At just 23 years old, Anathi “Anatii” Mnyango has helped to shape the charts on radio and TV. The singer, rapper and producer has worked with everyone from Dreamteam to Cassper Nyovest. For his debut album, Artiifact, the South African Hip Hop Award-winner brings a different side of himself to the table.

What are your thoughts on our musical heritage?

It’s something to be proud of in terms of culture, sonics and aesthetic. It takes a while for a nation to really grasp the impact that music has had on the country. Some people think anyone can do it, but over time, you realise people like Miriam Makeba made groundbreaking music and touched people’s lives.

On Overdrive, you say you have a girl “speaking in tongues now/clicking now/speaking Xhosa now”. And you mention Bisho, the Eastern Cape, and pepper songs like Akheko featuring the Somalian duo, Faarrow and Thanda with Xhosa lyrics. Why was it important to show your culture and infuse it with your American influences on this album?

The Xhosa side of me doesn’t really come out on features, but on the album, I was really just doing me. Then people can experience where I was at in my mind.

Your debut album was originally going to be titled Electronic Bushman.

Yes, I changed the title because I really identify with Electronic Bushman being myself instead of an actual tangible product like an album title. It’s more my moniker, an alias.

So why did you end up going for Artiifact as the title?

It was a challenge. I was sitting with all this music with different sounds. The challenge was to create a timeless work of art. Artifact. Then: the two IIs are like the Roman numerals for two. Like (how you pronounce it would be) ‘Art to fact’. When I wrote it down, that’s what A-R-T-I-I-F-A-C-T looked like to me.

The last time we sat together in your house was when you invited people to help you choose your next single. What did that teach you about having criticism so up-close-and-personal? Especially since the next single you put out was one you’d never played for that group.

That was a really interesting experience because that was the first time I was open to people’s criticism. It’s like we have to go through a QC process because the public don’t know when we made the music. I was going to drop that album close to that time, then I was like, “nah”.

What made you go “nah”?

Just what people had to say about the songs I played them. It put me in a different headspace.

I see that. Even some of the songs you played us never made it onto your debut album?. Like the song about girls with pretty toes.

(Laughs hysterically) Yeah! It was called Pretty Girls, but you wanna know something interesting? The guitar on Pretty Girls is the same one I put on Overdrive. I reworked it on new drums when I was in Los Angeles and started freestyling over it. That’s how Overdrive came. I’m at a point where I create so much that I can have 10 ideas, but those 10 ideas can come together to make one great song.

The Artiifact album was recorded in Joburg and LA. Why go that route?

I started some songs in South Africa and completed them in LA and vice versa. I hear things differently in different spaces. So if I’m in LA, I tend to be a lot more African. I was in north Hollywood when I made Akheko. You have to isolate yourself from home in order to capture those feelings and energy.

Why did you want Omarion to start the Artiifact tour with you?

The nice thing about the Artiifact Tour is I wanted to give people an experience of how I see the music being presented. I thought, ‘let’s start with Omarion first’. We’re going to add more dates and take it to more people. There’s also a mystery guest who will jump onto the tour. So, Jump with Cassper Nyovest and featuring Nasty C is an iTunes release bonus track.

I like how you start your verse off by telling us the beat is 150. I presume that’s R150 000. Facts though?

Ha! It used to be facts. Old fact.

[Anatii is asked to take a phone call with a popular radio station. When he hangs up, he mischievously looks up at me and sings: the beat is 250!]

So you and AKA fell out shortly after you made The Saga together. Then he released Composure, taking jabs at you and others in the industry. What’s your relationship like now?

It’s ?interesting because I met him in LA. But there’s no bad energy. I don’t keep that sort of energy.

So is he the mystery guest on the tour?

Ha! Can we get him? No, we ain’t that close?

The last few seconds of So Many Rooms is interesting because it sounds like you’re playing Composure…

Those seconds are not Composure. It just shows you where Composure came from. That’s what Artiifact is about. You’ll listen months from now and see that this (points to himself) is the guy who made this and that song. It tells a story.

It seems like you were being tongue-in-cheek because we go from The Saga with AKA into the braggadocios So Many Rooms and then into The Long Way which is about how you didn’t take shortcuts.

(Being tongue-in-cheek) wasn’t the intention. It’s just to keep people aware of where certain things come from. I can tell you where that sound you heard in those seconds is in three places on my album!

The first track on your album is Almighty. Then you go right into Pray for the Children and the back of your merch T-shirts says: “don’t forget to pray.” Is your faith a huge part of your music?

Faith is a big part of my music, but I would like to say more than that, spiritual consciousness is important. It’s really time for us to wake up to what’s really going on in the world. At the end of the day, we are the new generation. I care about conscious youth.

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