Jamie McNear

Jamie and his partners played mostly covers until they made it to high school.

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They reverse-engineered the likes of OutKast, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West, Eminem and Jay Z among others. They borrowed and learned. Their skills grew exponentially until at a certain point Jamie turned to the others and said:

“Fuck this! I want to write my own shit!”

Michael, Eli, Henry, Ari and Julian all agreed that they would absolutely fuck this and perform their own shit from that moment on.

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Jamie became the group’s lyricist and vocalist. “I’m no singer,” he admits — but in rap and hip hop that’s not a fatal flaw. He can hold a note and push a rhythm and he’s begun to round tones. It’s not exactly singing but it’s not exactly not singing.

The Manwolves play by ear. Progressions are laid down on keyboard and then cross-jiggered against lyrics, syllable by syllable. All six of the artists contribute. They record in a home studio and send their files to goodly Zen-Master Jim who mentors and mixes them.

None of the six are enrolled in college. They may not see themselves as entrepreneurs but in reality Manwolves is a start-up venture trying to crack a multibillion-dollar industry. They’ve recently opened for bigger names while touring the East and the Southwest.

Who’s to know how far the Manwolves’ decisive ‘fuck-this’ moment will take them?

They may be touring fifty years from now — still selling out Manchester Arena and Madison Square Garden and headlining UNICEF concerts. Of course Manwolves’ fans will demand they perform their epic Manwolves hits over and over and over and over again.

But this time it’ll be different. This time the cover songs Jamie McNear and Manwolves will be performing will be the ‘shit’ they wrote for themselves.

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