I’ve known Emanuel Deanda for almost 15 years. I first reached out to Manny during the summer of 2008, when he was fronting R&B super group “Pretty Ricky” under the pseudonym of “Lingerie.”

Only in my infancy as an R&B producer, I emailed Manny a handful of beats that in retrospect, I’m pretty surprised he didn’t laugh at and quickly delete! It’s a testament to his character, really. We Skyped a couple of times (yes, kids, that was the “video call” of yesteryear, before COVID changed the game) and Manny even live-performed a chorus he had written to one of my upbeat pop tracks. Nothing quite eventuated during this period, but we established the grass-roots of a relationship that, with the help of social media, would remain strong for many years.

Manny is from Pittsburgh and I like to pretend I’m an adopted Clevelander living in Melbourne, Australia. For you Aussies out there, we’re talking about a Collingwood VS Carlton kind-of rivalry. Messy stuff, even for family, right? It was because of this make-believe friction that we stayed in touch, often bantering over the Baker Mayfields and Ben Roethlisbergers of the gridiron world.

I hadn’t worked on R&B music for many o’ months and had a penchant to return to the sound that first captured my heart. Enter: Emanuel Deanda, 2022. He fell in love with a particular beat that became our first official collaborative release: “Cookies N Cream On Christmas.”

You can read/hear all about it below. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this: R&B is back. Stay tuned for the James Sismanes x Emanuel Deanda Christmas album; coming to the holiday season of 2023!