In our ninth episode of The African Imaginary Podcast, host Khangi Khoza talks to Ghanaian rapper M.anifest about hip hop history, how Kwame Nkrumah created the Pan-African soul of Ghana, and why a quality life comes from being “surrounded by a broad spectrum of good human beings”.
M.anifest is a hip hop artist with ‘African rap great’ status. He was born in Accra, Ghana, and raised in the same home as his grandfather, legendary musicologist and composer J H Nketia. Over 6 albums, he has rapped African stories with easy musicality and masterful lyrics, collaborating with huge artists like Burna Boy, Erykah Badu, Obrafour, Flea and Damon Albarn. M.anifest might be known at home as ‘God MC’ but he is equally a learned gentleman of hip hop. His knowledge is vast; he speaks with equal ease on technology, history and humanity. Crediting hip hop for his own fearlessness, and for the massive success of afrobeats, he says: “When you put hip hop and African culture together it’s explosive.”
