“Jarry Manna is a huge Anime fan, a music lover, and a curator of the culture.”
Growing up, Jarry Manna said everyone around him listened to hip-hop. He started making his own raps at age sixteen. “My dad would work overnight, and I would watch my three younger brothers… I was watching them, and basically, while he would go, I would go in his room, hop on the computer, plug in this little mic, and start rapping.”
He used a minuscule microphone “with a little platform and a string on it. I had to take it through a tissue roll and wrap it and sit that on a freaking flashlight so it would stand up like a mic.”
“It was so bad, but I had to do it… Ten years later, it’s like ‘Wow man. I’m actually doing this for real. I’m actually doing this professionally. I can’t complain.”
Manna describes the twenty-one-year-old him as “a huge pothead” who was becoming a Darwinist, “into facts more than faith.” He was obsessed with conspiracy theories. “I just thought everything was corrupt.” Though he went to church growing up, at that point, he thought of churches as a scam to get people’s money. “I was allowing dark things to take over my mind.”
One day, a rapper friend of his said something to him that Manna described as “super crazy,” an offer to join the Illuminati.
“I had an EP on the way, and I thought like, ‘Yo, if they talk to him, that means they’re gonna talk to me next.'”
Manna, reflecting on how his marijuana addiction had distorted his sense of reality, “thought someone was coming to get me. My spirit was just open for any type of darkness, anything to tamper with my mind.” He was extremely paranoid, thinking that someone was always listening to his conversations.
This paranoia led to thoughts of and a desire to commit suicide. “There was something deeper going on there. At the point of thinking about killing myself, I talked to my cousin.” Manna knew his cousin had a gun.
“I was gonna go get his gun and off myself… I had a breaking point and told God, ‘If You’re real, show me something and take this evil off of my heart, and I’m Yours forever.”
He decided to call his grandmother, a devout Christian and “she gave me a lot of words of wisdom. She gave me The Lord’s Prayer to pray with her in that moment. She kind of allowed for me to come back to Christ.”
After this experience, Manna decided to stop rapping. “One of my friends, he was a pastor, and he was basically like… ‘Yo, you’ve gotta rap bro.'” Manna refused, but the friend, Quincy Howard, kept telling people about how good of a rapper he was.
“He just kept putting people in my face, forcing it to happen. After it a while, it eventually did.”
Fast-forwarding to 2019, last month Jarry Manna released a new album, Legends of Lotus Waver. Through this project, Manna wants listeners to get an inside look at his life. “I’ve been giving them truths about life and the world and things like that, but I never really get into my story so that the fan can relate to me.” This album changes that.
“I love anime. I love Shaolin Jump, and I love Naruto… you’ve gotta get on your anime game.”
Anime shows and movies are a huge inspiration for Manna’s music including this album title and its cover. The album artwork was inspired by an image of Naruto, an anime character. “I wanted it to be [me] watching over and protecting my city.” The cover was designed by a woman who calls herself Kraizedkai.
The introductory song “40 wks” talks about a sensitive subject. “I’m dealing with a divorce right now, and it’s tough… When you go through something like that, there’s a lot of stress.” Manna noted how as a Christian artist, he is looked up to as a role model, but sometimes doesn’t feel like he can be a good one.
“Negative Energy” is about what Manna does not want people bringing around him.
“It does nothing good for your life.”
While acknowledging that noticing the negatives can help one see the positives in comparison, he says “none of us need to be around people who are feeding you negative energy… if every time they come around, and they’re shooting negative energy at you, why are you around this person? Why are they around you?”
Legends of Lotus Waver continues with “Tarzan,” a response to the negativity and hardship that Manna faced at the time of the recording process, especially with regards to his divorce. The name is inspired by Tarzan swinging through the trees and how Manna has felt like his life has been swinging in different directions.
“Aviate” is “my Super Saiyan song, I guess.” In Dragon Ball Z, the Saiyans were an alien race of strong warriors.
“I don’t know how to say it without feeling arrogant or braggadocious, but sometimes I do feel super.”
Manna at times feels confident, but not cocky, in his own abilities and personality. One of his lines says, “I’m so alive I get vibes at lightspeed.”
Manna’s song “NASA” was originally written and recorded in 2016. A producer he worked with on many of this album’s songs, 2peece, wanted it to be on the new album and they re-wrote and re-recorded it together. “It’s just a fun song. I wanted to create a space vibe. I was aiming for [a Kid] Cudi [feel.]” Manna wants listeners to feel uplifted and not held down by the negative.
When producer LeakyBeats sent Manna the beat for “Gleam,” he was tired of hearing more beats. He decided to listen to it anyways, and when he heard it, he says “it spoke to me. I just started writing then and there.” In the song Manna says “cause I got the light, they can’t do it like me.” He said he enjoys “flexing” in his songs and wanted to give listeners more positive vibes with this song.
Outside of music, Jarry Manna says he loves helping others. He doesn’t currently volunteer anywhere, but he enjoys helping friends and family with various tasks and advice, and he intends to start serving at his church in the future.
Follow Jarry Manna on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Get Legends of Lotus Waver on iTunes, Amazon, or Google Play. Stream it on Spotify.
