Born in Ethiopia and raised in South Minneapolis, Mati has quickly established himself as a vital new voice in music. Rapping and singing with dexterity and cutting close to the bone with incisive, confessional writing, he’s shown versatility across styles while maintaining a singular vision. With his debut EP, Thoughts In Cursive (June 23, AGAINST GIANTS), Mati channels a lifetime of experience—the gospel music of his mother, his father’s refugee journey, and the wisdom of his older siblings—all into one of the most unforgettable introductions in recent memory.

The most difficult thing to find in life is balance. For Mati, one of the most inventive and inimitable artists to emerge in Rap or R&B in some time, the last several years have been about corralling raw ambition into something manageable, disparate emotions into music that’s elemental and irresistible. “I have hundreds of songs,” the Minneapolis-based artist says, “but I knew I had to do it the right way.” For Mati, “doing it” means introducing himself to the world at large. Across seven songs that range from slinking soul to uncut exuberance, Mati makes a convincing case for himself as one of the essential artists of the 2020s.

Mati grew up in South Minneapolis, having moved there around the age of 3 from his native Ethiopia. His father had fled their home country first, landing initially in Los Angeles before coming north; soon he sent for his wife and four children, of whom Mati is the youngest. “There’s something about it that makes me feel a little bit of pressure,” he says of his place in the birth order. “I know if I make a mistake that everybody—all my older siblings and my parents—have a responsibility to let me know that what I’m doing is wrong.”

But at first, Mati wasn’t even sure which path he might have an opportunity to stray from. He always knew he had a talent for writing, but through most of his school career, this manifested in poetry jotted in his math and science notebooks. During his teen years, some friends began to dabble in music. And still, Mati found another medium to be a more natural outlet. The first piece of recorded work that he released to the public was a spoken word piece inspired by the civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder in the spring of 2020. “It was just something I wanted to do—felt obligated to do,” Mati says of the politically minded passage. “It wasn’t meant to be anything that got myself attention.”

Despite his obvious gift for language, Mati was still finding his voice—literally. When he began taking music seriously, he was uncomfortable with the low voice in which he rapped. And as those who would eventually hear his singular hybrid style can attest, the rapping was only half of it. “I thought the only way to sing was if you were literally screaming,” he recalls. “I had to learn how to peel that back and find these different ranges.” Eventually the growing pains gave way to something that had been instilled in him from a young age: The sense of intention that coursed through the gospel music his mother would play around the house, and that she helped create in the church choir. “That influenced the passion in my music,” he says of one of the defining traits in his work.

The rest of the necessary calibrations came naturally. Where some artists who can move between Hip-Hop and R&B wield that versatility like a parlor trick, Mati makes whichever mode of expression he’s using at a given moment feel like the inevitable extension of the moods and themes of his writing. Critics and audiences took immediate notice: Despite that aforementioned patience and selectivity, he earned rave reviews from local and national press, with Minneapolis’s The Current calling him a “vibrant new voice” and Earmilk calling “Please Don’t Tempt Me” a “refreshing anthem for the summer months.”

Thoughts In Cursive features the swaggering “Sweet Life”
and the sly, bouncing “Forever Chimes” which has become a
sort of calling card, and a staple of party playlists for those in the know.

The diaristic vulnerability of “Life Notes” makes even its most
casual moments seem three-dimensional. “For The Soul” embodies what could be a simple, breezy summer hit with the ambition
that colors all of Mati’s work.

And the supremely poised closer “Immune” recasts the bumps and bruises sustained over the course of Mati’s life so far as a necessary step toward the one-of-a-kind perspective he inhabits today.

Still just 22 years old, Mati’s creative and commercial enterprise could expand in any number of directions: He has potent hit records that could lead him to grace billboards and Grammy stages, the emotional intelligence to become a figure of totemic importance in the lives of young people, and the ingenuity to become the sort of cult figure who influences a new generation of musicians behind him.

But for now, Mati isn’t letting any possible eventuality get in the way of the now. “I’m an overthinker,” he admits. “I think about the past and the future a lot. But I’m trying to teach myself to be present.” With Thoughts In Cursive, Mati offers a prismatic look at just how much joy and longing, anguish and relief, ego and humility can be suspended in a single moment in time.