NPR

Fashawn Breaks Down 'Manna,' Track By Track

The Fresno spitter returns with a new EP, as political as it is personal.
Fashawn's EP, <em>Manna</em>, is out now on Mass Appeal Records.

"We manufacture bull---- here in Fresno; there's no way any one person can succeed in Fresno."

When Fashawn's mother begins the mini-doc about his 2015 album, The Ecology, by running down the ills that plague their hometown — from mental illness and homelessness to the kind of chronic drug addiction she's battled her entire life — it quickly becomes clear that her son's survival is more success than mere record sales could ever measure.

But Fashawn's story doesn't stop there. The emcee, who went on to graduate from 's Freshman Class of 2010, became the first West Coast artist signed by Nas to Mass Appeal Records. Now comes a follow-up EP to , and it's every bit as caustic as the Grizzly City that

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