Trek Manifest measures his impact on ‘To Whom I May Concern’

Over the course of his last few records, the Columbus rapper Trek Manifest has worked to interrogate and exorcise the world-altering grief that overtook him in the wake of his mother’s death. 

With the newly released To Whom I May Concern, out earlier this week, he begins to take a more external view, exploring how his mental health journey might have impacted those with whom he is closest, and in particular his wife and children. Witness the track “Rage Room,” on which Manifest acknowledges that he doesn’t want his kids to be damaged by his actions, expressing an awareness that the way he chooses to move through the world can imprint on them.

“And it’s so real, because it sucks losing a parent, but also at the same time, when you are a parent, you’re trying to navigate those moments,” said Manifest, who will celebrate the record release in concert at Rambling House on Thursday, May 21, joined by Dom Deshawn and Bern. “I need them to see me go through it, but I need them to see me get through it. So, yeah, there might be times when I’m laying around in a trance where I’m like, dang, I really miss my mother. And I’ll have these grief attacks, as I call them. And sometimes it’s cool for them to see it. And sometimes it’s like, alright, how are we going to get through it? Is there an evolution for this?”

Manifest’s awareness of how his behaviors can bleed into and shape the next generation are born of his own childhood experiences, which he calls out on the album-opening “Generational Curses.” On the track, built around crackling piano, the emcee raps in a conversational cadence about his early lack of a father figure and how that absence forced him to acquire the emotional tools required to parent later in life than he might have otherwise. “So, while I had a father figure that came into my life at age 4, I never learned the emotional aspect of being a father,” Manifest said. “I always remember people saying, ‘You’re breaking your generational curses. You’re going to be around. You’re going to be present.’ And, you’re a father, and you know it’s more than just being present. It’s more than just taking care of the bills. It’s talking to your child, getting to know them.”

With “Self Conscious,” Manifest extends this outward look well beyond his family, calling out men who are abusive to women and nodding to the challenge of “surviving America”as a person of color. “Honestly, the weight of being a Black man in America is a lot,” he said. “We’ve been taught to survive more than just live.”

This reality has become more concrete for Manifest as his children have gotten older – at one point on To Whom I May Concern he raps about how his sons have finally grown to resemble him – leading to more conversations about how Black men and boys are sometimes forced to navigate particular public spaces. “It certainly heightens things, and every once in a while I’ll have to say something [to them] like, ‘Hey, you’re not going to be able to do that here as a young Black man,’” said the rapper, who has worked to preserve a sense of wonder and curiosity in his kids even as he has steeled them against these more nefarious forces. “My oldest, he’s so smart, and he reminds me so much of myself – not just from his physical appearance, but from the way he asks questions, the way his imagination moves. And it makes me remember how the older I got, the more and more I was losing that part of myself.”

The way the record is structured, Manifest begins in the dark and then gradually moves into the light, the album closing with the celebratory “Living It Up,” a track that essentially transforms the expression “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” into a triumphant, sun-kissed exultation. 

Within this larger evolution, one hinge point arrives in the form of “How I Talk to God,” essentially a dark night of the soul on which Manifest confronts his fears of failure, a lingering sense of imposter syndrome, and the fissure that can develop as an introverted person who feels a calling to make deeply revealing art. “I don’t like attention,” he raps, and then adds, “but like it when it comes to this mic shit.”

“You want to be authentic, so it’s like, what parts do I share? What parts of my life are worth letting people know about,” said Manifest, born Devin Thomas. “And I’m almost more okay with being outside and someone being like, ‘Hey, Trek!’ as opposed to, ‘Hey, Devin!’ Because it’s like, that guy Trek, he rocks with you all day. Devin very much just wants to sit at the crib … binge-watching wrestling. Devin likes to golf. Devin likes to smoke cigars and sip red wine on the deck. And that Trek guy, he’s out to inspire people. And, yeah, they’re one and the same, but they do it just a little bit differently. Devin is more for that little circle. But Trek is for the world to hear.”