M.anifest’s new album, New Roads and Guava Trees, is a triumph for sure, but not without its rough edges.
M.anifest—born Kwame Ametepee Tsikata in Accra—has long been one of African hip-hop’s finest. A poet in motion, he’s spent the last two decades bridging continents and cultures, rhyming in English, Twi, and Pidgin while refusing to be boxed in by borders, geographical or sonic.
His breakout came with 2012’s Makaa Maka, the lead single off Immigrant Chronicles: Coming to America, where he carved his space between Minneapolis indie rap and Ghanaian highlife, fusing Golden Age boom-bap with sun-drenched melodies. However, the groundwork had been laid years earlier: 2007’s Manifestations and 2009’s The Birds and the Beats mixtape showed a self-taught hustler experimenting with Pro Tools and pure guts, laying down multilingual bars over scrappy, soulful instrumentals.
By the time Apae: The Price of a Free EP dropped in 2013, M.anifest wasn’t only rapping, he was also building mythos. The “god MC” wasn’t a title he claimed lightly. Nowhere Cool (2016) and The Gamble (2019) only cemented his legendary profile.
His sound has never stayed still. At his best, he’s Mos Def’s introspection meeting Fela Kuti’s percussive drive, filtered through the genre-surfing curiosity of a Damon Albarn, an actual collaborator on the critically acclaimed Rocket Juice and The Moon album. M.anifest is a griot with a passport, delivering verses that pull from Madina’s dusty corners while echoing across global airwaves.
M.anifest’s production has traveled just as far: stitched together by names like Jayso, MikeMillzOnEM, and G-Mo, his beats have flirted with Afrobeats, highlife, soul, and boom-bap without ever sounding forced. He’s traded verses with Burna Boy, jammed with Tony Allen, and held his own alongside Erykah Badu, all while staying deeply rooted in the Ghanaian experience.
On New Road and Guava Trees, his sixth project and first under Nas’ Mass Appeal, he goes even deeper: a 14-track, recorded between Accra, Seattle, and LA, connecting his childhood memories on New Road to the guava tree’s metaphor of growth. It’s personal, layered, and ambitious, a new chapter with old roots.
What We Love
M.anifest’s storytelling has always been sharp, but here it’s cinematic. New Road Guava Trees doesn’t just describe a world, it drops you inside it. Opener Time Catch is a simplistic drive into what is to come with this album, his voice leaning with melancholy, eventually transitioning into the second track, Eye Red, which erupts with chopped drums and brassy chaos, dropping you in the thick of Madina’s street life: hawkers, fumes, restless energy. His delivery is textured, you can practically feel the grit in your teeth. In Safe Place featuring T.OBi & T’neeya, a chest-rattling anthem wrapped in a side-chained piano loop and throbbing bass, showcasing his range, introspective and polished.
The production is equally fearless. GuiltyBeatz, MikeMillzOnEm, and Budo helm a sonic palette that’s as eclectic as it is cohesive. Highlands drips with nocturnal mood, all murky keys and creeping tempo, while Puff Puff ignites with bounce, thanks in part to The Cavemen and a sticky funk bassline from none other than Flea. Yes, that Flea—from the Red Hot Chili Peppers—who shows up on Gye Nyame and Vibes and locks in so smoothly.
King Promise lends his velvet touch in Hang My Boots, turning a tender moment into a quiet anthem, and South Africa’s A-Reece rips into FTYD with a guest verse that adds grit without disrupting the flow. These features are pivotal, elevating the record’s themes of movement, connection, and legacy.
The soul of the album lives in tracks like Wine and Blues. This is where M.anifest lets the mask slip, trading verses with AratheJay about doubt, mortality, and the long shadow of expectation. “Heart made of gold / Ramblings from a pure soul / Still I don’t know / What tomorrow holds,” he raps, and it hits like a sigh in the dark.
The album title, New Road and Guava Trees, is a blueprint; New Road marks where it all began, and the Guava Trees symbolize his growth and rootedness. That tension, between the streets that raised him and the paths he’s forging now, drives the entire project.
What We Don’t Love
Still, New Road and Guava Trees isn’t a perfect ride. My God, built around a haunting Lee Lewis hook, feels like it’s revving up for an emotional gut-punch that never lands. M.anifest stays too controlled when the moment begs for catharsis. It’s a rare misfire in an album that otherwise leans into vulnerability.
There’s also a pacing issue. The first half flies Puff Puff, Safe Place, Eye Red, but the second half drifts. Second Hand ends things with a soft shuffle and some clever meditations on originality, but after so much momentum, it feels more like a slow fade than a curtain drop. You want fireworks, not flickers.
While M.anifest’s genre-hopping is mostly seamless, not every transition hits clean. Time Catch opens with smooth crooning, only to lurch into a harder, more aggressive gear that doesn’t quite blend. It’s a reminder that even masters of fusion can stumble in the shuffle. He’s balancing highlife, hip-hop, Afrobeats, soul, and introspection, an ambitious terrain that occasionally frays at the edges.
New Road and Guava Trees is M.anifest taking stock of his past and stretching toward something greater. The vision is bold, the beats are alive, and the writing is some of the sharpest of his career. There might be missteps, a few pacing lulls, a missed emotional beat, but still, the album’s good far outweighs the flaws.
This is a Ghanaian MC leveling up without losing his center. It’s the sound of a seasoned artist still searching, still hungry, still pushing. A guava tree in bloom: imperfect, but thriving and bearing fruit that tastes like truth.
