M.anifest’s Destiny

Kwame Ametepee Tsikata—better known as Ghanaian hip-hop artist M.anifest—is smiling ear-to-ear from his home in Accra, Ghana, when he hops on Zoom. Despite being more than 6,000 miles away, his warm presence is palpable. 

On this particular day, M.anifest was supposed to be in New York City, where he was scheduled for a press run in support of his new album, New Road and Guava Trees, his inaugural effort for Mass Appeal Records. But a change of plans pushed his album release to March 13, therefore postponing the trip. Nevertheless, M.anifest is in good spirits and anticipating its arrival. 

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It would have been far from his first time in the United States. Not only had he visited several times before, he also attended school at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 2005. The differences between Africa and the U.S., of course, were initially jarring. His experience with riding the city bus taught him some valuable lessons about how America functions. 

“When I came to St. Paul, the Twin Cities, it was the first time I felt the Midwest vibe,” he says. “It felt like a city, but I remember an experience that epitomizes what a culture shift looked like. My very first or second day I was holding a $20 bill. I went into a bus and put the entire $20 in and it did not give change. I stood there waiting. 

“There were two things I learned: obviously, it was a very sophisticated system, so on the surface, America looks very developed and sophisticated, but it also showed me America is a center of brutal capitalism.” 

Armed with his newfound knowledge, M.anifest enmeshed himself in the close-knit hip-hop community, building relationships with Brother Ali, Slug of Atmosphere, and other members of Rhymesayers Entertainment, easily one of the biggest independent hip-hop labels in the region. He imagines it wasn’t as difficult as it should have been. 

“I had a naivety about the fact that if you love music and we had that shared love of hip-hop and music that making connections was easy,” he explains. “I didn’t think of the divides. My very first manager was somebody I discovered on Craigslist because he was looking to rent out a place in his duplex, so we became friends. I was very easy going. I came as myself, and that naivety allowed me to come as myself. I think it also made it more interesting for other folks, like, ‘OK, you have your own story.’ 

He uses Brother Ali as an example. He continues, “I remember meeting Brother Ali, an albino Muslim. He comes as he is and I come as I am. It was a good connection. I think that actually made me stand out because I was naive—not in a dumb way—but I think I just always had faith in music, connection, and perhaps some natural optimism. It was an instinctive one like, ‘Yo, do dope shit, be a good human, connect with people genuinely, and all the pieces will fall together.’ And it kind of worked out that way.” 

During his time in the Twin Cities, M.anifest lent his voice to a Pepsi jingle that played nationally on the radio, which earned him enough royalties to produce and release his first solo album, 2007’s aptly titled Manifestations. 

“That was the MySpace era,” he remembers. “I began my career by putting music on MySpace. I love MySpace. There was a poet called Desdamona from Minneapolis and an agency working on some Pepsi campaign. She had recommended they check me out for it. I thought I was just going to do this little thing, but they ended up picking the one I did. Something I thought I was going to get paid like $200, $300, I ended up with a couple of checks that was enough to fund my CD.”

Music, perhaps, was always his destiny. 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 immediately 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 University of Ghana and University of Pittsburgh, Kwabena Nketia lectured at many prestigious universities around the globe, including Harvard University, Stanford University, and City University London, earning the reputation as “the most published and best known authority on African music and aesthetics in the world” along the way. 

“There was a lot of music in the house because my grandfather studied music and did field research,” M.anifest says. “There was lots of stuff that, as a child, I didn’t realize was something special. Growing up in proximity to music, not particularly popular music, was interesting. It was just music of Africa. 

“Outside of the home, my neighborhood, Madina, was very alive. On the streets, there’s the bars and there used to be these cassette shops that would be blaring reggae music, highlife, and then eventually hip-hop. That was the second part of it. Music was very immediate and literally loud in my environment.”

Those influences are omnipresent in M.anifest’s catalog. The new album, in particular, is a brilliant cross-section of Afrobeat, hip-hop, and highlife, a popular Ghanaian music genre that weaves African rhythms together with Western instruments and jazz melodies. Combined with M.anifest’s colorful storytelling, it’s an eclectic sonic tapestry tethered to his roots. The features include Red Hot Chili Peppers prodigious bassist Flea playing… the trumpet. 

“I have known Flea for a while, fortunately,” he explains. “Years ago, I crossed paths with Damon Albarn from Gorillaz. He loved what I did, so he told me about this record he was working on with Flea and Tony Allen. Months later, he invited me over to London, and that’s where 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 just one album: 2012’s Rocket Juice & the Moon.

“Everybody complains about social media, but the dope thing is when you meet some people, you stay loosely in touch on it,” he adds. “Flea and I follow each other, so every now and then, we touch base.When I was recording the album, I went to L.A. and hit him up. He invited me to lunch at his house and I played him some of the music. He loved it.”

Flea revealed his original instrument was the trumpet, which he played before picking up the bass. “I was like, ‘You should totally play trumpet,’” he remembers. “And he was like, ‘Sure, OK.” 

The result was one of 14 songs on the New Road and Guava Trees album, “Puff Puff” featuring Flea (yes, on trumpet) and The Cavemen. Created between Accra, Seattle, and Los Angeles, the project is a culmination of nearly two years of work and includes sessions with longtime producer Budo, GuiltyBeatz, and MikeMillzOn’Em. It’s also a testament to who M.anifest is, an artist bursting with positive messaging and introspection that is sorely lacking in the mainstream rap currently being peddled in the U.S. But he doesn’t look at it like a disadvantage. 

“I do think there’s a strong lineage of the kind of hip-hop that I do all over the world,” he says. “Even if you look in America, potentially the most successful hip-hop artist in America right now [Kendrick Lamar] is very positive leaning and just did a Super Bowl. I don’t think it makes it more difficult, but I understand the challenge it comes with, because it does require a bit more work in going past the tipping point.” 

But M.anifest is up for the challenge. Now at Mass Appeal, which was co-founded by one of his favorite artists Nas, he’s ready for the next step. 

“It just feels so perfect to be honest,” he says. “We had one meeting, which didn’t take more than 10 minutes, and we made it happen. It just felt like perfect timing and the right energies getting together. When he presented the opportunity, I was like, ‘Are you mad? This is crazy. This is perfect.’”

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