Ghanian-Australian, singer-songwriter-rapper Genesis Owusu is almost inconceivable to categorize. No easy style tags match his musically androgynous method to songcraft precisely — his sound incorporates as many grungy guitar riffs because it does sick beats. It’s an enormous a part of why every new Owusu launch instructions our full consideration.
His sophomore album STRUGGLER — due August 18 through Ourness/AWAL — seems on monitor to kick his bold musical model up a number of extra notches. Naturally, we’re having Owusu take the visitor DJ seat at KCRW HQ to interrupt all of it down with Morning Turns into Eclectic co-hosts Novena Carmel and Anthony Valadez. The three go deep on trend (one other space during which Owusu enjoys taking part in with androgyny), the basic cartoon influences that animate his wild stage present, and the heady literary inspiration behind the narrative of STRUGGLER.
MBE has the US premiere of the album’s lead single “Leaving the Gentle,” and you may peep the video beneath together with different impactful cuts from Owusu’s life: Yves Tumor’s “Echolalia” which he singles out for being a body-mover that’s maintains an charisma; Korean-Australian hip-hop group on the come up, 1300; and the Lupe Fiasco basic that sends his nostalgia receptors into overdrive.
We STRONGLY encourage catching Genesis Owusu stay, and fortunate for all of us he simply introduced his headlining North American tour. The festivities kick off within the fall and embody an LA cease on the Fonda on Monday, November 6.
Now, scroll on down for Owusu’s stellar track picks.
Yves Tumor – “Echolalia”
Genesis Owusu: Unimaginable, unimaginable artist. One of many singles from their newest album was known as “Echolalia.” I have been listening to them for a very long time and this felt like their poppiest monitor so far which was actually cool to me as a result of it’s nonetheless mysterious and grungy… however it makes me wish to transfer my bot-taay.
1300 – “Steve Jobs (Feat. Kwame)”
1300 are a Korean-Australian rap group who’re fairly new to the scene. This monitor is a monitor known as “Steve Jobs,” which is a banger, and it options the Ghanaian-Australian artist Kwame.
Lupe Fiasco – “Kick, Push”
I bear in mind once I was a child, one of many first birthday presents my older brother bought me was this actually horrible mp3 participant. I feel it held like, like a most of like 25 songs. However as a result of he was already producing on the time, that was the mp3 participant that he put a beat on for me — the beat that I wrote my first verse to. So you understand, historical past is what it’s, and now I am right here.
However one of many songs subsequent to that first ever beat was “Kick, Push” by Lupe Fiasco. Ever since then Lupe Fiasco was an enormous inspiration for me, and nonetheless is as a author. He’s somebody who builds ideas and makes puzzles together with his phrases so he’s at all times been an enormous inspiration.
Genesis Owusu – “Leaving the Gentle”
So my sophomore album, album quantity two — STRUGGLER by Genesis Owusu is out on August 18. It is a very literary album, and one other narrative piece of mine. I dabbled with that within the final album, creating characters and stuff like that. However this one is extra prefer it was impressed by books I used to be studying on the time — like “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, and performs that I used to be watching like “Ready for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. So it is form of like if absurdist literature was an album.
As is common in Genesis Owusu honest, STRUGGLER traverses quite a lot of completely different sounds, moods, and textures. Nevertheless it’s narrated by a roach that’s attempting to run and run and run… and attempting to not get stepped on by God.
And the primary chapter of STRUGGLER known as “Leaving the Gentle.”
