on the interplay of voices, and the pull between personal intimacy and public performance.
Released ahead of Johnel’s Love & War compilation, the single suggests he is less interested in chasing trends than in threading his music into a longer conversation about African music’s global course. To do so under the banner of NMG and with distribution via Jay Z’s Roc Nation is to align his craft with infrastructure, hinting at the larger project of artist-driven independence.
Listen to “Galore” below or find it on your preferred streamer.
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