M.anifest real name is Kwame Ametepee Tsikata and he was born on November 20 in 1982. He was born in Accra, Ghana. Not only is he a rapper, but he writes songs as well. He has worked with other prominent people in the music industry like Damon Albarn, Flea, Tony Allen, Erykah Badu, and is featured on five songs on the Rocket Juice and The Moon album. His musical roots also run deep based on his ancestry. He is the grandson of one of Africa’s foremost ethnomusicogists J.H. Kwabena Nketia. In 2012 BBC’s arts program The Strand Radio tipped him as one of four acts to look out for in 2012. M.anifest was nominated twice for the 2012 Ghana Music Awards in the Best Rapper of the year and Songwriter of the year categories. M.anifest migrated to the Twin Cities in Minneapolis-St Paul in 2001 to attend Macalester College where he graduated in 2005 with a BA in economics.
He has released two solo albums Immigrant Chronicles: Coming to America (2011) and Manifestations (2007). According to his website manifestmc.com, the latter was funded by royalties he received from lending his voice to a Pepsi jingle that played nationally on U.S radio. In 2010, MTV spotlighted M.anifest as a hot new artist to look out for on the program “Seven.” He was voted City Pages “Songwriter of the Year” after his critically acclaimed 2007 debut “Manifestations.” He has been described as an artist with “an incredible gift” (the run off groove) who possesses “the kind of assured, joyful, ruminative voice that made Mos Def into Hollywood’s favorite conscious-rap star” (City Pages). In 2009 he released a mixtape called the Birds and the Beats, to raise awareness and funds for the work of a non-profit, Young Entrepreneurs Africa. M.anifest is co-founder of Giant Steps, an interactive conference for entrepreneurial creatives and creative entrepreneurs. He’s also one of three artists featured in the documentary We Rock Long Distance by filmmaker Justin Schell. M.anifest currently lives in-between Accra and Minneapolis.