Kwame Ametepee Tsikata—higher often called Ghanaian hip-hop artist M.anifest—is smiling ear-to-ear from his dwelling in Accra, Ghana, when he hops on Zoom. Regardless of being greater than 6,000 miles away, his heat presence is palpable.
On this explicit day, M.anifest was speculated to be in New York Metropolis, the place he was scheduled for a press run in assist of his new album, New Street and Guava Bushes, his inaugural effort for Mass Enchantment Information. However a change of plans pushed his album launch to March 13, subsequently suspending the journey. However, M.anifest is in good spirits and anticipating its arrival.
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It will have been removed from his first time in america. Not solely had he visited a number of instances earlier than, he additionally attended college at Macalester Faculty in St. Paul, Minnesota, the place he earned a Bachelor of Arts diploma in economics in 2005. The variations between Africa and the U.S., in fact, have been initially jarring. His expertise with driving the town bus taught him some invaluable classes about how America capabilities.
“After I got here to St. Paul, the Twin Cities, it was the primary time I felt the Midwest vibe,” he says. “It felt like a metropolis, however I keep in mind an expertise that epitomizes what a tradition shift regarded like. My very first or second day I used to be holding a $20 invoice. I went right into a bus and put the whole $20 in and it didn’t give change. I stood there ready.
“There have been two issues I discovered: clearly, it was a really refined system, so on the floor, America seems to be very developed and complicated, nevertheless it additionally confirmed me America is a middle of brutal capitalism.”
Armed together with his newfound information, M.anifest enmeshed himself within the close-knit hip-hop group, constructing relationships with Brother Ali, Slug of Environment, and different members of Rhymesayers Leisure, simply one of many largest impartial hip-hop labels within the area. He imagines it wasn’t as troublesome because it ought to have been.
“I had a naivety about the truth that should you love music and we had that shared love of hip-hop and music that making connections was simple,” he explains. “I didn’t consider the divides. My very first supervisor was anyone I found on Craigslist as a result of he was trying to lease out a spot in his duplex, so we grew to become buddies. I used to be very simple going. I got here as myself, and that naivety allowed me to come back as myself. I feel it additionally made it extra attention-grabbing for other people, like, ‘OK, you will have your individual story.’
He makes use of Brother Ali for example. He continues, “I keep in mind assembly Brother Ali, an albino Muslim. He comes as he’s and I come as I’m. It was an excellent connection. I feel that really made me stand out as a result of I used to be naive—not in a dumb manner—however I feel I simply all the time had religion in music, connection, and maybe some pure optimism. It was an instinctive one like, ‘Yo, do dope shit, be an excellent human, join with folks genuinely, and all of the items will fall collectively.’ And it type of labored out that manner.”
Throughout his time within the Twin Cities, M.anifest lent his voice to a Pepsi jingle that performed nationally on the radio, which earned him sufficient royalties to provide and launch his first solo album, 2007’s aptly titled Manifestations.
“That was the MySpace period,” he remembers. “I started my profession by placing music on MySpace. I like MySpace. There was a poet known as Desdamona from Minneapolis and an company engaged on some Pepsi marketing campaign. She had beneficial they test me out for it. I believed I used to be simply going to do that little factor, however they ended up choosing the one I did. One thing I believed I used to be going to receives a commission like $200, $300, I ended up with a few checks that was sufficient to fund my CD.”
Music, maybe, was all the time his future. Born on November 20, 1982 to Ghanaian lawyer and academician Tsatsu Tsikata and Rev. Dr. Priscilla Naana Nketia, a lawyer and pastor, M.anifest was instantly surrounded by music. His maternal grandfather, J. H. Kwabena Nketia, was an esteemed composer, professor and ethnomusicologist.
As a professor of music at UCLA, the College of Ghana and College of Pittsburgh, Kwabena Nketia lectured at many prestigious universities across the globe, together with Harvard College, Stanford College, and Metropolis College London, incomes the status as “probably the most revealed and greatest identified authority on African music and aesthetics on this planet” alongside the way in which.
“There was lots of music in the home as a result of my grandfather studied music and did area analysis,” M.anifest says. “There was a number of stuff that, as a toddler, I didn’t notice was one thing particular. Rising up in proximity to music, not notably common music, was attention-grabbing. It was simply music of Africa.
“Exterior of the house, my neighborhood, Madina, was very alive. On the streets, there’s the bars and there was these cassette retailers that might be blaring reggae music, highlife, after which ultimately hip-hop. That was the second a part of it. Music was very quick and actually loud in my surroundings.”
These influences are omnipresent in M.anifest’s catalog. The brand new album, specifically, is an excellent cross-section of Afrobeat, hip-hop, and highlife, a preferred Ghanaian music style that weaves African rhythms along with Western devices and jazz melodies. Mixed with M.anifest’s colourful storytelling, it’s an eclectic sonic tapestry tethered to his roots. The options embody Purple Sizzling Chili Peppers prodigious bassist Flea enjoying… the trumpet.
“I’ve identified Flea for some time, thankfully,” he explains. “Years in the past, I crossed paths with Damon Albarn from Gorillaz. He beloved what I did, so he informed me about this document he was engaged on with Flea and Tony Allen. Months later, he invited me over to London, and that’s the place I met Flea and Tony Allen.”
He wound up recording music with Albarn, Flea, and Allen for the trio’s short-lived supergroup, which yielded only one album: 2012’s Rocket Juice & the Moon.
“All people complains about social media, however the dope factor is if you meet some folks, you keep loosely in contact on it,” he provides. “Flea and I comply with one another, so now and again, we contact base.After I was recording the album, I went to L.A. and hit him up. He invited me to lunch at his home and I performed him a few of the music. He beloved it.”
Flea revealed his unique instrument was the trumpet, which he performed earlier than choosing up the bass. “I used to be like, ‘You need to completely play trumpet,’” he remembers. “And he was like, ‘Positive, OK.”
The outcome was one in every of 14 songs on the New Street and Guava Bushes album, “Puff Puff” that includes Flea (sure, on trumpet) and The Cavemen. Created between Accra, Seattle, and Los Angeles, the challenge is a fruits of almost two years of labor and contains classes with longtime producer Budo, GuiltyBeatz, and MikeMillzOn’Em. It’s additionally a testomony to who M.anifest is, an artist bursting with constructive messaging and introspection that’s sorely missing within the mainstream rap at the moment being peddled within the U.S. However he doesn’t take a look at it like a drawback.
“I do assume there’s a powerful lineage of the type of hip-hop that I do all around the world,” he says. “Even should you look in America, probably probably the most profitable hip-hop artist in America proper now [Kendrick Lamar] could be very constructive leaning and simply did a Tremendous Bowl. I don’t assume it makes it harder, however I perceive the problem it comes with, as a result of it does require a bit extra work in going previous the tipping level.”
However M.anifest is up for the problem. Now at Mass Enchantment, which was co-founded by one in every of his favourite artists Nas, he’s prepared for the following step.
“It simply feels so excellent to be sincere,” he says. “We had one assembly, which didn’t take greater than 10 minutes, and we made it occur. It simply felt like excellent timing and the correct energies getting collectively. When he introduced the chance, I used to be like, ‘Are you mad? That is loopy. That is excellent.’”
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