Genesis Owusu on Music, Influence, and Political Artistry

The first time seven-time ARIA award winner Genesis Owusu heard The Rolling Stones was as a kid playing popular video game Guitar Hero III.

"It's how music transports itself through the generations," Owusu explains on Take 5 with Zan Rowe.

Now 28, Owusu has covered the Stones' Paint It Black on triple j Like A Version.

The born performer's genre-defying music has cemented him among Australia's most exciting boundary pushers with an explosive collision of rap, post-punk, soul, funk, pop and R&B.

"So much of my life and artistry comes from fusion," he says. "My biggest experience of that … was this video game I played when I was five years old called Jet Set Radio Future."

Released in 2000, the Sega title puts you in control of a gang of rollerblading graffiti artists combating a mega-corporation who rules futuristic Tokyo as a police state.

"Freedom of expression is outlawed, and you guys are the last bastion of resistance," Owusu explains. Hitting play was "like a gust of wind that blew all my hair back".

To generations of young gamers, franchises like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Grand Theft Auto, FIFA and NBA2K are vehicles for musical discovery.

For Owusu and Jet Set Radio Future, "it's all sound-tracked by this pirate radio station hosted by DJ Professor K", introducing him to cult acts like Bis, Bran Van 3000, and Cibo Matto.

"It's super abrasive [and] taught me ugly was also to be appreciated. I think of food: sour and bitter … can be used to create complex emotions and flavours.

"This game is the biggest creative influence in my life."

Jet Set Radio Future's lingering influence extends to Owusu's latest album, Red Star Wu & The Worldwide Scourge, which opens with a track titled Pirate Radio that skewers Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the degrading effects of "blue check mania".

Elsewhere, he takes aim at the manosphere, bible-bashing politicians and a paranoid, fragmented world growing apathetic to global atrocities in favour of absurdities served up in algorithms.

The political bent sharpens Owusu's lyrics, bolder and more urgent than the metaphors of his first two albums, where black dogs symbolised racism and depression, or an indestructible roach represented resilience.

"My music has been political from the jump," Owusu says. "A lot of my early music, there was still the veil of creative writing, make everything a metaphor and dress it up.

"But in this day and age … we don't have time for the dress-ups. This is what it is: I don't want you to be able to hide from it or misunderstand in any way."

The Genesis of Genesis Owusu

At age two, the artist born Kofi Owusu-Ansah emigrated with his Ghanaian family to Canberra.

"There was always an overarching layer of Ghanaian high life music, sizzling jollof on the stove."

His home was filled with gospel music, via his choir leader mother, and the eclectic tastes of his father.

"[He] liked anything with an interesting album cover."

Each Saturday, "our cleaning day", the chores were soundtracked by recent CD acquisitions.

When his older brother, Kojo, began making music, as Citizen Kay, from a makeshift home studio, "everyone assumed I would follow in [his] footsteps", says Owusu.

"For a while, I pushed back."

Turning his focus to short stories and poetry only encouraged his older brother, who was "basically begging me to start rapping because he saw how the poetry would transition".

"For my birthday one year he gave me a shitty little mp3 player [with] a few of his beats on there."

Clicking with one track that came up on shuffle, Owusu Jnr "started writing [his] first verse".

It became the debut from the Ansah Brothers, with a music video filmed at the local golf course in Narrabundah.

At first, Owusu's parents had a "very typical immigrant parent reaction" to their sons pursuing music: "You're supposed to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer."

"Luckily for me, my older brother took the brunt of it."

It wasn't until TV and festival bookers came knocking, with a pay cheque, that their parents changed their tune. That's when Owusu said "by the way … I'm gonna be a rapper, too", he laughs.

They've been "extremely supportive" ever since.

When Owusu appeared on one of Barack Obama's internet-famous playlists, "he saw it before I did".

Busting racial stereotypes

The Ansah Brothers were the only black kids in a "very white school [and] city", says Owusu.

"There was a cultural idea of who black people were supposed to be.

"I had two choices at the time. I could be the Eddie Murphy funny-man or the 50 Cent gangster. Basically, the novelty or the threat."

Thankfully, he discovered alternatives: The swagger of hit-maker Pharrell Williams; the political hip hop of Lupe Fiasco; the outsider artistry of Outkast's Andre 3000.

And the big one: Prince.

"He breaks so many rules that I had been taught as to what a song should be."

Whenever Owusu got stuck making his debut album, he'd think: "What would Prince do if he was a rapper from Canberra in the 2020s?"

The resulting record, Smiling With No Teeth, won Album of the Year, Best Hip Hop Release and Best Independent Release at the 2021 ARIA Awards.

Its follow-up, Struggler, swept the same categories in 2023. He's nominated for eight categories this year.

"I'd never really seen people like me represented in the Australian music landscape," reflects Owusu, likening the accolades to winning a war.

"Because so much of my life at that point was battling against the obstacles that came from not being accepted. It was like 'our community is changing …'

"It fulfils the mission I gave to myself at 10 years old to be a lifelong student and fierce boundary breaker."

It's an artistic duty he plans on sticking to.

"A person that continues to strive for new experiences in every avenue. That is who I have to be until I'm in the dirt."

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