User:Mantist

Mantist Biography

THE WORLD MUST KNOW MANTIST. IN TERMS OF STATEMENTS OF INTENT, IT DOESN’T GET ANY SIMPLER THAN THAT.

Mantist emerged out of the dusts of the war-torn South

Sudan, the horse-trading and spiritual chaos of nine years

spent in refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda, to land on

Australian shores as a wide-eyed teenager with dreams

that couldn’t possibly be fulfilled.

And yet that’s what he’s doing. Song by song, rhyme

by rhyme, Mantist is slowly injecting himself into the

Australian rap scene, his tales of pain and suffering, hope

then redemption, turning heads and winning fans.

“When I came here, there was just a crazy amount of

access to everything, workshops and the like,” says

Mantist. “Poetry was my first love. I was just crazy – I

could describe almost anything. All that time in Africa I

grew up without a father, and really the only way to talk to

myself was with a pen and piece of paper.”

The refugee camps had been a hive of back-handed

commerce. Budding entrepreneurs crammed customers

into their tents to watch DVDs on clapped out televisions,

and before the film started they’d pump American music

through tiny stereos. It was here Mantist first encountered

hip-hop.

“They weren’t playing Tupac or Biggie or any of those

good artists. It was more commercial. Guys talking about

getting the nice ladies and driving cars, and as a kid you

think, ‘Man, I wanna live this way!’” he laughs.

So when Mantist made it to local shores, and when

an underground label rep who’d witnessed his poetry

convinced him he had a story to tell, the recently minted

Australian knew what he had to do. The result was

Mantist’s debut album, Out of Poverty, Into the Glory.

A dark, emotional and cathartic listen, the record caught

Mantist in an honest moment as he opened the door to

a furnace of emotions that had been burning since his

childhood.

“I just wanted to get what was inside out. I didn’t worry

about the detailing of it or that sort of thing. And I’m really

happy with it. If you listen to the record, I had a much

stronger accent back then, because I’d only lived in

Australia for a few years. But I needed to make that album

then; if I didn’t bring it out, I would have lost that spirit.”

With an album under his belt and his demons exorcised,

Mantist is now looking at the next stage in his career.

Australia has grown on the 22-year-old, and he has in turn

grown into being an Australian. No longer is his music

just about the pain. On the cuts being corralled for his

forthcoming LP, The World Must Know Mantist, there are

what the man himself describes himself as “stories about life.”

“The album is positive,” he explains, with a fire in his eyes

that cuts through the twilight. “It’s about life: happiness,

sadness, partying and solitude. All of those things and

everything else in-between.”

“Australian hip-hop crews like Bliss n Eso and Hilltop

Hoods: I like the way that they tell the truth and keep it

real. That’s what I aim to do with my music, although

sonically I look for something a little different. At the end

of the day I’ll always have a story to tell. My past is linked

to whatever I’m going to face in the future. My type of hip-

hop – that’s what sets me aside. It’s different to just being

inspired by Australia or what’s coming out of America.

I linger in that space between, with my accent and my

background and my stories. That’s what sets me aside.”

Mantist’s is a one-in-a-million story, and it’s made him a

one-in-a-million artist. He’s getting busy, because there’s

plenty left to be done. The world must know Mantist.

The world will know Mantist.

MANTIST Fast FactsState finalist in Australian Poetry Slam, 2011. Selected for the

Q Music Encouragement Award, 2009.

Featured on 90.3 and 95.3 ABC Coast FM, Toowoomba City 87.6

FM, 4KW, and 4ZZZ.

Featured in The Courier Mail, MX, City News, Scene Magazine,

and The Toowoomba Chronicle.

Appeared at Brisbane Festival, Zillmere Multicultural Festival,

Youth Day Festival, World Aids Day Festival, and headlined World

Refugee Community Day Festival 2011.