It’s 9.15 AM GMT. Wednesday morning. M.anifest joins the Google Meet call very calm and cheerful, ready for the interview. He was in a different time zone on the same continent, globetrotting and evangelizing about the Gospel of “NEW ROADS AND GUAVA TREES”. He joined the call with a soup bowl in hand, casually enjoying its contents on a bright South African late morning. I had set up my laptop and made sure the camera and Microphone were active in preparation for an interview. I was about to interview M.anifest. Who wouldn’t be nervous? I have always been a fan of his artistry since I first saw his music video for “Forget Dem” in April 2015. Ten years later, having a full circle moment interviewing him is almost poetic. Throughout this conversation, he possessed a respectful demeanor for the work that we do. He would correct me where I faltered out of respect for my work, knowing how important it was for writers like me to put their best work out there. After every answer or witty remark, he would explode with his signature laughter, mixing humor with art, and showcasing the same Manifest I saw in the music video a decade ago.
He had recently just released his sixth studio album and relishing in gratitude, he says, “It feels great. Nothing beats just being able to put out the body of work that you put a lot of blood, sweat, and toil into the world. At that point, it’s not just yours, it belongs to the world. It feels good to let go of something that you love and cherish so much and allow it to just find its way in the world. It’s a beautiful feeling.”
M.anifest, a master at his craft for a decade, has made a conscious effort to tell relatable stories rooted in the identity of the Ghanaian. As the son of the soil, his music incorporates African sounds, Highlife, Afrobeats with HipHop, singing, and rapping in some of the Ghanaian urban and native dialects, mostly Pidgin English and Twi with English. Being a well-travelled man, he has a very nuanced approach to his art, “I think one of the biggest blessings about traveling is you get to even see yourself and the world that you come from in your home in a very different light. When you’re at the same place, you get complacent with what you see. When you get a chance to sometimes extract yourself from your environment, you’re able to see it with fresh eyes. It allows me to see myself and where I’m from with fresh eyes.” A sentiment he bears as he starts his cross-country press tour for his album.
“NEW ROAD AND GUAVA TREES”, is him forging a new path to reinventing himself. He feels the urge to take his artistry to the next level, “When you’ve done it for a long time, for you to feel excited, you have to take a different path and elevate.[…]I was fortunate enough that the trigger for the title was also a personal memory of growing up in Madina, New Road, and the Guava tree that was in my house. It made sense to me that in this new direction I wanted to chart a new path and gain new roots.”. His conversation about the Guava Trees in his house triggered a beautiful memory for me as well, as the last time I saw Guava Trees was almost a decade and a half ago at a close friend’s house. Again, his ability to relate to his listener is truly remarkable.
As a creative, he’s always prided himself in putting out some of the best work out of respect for his fans to enjoy and be entertained. Being in the game for this time, and witnessing the ever-evolving landscape of the music industry, he stays grounded. He still puts out beautiful art and timeless storytelling music that relates to the audience. His relation with his fans and community is felt wherever you go, especially at Manifestivities, his music and arts curated event he holds for his fans, emerging acts, and artists in the community. To him, the event is curated to not serve himself but the community of Creatives in Africa, “With music being vast, it’s not an individual pursuit. It’s a community. It’s a collective pursuit and being in a position where I can curate the kind of stages and festivals that I would want to watch is beautiful. It serves a community of people who might want something different than what everybody else is given. So I think it’s essential. I can’t wait to change the name so that people realize it’s not about me.”, he reiterates.
He’s very proud of this project, “NEW ROAD AND GUAVA TREES” and throughout the interview, he made it known that this was his well-executed album. For what his best album is though, he’ll leave it to the fans to decide. I hope you enjoyed this conversation just as much as I did.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
How long did you have the album until its release?
It’s always a process. I had the first version of the album in 2023, but in reality, I kept making adjustments as time went on. I think the final version of the album was finalized in January 2025. Until we are ready to ingest, there’s always room to tweak. Essentially the album was planted in 2023 and it looked like a tree, and it fully blossomed in January 2025.
You like to blend multiple genres in your music, Hip-Hop, High-Life, Afrobeats, and Alternative. How do you choose which elements to fuse for each track and every project?
It depends on what the intention is for me. I try to be as intentional as possible. It’s like, what is interesting to me now? What is the innovative idea I want to attack, right? So whether it’s a track or an album, I have a general idea of what kind of sonic adventure I want to go in and that helps to inform what kind of experimentation we do in terms of the fusion. It’s not a one-plus-one calculation. It’s also not random and it’s never forced either. There’s intention, it’s organic, and it depends on what we’re trying to achieve with it. On an album like this, it’s a bit more diverse because there’s a bigger sonic vision which allows us to have a song like “PUFF PUFF” that is High-Life fused and then a song like “SPIRIT RIDDIM”, which feels more like an Afrobeat fusion. So it depends on what the intention is.
You’re a well-traveled man and also you’ve lived in Ghana and the U.S. How do the experiences in these multiple places affect the storytelling in your lyrics?
I think one of the biggest blessings about traveling is you get to even see yourself and the world that you come from in your home in a very different light. When you’re at the same place, you get complacent with what you see. When you get a chance to sometimes extract yourself from your environment, you’re able to see it with fresh eyes. It allows me to see myself and where I’m from with fresh eyes. When you encounter different people and different cultures, you also just grow as a person. Life is a forever scope, you know what I mean? There’s always something to learn, and for me, one of the powers I have as an artist is being vast because I’m always trying to expand myself and trying to learn the power to do that.
Speaking on your evolution from your very first album to the current album right now, have you seen any changes in your sound?
The whole album is titled “NEW ROAD AND GUAVA TREES”. How would I be doing the same thing? I’m always taking New Roads. When I began, there was less fusion on my first album, not because I didn’t want to do it, but because I didn’t have the resources or the know-how then. I work with what I have, the producers I have. If you listen to the first album, you’ll hear a song called “Swing Low” and a couple of other songs, you’ll catch glimpses of where I’m going. By the time I dropped the second tape, which was “Birds and the Bees”, I was beginning to gain more confidence and ability to use things and by the time it got to “Immigrant Chronicles”, I had clarity on how to put things together. What happens is that with each album, there is some kind of growth in terms of my ability as an artist to execute ideas, but depending on the idea, the lyricism or how I approach the songwriting is different. I’m an album-based artist. Every album is a body of work on its own. I don’t just record and put 10 songs or 15 songs together.
There’s clear growth. This album is probably my most well-executed album. I wouldn’t say my best album, because that’s up to the fans to decide. Some may say “Nowhere cool”, others would say, “Apae: The Price Of Free”. I feel like they all serve their purpose, but I can confidently say this is probably my most well-executed album. People will feel it in terms of the production level. When I say production, I don’t mean just beats. Production is how you construct the whole thing, the architecture of it. There’s always growth. The day there won’t be growth, is the day that I quit.
So which lyrics have felt like lifelines? Which lyrics have you held on to dark times?
I think the lyrics in the intro, “Fire on this mountain, flames so exciting, we give thanks in writing”, for instance, is something that speaks to me at different times, because there’s an urgency in it and it’s also how I feel internally. Also just the idea of having gratitude in a state of urgency. Then also the lyrics on “SECOND HAND”, because I am speaking to myself and saying that, there’s nothing new under the sun, and no ideas are original. So instead of that being a disappointing thing, that is a consoling thing, because I know that we can reinvent the old into the new without feeling like setting the pressure of being wasteful or feeling like there’s nothing new. That’s what keeps me motivated because there’s always a way to reinvent the wheel. Funny enough, I mentioned lyrics from the intro and the outro. The lyrics on those two songs encapsulate the feelings I have a lot of late and sort of keep me guided. They are my GPS.
What’s the hardest personal challenge you’ve turned into art?
I think sometimes, not having enough resources to execute the ideas I have, but absolutely intending to execute them at the highest level that I intended to and I always managed to do it. Gone are the days when we’re like, I need to have a million-dollar recording contract because I need to do this. For me, that’s the challenge that is always there. For an artist that’s been independent for a long time and has a small team, it motivates me also even in terms of the kind of music I make. I never want anybody to say that “Manifest is good. I wonder how it would be if he had a big budget”. I want you to think of your favorite artist, be able to play my music next to it, and be like, wow, this is comparable or better. It’s always a challenge knowing some of the top artists in the world have unlimited resources for creating that you don’t. But we always have our head game so just watch me.
You have a very extensive catalog. How do you churn out these albums? Is it a conscious effort to continue a story that you are telling from the first one or do you create new stories with each one?
Inspiration has been a close friend and confidant of mine. So I just whisper sweet nothings into the ears of inspiration and see where it wants to lead me. That’s it.
The new album, “New Road and Guava Trees”. Can I ask you the inspiration behind that?
I felt a sense of trying to take it up a notch. When you’ve done it for a long time, for you to feel excited, you have to take a different path and elevate. For me, that was pretty much the motivation for it. That means what I do sonically and being able to tackle subjects that are familiar in a new or different way. Being able to release songs in new, creative, or ingenious ways. That was an inspiration that I took in trying to make it and I was fortunate enough that the trigger for the title was also a personal memory of growing up in Madina, New Road, and the Guava tree that was in my house. It made sense to me that in this new direction I wanted to chart a new path and gain new roots. That was the metaphor I could use, “New Road and Guava Trees”.
As a storyteller, what’s the story you want people to hear from this album?
What fun is it if I tell them what they need to hear instead of them being able to do that themselves? That’s the beauty of art. It’s like you walking into a gallery and me being like, “So this thing, when you look at it, you need to see that the eyes are blue or black”. No, I think the beauty in it is, to not over-explain and be able to talk about the source and inspiration but allow people to be able to take it in the way that they do. All the guides are in the music itself. It’s how I put the music together. It’s how it’s sequenced. It’s how one song flows into the other. It’s how after your third listen to the album, you might catch new things. That’s all in it. If I lead you to the water, I definitely should not be showing you how to drink it. You might want to use your hands, or you might want to use a cup or a calabash and that’s fine. Once the water does something for you, it’s the most important thing.
This is your first album with Mass Appeal. How did partnering with a label affiliated with Nas influence the creative direction of the album?
It did not influence the creative direction of the album but what it has done is raise the stakes. It has a huge influence on how we roll out the album and how to put it out in the world. Once again, if you would pardon me for using the visual arts analogy. Let’s say I created pieces for an exhibit. An entity like Mass Appeal that both understands and loves HipHop, instead of me putting all the pieces in an exhibition in Accra, we found somewhere in the skies and created the exhibition there so that everybody from different places can use their telescope to see. They love creative feedback which I love because the folks over there are really into the thing. They think through ideas on how to roll out the song down to the album cover. It’s not like they came in and everything was done. There was still stuff that had to be done but I think what they’re good at is enabling and enhancing rather than imposing.
What inspired the album cover? What’s the story behind that?
Album covers are also pieces of art on their own and don’t just represent the album but also extend the ideas behind the album. So literally, you see me commissioning a new road on the album cover. We decided to satirize what African politicians do. To give it a further layer of depth, underneath the road is the Guava tree. The inspiration was satirizing our leaders who are all commissional generals. So I decided to take on that role on the cover since I claim on the title that it’s a new road.
The album also features a diverse range of collaborators. We have Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, AratheJay, A-Reece, and more. What inspired the selection process? And what do you think they individually brought to the album?
The music is always what speaks to me. I don’t listen to anything but the music. So that’s why all the collabs tend to work because they’re not forced or mechanical calculations. They are music-based calculations to honor what the music calls for. Also, I’m a fan of everybody I work with. I like their music. So it’s always a motivation to see what we can do together. Everybody delivered one hundred percent
What’s your favorite track on the album?
It depends on the day. I create for my own enjoyment too. The last couple of days I’ve alternated between “SPIRIT RIDDIM”, “WINE AND BLUES”, AND “FTYD”. “WINE AND BLUES” I’ve probably played the most in the last couple of days because I’m on the move and it’s giving me motivation to be on the move. Also, to be honest, I’m also thinking of ideas of how to further put it out into the world. It’s kind of motivated me to have an affinity for that song in my current state. Who knows? Next month it might be a safe place.
Speaking of “Wine and Blues”, you’ve collaborated with AratheJay on that track. How was working with him as a fast-rising up-and-coming artist?
I think you nailed it right from the head. From the very first time I heard him, I was like, this kid has got something. I like people who make soulful music. The first time we tapped in to record, I think, was in 2022. When I was working on “Wine and Blues”, I could hear nobody but him so I sent it to him and he delivered. Because I’d already been in a studio with him before so I had a sense of the kind of vibe and spirit that he can bring to a track. It wasn’t just me hearing him from a distance. Having a prior relationship gave me more of a spiritual intuition of what he could do and he delivered.
“PUFF PUFF” and “HANG MY BOOTS” were released as singles to the lead-up of your album. What made those tracks the right introduction to “New Road and Guava Trees”?
I was conflicted, to be honest. I wanted people to either hear “EYE RED” or “PUFF PUFF” first on the album but somehow I think creatively in terms of how familiar and innovative it was, “PUFF PUFF” felt like I wanted people to have a what the f**k moment. You know what I mean? Like “Yoo!, what’s Flea doing playing trumpet on this?”. Keepin’ it Manifest. Like “Oh man, we’ve always wanted to hear something like this. Yo man, this is dope. What are those 808s in that verse?” I felt it was the right way to begin the campaign. “HANG MY BOOTS”, we kind of premiered at the Manifestivities the year before, so it felt like we had to chase them with that. That was also a big reason why “HANG MY BOOTS” was released. The universe called for it and it had already seen the light of day. If I had my way, and hopefully the more traction I get, next time I could lead with a snippet and then drop the whole album and let people just enjoy it, without a long drawn-out rollout. I’m honestly not a big fan of that but sometimes it just makes sense in trying to get more people to know what you’re about. It’s practical. I don’t make hasty decisions, but I want to get into a space where I feel very confident that when I drop the whole album just like that, it can still have the impact I need it to do and I believe this album will probably help to do that. That’s why I’m talking to people like you so that you can be an evangelist.
Speaking of Manifestivities. What does that event mean to your brand and what do you do for the creative space and the community?
It’s not about my brand, per se. With music being vast, it’s not an individual pursuit. It’s a community. It’s a collective pursuit and being in a position where I can curate the kind of stages and festivals that I would want to watch is beautiful. It serves a community of people who might want something different than what everybody else is given. So I think it’s essential. I can’t wait to change the name so that people realize it’s not about me. It’s really about us, but I’m just the one curating the experience. It’s a collective experience for the kind of audience that is underserved, especially on our side of the world.
Is there a possible deluxe?
Who knows? I definitely want to do a remix. I don’t usually do remixes. If the songs gain traction, I’ll do a remix. Not IF, WHEN the songs blow, I will do remixes. Who knows what the remixes might look like and where they will belong but I’m open to see what the journey is. I’m not going to force what it should be but I’m open to continuing the “NEW ROAD AND GUAVA TREES” journey a little longer than just the 14 tracks.
Now that you’ve released your album, what’s next for Manifest in 2025?
As you can see, globetrotting. That’s it. I’m out here evangelizing, so I intend to go to as many places as I can. To take the music both live and be able to touch people in their localities and show them the good gospel of “NEW ROAD AND GUAVA TREES”.
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