LIKE MANY CREATIVES, 24-year-old Manzi Fleur has had a long creative journey. He started by drawing and selling comics when he was in primary school. He has also written poetry and English stories before he started writing music.

That was 2012, he said, after watching Freestyle Friday, a segment on a show called 106 & Park that used to be aired on BET network.

 "I honestly didn’t know I could rap until one of my classmates, who I used to randomly show my poetry, just rapped to them a quick verse I had written for fun. He pushed me to keep going,” he said.

He said that seeing performers freestyling  also lit a fire in him which lured him to try to write bars as good as theirs, adding that the idea of taking rap seriously didn’t cross his mind until he received feedback from his first track "Juice” which he dropped in 2016 in Dany Beats studio.

At the time, he was inspired by everything around him, the music that was trending (Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Kid Cudi, Joey Bada$$, Isaiah Rashad, Mick Jenkins), adding that the friends around him who were rappers built up a competitive spirit in him which compelled him to be better than them.

The Rwandan rapper who currently lives in Canada declared that through rap, he is able to freely express himself by rapping about things that are affecting him while having fun over a beat.

"Music makes me who I am every day. It helps me describe things I might be going through and can also have fun with it whenever I’m happy and want to make an energetic song,” he said.

As he grows as an artist, he keeps discovering new pockets, basically areas in music from Melodies and beat selections that he hasn’t dabbled in and is trying to experiment more.

He doesn’t stick to a certain sound to fit in, he can do whatever without being scared that someone might not like it. At the moment, his most popular songs are "Citron” which is the title track to the EP, "Moonlight”, "Little Italy”, "Les Misérables” and "Baguette” ft Sema Solé.

He declared that creating Mellow Couch, a music label consisting of him, Sema Solé (artist) and Nshuti Reddy (producer/engineer) is one of his biggest accomplishments, adding that being followed by Missy Elliott after freestyling to her song and reaching so many countries with his music I’ve never been to and everyone enjoying the vibes was awesome.

Releasing his debut audio film/EP called "Citron” took him some time crafting but he has had many people changing their display Twitter names with lemon emoji to help promote the project and trend for three consecutive days.

He still faces a lot of challenges in the music industry because his music is still not reaching as many listeners in the country as it could, adding that manoeuvring through the industry is very difficult because he doesn’t get tools to promote his music on another level. He is an independent artisteand hopes to keep making connections along the way.

He hopes to be the biggest artist in the world or be able to reach every ear worldwide, impact a generation and spark different ideas on how to experiment in music.

He also wants to make the best music everyone has ever heard, create albums that will stand the test of the time and win every accolade of course (ie. the Grammys). He is also motivated to make Mellow Couch get love and support it could ever have.

You can find him on Twitter & Instagram: @manzifleur