Brazilian funk-Afrobeats collab “manloloko” started with a DM and ended with a certified FU anthem
Dom Guyot had a list. Not a physical one, but the kind every person carries around after enough people have let them down. His new single with Filipina femcee Zae, “manloloko,” is basically what happens when that list finds a beat.
The track dropped this summer and it sounds exactly like what it is: confident, a little confrontational, and genuinely fun to play loud. Dom describes it as a spiritual sequel to his earlier single “Kabit,” except this time the gloves are off. “I wanted a track that feels like a big FU to people who have used me in the past,” he said. “This time I’m taking my power back.”
The sonic palette is unexpected in the best way. Brazilian funk and Afrobeats filtered through a contemporary pop-rap lens. It should not work as neatly as it does, but the rhythm carries the attitude so well that the genre math stops mattering around the first chorus.
Getting Zae on the track started the way a lot of good things start now: a DM. Dom hit her up on Instagram sometime last July, a fan reaching out to an artist he genuinely respected. She responded. They got in a room, or the digital equivalent of one, and apparently the chemistry was immediate.
“The vibes were there from the jump,” Dom said, which is either a good sign or what everyone says before an album rollout, except in this case the song actually backs it up.
What makes “manloloko” work as a collab rather than just a feature is that both artists kept their lanes clean. Dom handled everything he sang, including the hook. Zae wrote and delivered her verses entirely on her own terms. Neither stepped on the other. The result sounds less like a guest spot and more like two people who were always supposed to be on the same song.
The bridge is where it gets interesting. Instead of the track doubling down on aggression, Dom and Zae pull back into something closer to solidarity, a moment that reframes the whole thing from a breakup song into something with a slightly bigger argument.
Dom is pretty direct about what that argument is: “Society loves to crucify the gays and girls for the simplest things yet let straight men get away with everything. That moment of solidarity felt important.”
It’s a sharp left turn that earns its place. “manloloko” could have coasted on the groove and nobody would have complained. The fact that it doesn’t is what makes it worth paying attention to.