"Boy, you can keep it". Yours sincerely, Alex Newell.

It's been a minute since we had an original song from Alex Newell, but he's back with "Boy, you can keep it". Some of you may know of Alex Newell from Glee and / or the role of Asaka on the New York Broadway revival of Once On This Island.

Despite being such an amazing singing talent, Alex hasn't released a great deal of original music. There was an EP in 2016 which featured the criminally underplayed and underrated MNEK penned and produced "Basically Over You (B.O.Y)", of which "Boy, you can keep it" is in the same vein of.

This is a really solid single. It's fun, it's catchy and it slaps. But I can't see this doing much on the US charts because of the sound and who's doing it. There would definitely be some confusion over whether Alex is a male or female and what he identifies as (a cis gendered nonconforming gay man, for those wondering) which unfortunately would work against it and become a topic of disucssion which overshadows the song, because music jockeys and radio love labels. Then there's the sound. Funky House has been a popular sound in the US for a minute, but gets more love on the underground than it does commercially. In the UK however, it's still a commercially popular sound. So Alex's team would be wise to really push for radio airplay and streams over here in the UK. And if this is a type of sound that Alex really wants to run with, then teaming up with a UK act would do him even better. An Alex Newell and Disclosure collabo would be a good look. Or if we want to go more international, Diplo and Mark Ronson under the Silk City imprint would be a look too.

Me? I want more production from MNEK. "Basically Over You (B.O.Y.)" was such a great song which shoulda been a gay anthem, a hit, etc.

It'd be nice to see talented queer Black males get their commercial moment in Pop that they deserve, as per their white peers.

🔊 Related playlist (featuring Alex Newell): Black 'n' Queer, bitch!