Bad With Phones drops ‘The Man Who Eats Metal Meat’
Bad With Phones aka Manny T Deroy is a South London artist/musician and self-proclaimed luddite, swearing that a healthy relationship with the self beats any amount of doom scrolling session you can get through your phone. Like a time traveller from the future, he has come to has come to remind all those who this message resonates with to slow the fuck down, show love to yourself and to get away from your phones.
Manny stopped carrying a phone for six months, as a sort of social experiment to see if he could live in the 21st century without one. “I wanted to see why we all feel so obligated to own one,” he explains, smirking as he recalls the annoyance of all the friends who struggled to reach him.
The Deptford-born bassist and producer is a one-off, a future don of weirdo pop, R&B, rap and post-punk, who transmits songs that are epic and iconic, low key hypnagogic and soaked in bliss and damage, like Tyler The Creator, Grace Jones or Basquiat if they’d grown up in 1990s Deptford listening to Sade and David Bowie.
Manny’s father was a preacher, while his older brothers played in the church band. This upbringing was the backdrop to his music, but Deroy’s sound is decidedly genre-agnostic. Raised to Togolese parents who exclusively listened to gospel artists, Manny started to explore his brothers’ record collections and became affixed with the likes of Wu-Tang, Notorious B.I.G. and TLC.
2024 Bad With Phones album ‘CRASH’ combined the high-wire duality of immediate recognisability and authentic individuality. The album is packed with intimate anthems and comedown soothers for the day after a mangled night out.
Now, emerging again in 2026 and not content to stay within any kind of categorization, Bad With Phones is evolving gloriously with ‘The man who eats metal meat’ EP, a five-track voyage that moves rebelliously through a smorgasbord of styles; from spacious spoken word contemplations, to soulful alt-pop, laced together by cosmic atmospheres.
“The man who eats metal meat ep is an alter ego, an embodiment of a version of myself that’s a reminder of my resilience, determination to triumph and bounce back no matter what”, explains Manny. “The new character rides spaceships and has a crew of other travellers who travel through worlds and observe realities they blend in with the times and sometimes they don’t. In this version of reality there’s not so much blending in”, he further explains.
The next single to be taken from the EP is ‘Freedom’, a breezy, intoxicating slice of bedroom pop that surges forward with an infectious energy. Built around unbridled, fuzzy guitar riffs, the track strikes a compelling balance between feverish, danceable catchiness and unabashed DIY grit, capturing a sense of spontaneity and release that feels impossible to resist. There’s a rawness at the heart of ‘Freedom’, but it’s matched by a newfound lightness, a feeling of breaking free, moving forward and allowing yourself to simply exist in the moment.
The second track on ‘The man who eats metal meat’ EP, and the follow-up to the recently released ‘Human’, ‘Freedom’ marks another important step a personal journey Manny has been undergoing as of late. Where ‘Human’ began to open the door to vulnerability and self-reflection, ‘Freedom’ represents what comes next: the decision to let go. The song becomes an expression of liberation, of releasing the weight of the past and refusing to remain defined by it. It’s about stepping fully into the present, embracing uncertainty and finding freedom in the process of healing.
On the single, Manny says, “Freedom is a journey, a step to find out who you truly are and what you’re truly meant to be doing with the gift of life you’ve been given”.
