Rapper MAVI descended from the top of the balcony of the Howard Theatre to a crowd of fans and shouted, “D.C., I need you!”
During his set, he took the time to express gratitude to the audience for the five years he spent in Washington.
“It’s made me the man that I am. Thank you for being here for me when I wasn’t even here for myself,” MAVI said.
The 24-year-old, born Omavi Minder, was referring to his time as a Howard student. He came to the university in 2017 as a biology major and sociology minor but left during his junior year following the rise in his music career.
Since then, the rapper, who has over two million monthly listeners on Spotify, has opened for Jack Harlow and Earl Sweatshirt on tour.
“I was in LA during the add/drop period. I got back to campus the day after [it ended]. And I went to student services and like, ‘Hey, I was doing a concert. Is there any way that we can still register me for classes?’ They said no,” he said.
Despite being sad about the denial, MAVI decided to use the time to focus on his music career.
“I cried really badly. But I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll take this break. I have this mixtape that’s blowing up. I’ll do the shows for that and I’ll come back next semester and continue,’” he said in a Sept. 13 interview. “Then the pandemic hit; all the shows were canceled. So I was really sad.”
MAVI was determined to return the following semester and found an unlikely source of help: another former Howard student, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Coates is an award-winning journalist who served as the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the Department of English.
“[Coates] emailed financial aid and got my scholarship back. So I completed my junior year. I’m a biology major, so I’m taking [Organic Chemistry One and Two] all these things. Then the Jack Harlow tour came up. So I took another break, and then my tour came up and I took another break.”
MAVI said the concept for his latest album, “shadowbox,” just happened.
“[There was] a six-month period where I made like 60 songs, but it wasn’t until I made “drunk prayer” where it kind of dawned on me like, ‘Oh shoot, I’m making an album.’”
MAVI’s lyrics are known to be thought-provoking and fast-paced (he often encourages his fans to read his lyrics), but also filled with introspection and vulnerability.
On the 14-track album, he discusses dark topics like addiction and dealing with internal conflict. On “open waters,” MAVI repeats “Still, waters run deep, pill grinder, psilocybin on the beach / Just tryna cleanse my mind of what I seen, I need a baptism.”
The record begins with “20,000 leagues,” a track with piano, strings and a thumping bassline. MAVI said this album differed from his other work.
“Before, I used to look for beats. This time I leaned on straight musicianship,” he said. “There are no samples on this album. Everything was played and sung by people that I know and people that I really admire. So now, I find myself going into it ensemble style, like a jazz musician or an orchestra more than a traditional hip-hop production cycle.”
MAVI also collaborated with producers like Monte Booker, producer duo TwoTone, and producer trio Beach Noise on “shadowbox.”
“I wanted the instrumental wise to feel like you did when you listen to the Isley [Brothers]; you can close your eyes and imagine the people playing everything. That’s kind of what I want for my music too,” MAVI said.
Friday’s show had a diverse crowd made up of a blend of college students, the rapper’s friends and family and quite a few mother-son duos who nodded and rapped along. MAVI’s best friend and rapper, Micah Collins, also known as MESSIAH!, was in attendance and served as one of the opening acts.
Collins shared that he and MAVI met in a 10th-grade English class in their hometown, Charlotte, North Carolina. He credits MAVI for encouraging him to attend Howard.
“We came to Howard together. He put the battery in my back. I applied to Howard, I got in and was like, ‘F**k it, we here,” Collins said.
During their time at Howard, the two often performed at open mics around campus.
“We got into music separately as individuals. And then when we met, we got into making music together. [One of MAVI’s first songs] was recorded in my closet. I was helping mix a lot of his early stuff and we were recording together,” he said.
Considering their history, Collins said it’s “beautiful” to see how far MAVI has come, and that he broke into tears watching his performance at a previous show.
“Like, that’s really my twin. So it’s like, what the f**k? There was a moment where, unprovoked, the crowd just started saying, ‘We love you MAVI, we love you, Mavi.’ It’s special because I know what he’s been through to get here. I couldn’t ask for anything better,” he said.
The show was interactive. At one point, he began taking requests from the audience. A fan threw him a shirt with a note attached that read, “you’re my favorite rapper and I love you fr.”
MAVI ended the show with a dance party to “Before I Let Go,” in memory of recently deceased artist Frankie Beverly. After that, he made his way to the front of the venue to sign merchandise and interact with fans.
“I’m just showing up as a human and not as a star. I think my entire presentation is at eye level with the listeners because I need the listeners and the listeners need me. We have a commensalistic relationship,” MAVI said. “Maintaining that relationship is how music feeds my soul instead of detracts from it.”
Maxwell Long-Craine, a first-year political science major, said he enjoyed the show.
“MAVI is my favorite rapper on the planet. I knew he was a Howard student. That’s why I feel like I got a connection to him. It means so much [to me] because his music has gotten me through a lot of hard times, and I relate to it very deeply,” he said.
Despite having three critically acclaimed albums, MAVI still has intentions to return to Howard and finish his degree.
“If whoever is reading this is important to the financial aid situation and wants to offer me the leadership scholarship that I had back in 2017, I want it so bad, please. I’m really trying to finish. I have like a year left,” he said.
He plans to use his degree to become a biology teacher at his high school in Charlotte.
“I had a great high school biology teacher who made me believe in myself as a scientist and believe that I had abilities and changed my whole perspective on it,” MAVI said. “My grades in biology went from C’s to A’s just from the encouragement of this one teacher.”
MAVI is now a part of Howard’s hip-hop musical legacy that includes members of Digable Planets, rapper Billy Woods and audio engineer Young Guru.
“My first open mic, my first time ever performing in D.C. was at an open mic in front of Ira Aldridge [Theater]. Mattering in terms of contributing to the lineage was always important to me, so to be able to do Howard Theater as an extension of that,” he said. “It means everything to me to contribute to that.”
Copy edited by Anijah Franklin
