10 of the best: M.anifest

He has come a long way since his self-promoted Manifestations album (2007) won him the City Pages Songwriter of the Year award in Minnesota. He was said to have “the kind of assured, joyful, ruminative voice that made Mos Def into Hollywood's favourite conscious-rap star."

Grandson of an ethnomusicologist and son to a celebrated lawyer, the economics graduate was voted 2013’s best rapper at the Ghana Music Awards, and was named among four artists to look out for in 2015 by BBC’s The Strand.

M.ani, as his fans affectionately call him, is adept at fusing his western experiences with his African upbringing, seen not only in his way of dressing, but also in lyricism and themes. He has worked with international stars like the Tony Allen, Damon Albarn, Flea (Red hot Chili Peppers), Erykah Badu, Femi Kuti, A.B Crentsil, and others. M.anifest has produced three studio albums: M.anifestations (2007), Immigrant Chronicles: Coming to America (2011), and Apae: Price of Free EP (2013).

For this list, only songs from his three studio albums are considered. Thus, his award winning Makaa Maka, and equally provocative, Keep Shining do not make the cut, even though both are among the best of the now self-styled godMC. The Birds and Beats, a free mixtape, has not been considered.

10. One Night Only

Popping and loud, this one off the Immigrant Chronicles is a player’s number. elDee The Don features on a chorus that conjures up the winking lights and bubbly bottles of a dim-lit club. The hook after the second chorus pays homage to music maestro, Kojo Antwi’s 'Dadee Anoma' (Aeroplane/ Metal Bird).

"I try to warn you, that once you taste it you can’t let it go," the song goes. True to its promise, the beats and contrasting ways of the two artists remain in your head long after the night has ended.

9. Mind Games

This is a rare love song from M.ani on his third studio album, Apae. The track sees the rapper use brilliant paradoxes to describe his relationship with a woman he loves. The rapper later disclosed that the song is personal, as he includes two or maybe three experiences in the narrative. M.ani describes this generic love as pain and relief, puzzling at how one would degrade the very thing one holds dear to the heart. "You are too much for one man, not enough for two," he says.

8. Ez does It

Ez does it, that’s the theme of the song
Ez does it no chip on ma arm
Ez does it, ladies loving this song
so I keep keep on, keep keep on

This track is perhaps the catchiest track in M.ani’s early career. He teams up with Evil Twin on his sophomore album to create a rhythm that rings like an anthem, preaching against guns in verses that leave room for a love narrative. Typical lyricist, M.ani suspends the beats at a point to go full a cappella.

7. Manifestations

Manifestations is the most hip hop track on M.ani’s most hip hop album, Manifestations. He bursts like a newly-assembled car on full throttle. His opening chorus is straight on the back of terrific drum beats and a dash of pumping horns. The first verse begins right on the heel of the chorus’s ending. He never relents, the beat never softens, and the Minnesota rapper announces himself without apology. Mostly a DIY project, the Manifestations album is raw with passion and craving to carve out a niche for himself.

You would think he’d burn out, but he goes into the middle of the second verse swaggering, "Yes I, Jah Bless I/No man can test I/Or mind trick I Like Jedi, I'm up early like redeye"—all the while shooting like the star upon which he hangs his hopes.

6. Africa Represent

This track on Manifestations is blunt as a hooked machete. The lyricism is spectacular in its defiance and appreciation of his roots, and M.ani name-drops the African culture and its icons: Mandela, Makeba, and the like. As the conscious rapper representing Africa with a spectacular street vernacular, M.anifest holds rhythm hostage and demands ransom. This song is the underground rapper’s anthem, and in the poetic lines, one finds out what ransom he requires of the hip hop genre:

For sure, I represent for the black and poor
The malnourished who aint never heard of Christian Dior
Stowaways that risk their lives to see New York

5. Asa

The track opens with a dominant pride-instilling trumpet tune, setting the stage with a traditional dancer who embodies the name of the track. M.ani features Efya on the track, whose award winning voice adds a layer of counter-perfection to what is a recognition of their combined mastery: Wuntummi Ngyina translates into: You Can’t Stand. The production is traditional and inspiring enough to sweep you off your feet.

4. Blue

'Blue' features a soothing blues beat and a standout keynote in the background. As with the theme of Immigrant’s Chronicles, he sings of nostalgia. Sang predominantly in English and Ghanaian pidgin, the story is identifiable to hustlers who build their futures on relics of their past. He then signs off with a shout out to the great forebears of Ghanaian hip life, a torch he is definitely afire in 'Blue'.

Home is where my heart is
Torn from home, could be so heartless
Visual memoirs of a travelling artist
Case of the blues I got it the baddest

3. Sunsum Praye

This is probably the best representation of the fusion between the West and Africa that M.ani so much embodies. Relying on up tempo drum beats and cord play, the rapper produces a futuristic sound track that matches the local adowa dance. He sings entirely in Twi, and evokes God and the ancestors to protect and cleanse him of his sins. The drum rolls and Frykywa Bells are perfectly intertwined in this track off the Immigrant Chronicles albums, producing a fast-paced tune that one can never get enough of. Typical M.ani, he calls himself Ghana rap moses, me rap y3 me poma (My rap is my staff).

2. Someway Bi

Life is some kind of way, he means with that title. M.ani brilliantly explores life in Ghana where there seems to be an echo of contrasting events, from the beggar having no choice and still being picky in what he expects, to the driver pushing through a stormy street. This a story of Ghana as told by a Ghanaian. He lets his heart out on this track, M.ani, introducing a biopic of scary scenes where the severed head of a boy (murdered by his uncle for money ritual) was displayed on the front page of the dailies in the 1980s. The video mirrors the message in his lyrics perfectly, depicting the hustle and bustle of making a living in scenes of burning tyres and young men sleeping in far-from-ideal situations, while showing the anticipation with which we await the weekend in boys dancing in the rain and a woman running onto the dance floor.

The beauty of this song is its multisyllabic verses:

I bathe in faith, no bathing apes, a basic case
Of faith in something great, but still
From 6 to 6, with stones and bricks
I’m building a future I hope I live to see and shit

1. No Shortcut to Heaven

M.anifest described the Apae project as one inspired by and provoked by Ghana. Being the first album produced in his country of birth, this standout track captures the paradox of life in Kwame Nkrumah’s nation, the struggles and opportunities, a confused set of priorities and a system that has bred money ritualists.

The album is itself a coronation for one finally come to stay at home, and what better way than to tap into the genius that is Obrafour, Ghana’s rap pastor. His legacy, almost two decades in the making, provides the fluent and thought-provoking chorus of the song. M.ani juxtaposes himself now with what he was sixteen years ago, blending excellent wordplay to produce a version of himself that has seen the struggles and is making a swift attempt making amends.

The epic choreography of galamsey workers (illegal miners) in the video shows M.anifest, first as a hustler digging for gold, and then as the successful man with the woman of his dreams in his arms.