Love Mansuy

Canadian-born R&B singer/songwriter Love Mansuy presents an emotionally vulnerable persona in his songs, which flirt musically with indie pop and emo tropes. Born in Montréal, Love Mansuy (his real full name, the surname approximately pronounced "mon-swee") was raised by his grandparents in Irvington, New Jersey, after his mother died when he was four. In a bid to keep him out of trouble, they enrolled him in piano lessons. He played in church, accompanying the choir, but was always improvising and freestyling his own lyrics. Music became a part of his life and, once grown, he moved to L.A. in a bid to break into the industry as a songwriter; however, a mentor urged him not to sell his songs, but to perform them himself. After he fell in love and his partner got pregnant, they lost their home and spent seven months living in a car. Following the birth of his son, he was working two jobs to make ends meet, and his car had just been repossessed when he met Teddy Riley, who got him signed to Warner Records. Released in 2019, Mansuy's debut EP, Of Age, was a nakedly raw, personal work, set to a largely electronic backing, which dealt with his experiences of fatherhood. The follow-up EP, (món-swee), appeared in 2020 as the separate Side A and Side B, and combined more traditional instrumentation with nods to his untraditional influences, which included Coldplay, Adele, and Paramore. ~ John D. Buchanan, Rovi