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Genesis Owusu on carving a path for 'other little black kids in Canberra'
At only 23, the Ghanaian-Australian hip-hop artist known as Genesis Owusu has already been on the music scene for four years. Just weeks ago, he won four ARIA Awards and spoke powerfully about the importance of diversity in Australian music. Here, he explains why.
Published 27 December 2021 12:28pm
Updated 29 December 2021 3:29pm
By Jennifer Scherer
Image: Genesis Owusu's debut album is about depression and racism. (Getty Images)
Genesis Owusu is magnetic.
On stage, he captures audiences with his energy and dynamic lyricism. But when the lights go off, he is Kofi Owusu-Ansah, a 23-year-old from Canberra, who exudes warmth and insightfulness beyond his years.
At the age of two, his family moved from Ghana to Canberra, searching for better opportunities. It’s an experience that has since shaped his storytelling.
“Dad came first. He had a government job in Ghana but moved here with 200 dollars in his pocket, worked at Woolworths and got a job stacking shelves,” he tells SBS News.
“My music touches on my culture back in Ghana in a more abstract sense, in regard to the rhythm and the soul of 'highlife' music especially,” he says.
Genesis Owusu, real name Kofi Owusu-Ansah, moved to Australia from Ghana in 2000. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
“But in regard to the subject matter, the lyricism, it's more focused on what happened after the move and that feeling of otherness and figuring out who I was in this very new, foreign situation.”
Owusu says it was difficult growing up within a predominantly white society to discover his sense of self, with few black role models other than his immediate family to look up to.
During these times, music was his refuge.
“A lot of growing up was figuring out what that clash was and how to celebrate my culture and heritage and blackness without letting it be any kind of restriction or boundary to who I really was.”
A lot of growing up was figuring out how to celebrate my blackness without letting it be any kind of restriction. - Genesis Owusu
“That was really when I discovered hip-hop and I started getting, I guess ‘advice’ from people I’d never met before; artists, rappers, poets.
“When I listened to their music, I could finally resonate with something. They were talking about the things that I was going through.”
The black dogs
Owusu's debut album Smiling with No Teeth, released in March 2021, channels the experiences of cultural stereotyping and isolation.
“It focuses on the two main themes of depression and racism and they’re both personified into these characters known as the black dogs,” he says.
“I like a veil of ambiguity so that when you hear it you can take whatever you want to take from it [but] at the same time, I do want people to be challenged.
“I don’t want people to be able to go through a whole catalogue and feel like everything is all comfortable.”
Last month, Owusu was nominated for six ARIA Awards and went home with four; best album for Smiling with No Teeth, best hip-hop release, best independent release and best cover art.
"I used to get side-eyed a lot when I was younger for the way I dressed and the things I did ... but all the people I loved and respected always stood firm," he said at the awards night.
"For all those people, [his band] Goon Club worldwide, eccentrics, black people, know that it's not up to us to change for people, but it's up to people to catch up and see what they've been missing out on."
While describing the night as a “barrage of celebratory goodness”, Owusu admits he never watched the ARIA Awards when he was younger because of the lack of diversity.
Owusu with his four ARIA Awards. Source: Don Arnold/WireImage
“When I got the ARIA for best album, it felt like something was shifting culturally,” he says.
“I never saw people like me on there, represented, whether it was people doing things left of field, whether it was hip-hop artists in general, whether it was black people. I just never saw that so I was never one who expected to be validated on a platform like that.
“When I won those, it was like, damn, something is changing in here.”
For Owusu, the influence on the next generation is what means the most.
“There’s been some accolades come through and that has been such a blessing,” he says.
“But for me, the best thing has been when other little black kids in Canberra have been like, 'I feel like I can do whatever I want because you’ve cleared this path.'”
'He was already that good'
Bringing challenging topics to the stage is part of Owusu’s craft, and for his manager, Andrew Klippel, who co-founded the independent record label Ourness, he says it’s encouraging a shift in the Australian music scene.
“It’s incredibly important because Australia is a diverse place, and I think for too long it’s been a really white story about Australia which doesn’t really reflect this country’s history on any level.”
“It’s been a derivative product of European, UK, rock and roll, which has its place but certainly doesn’t tell a whole story.”
Adding layers to the story is what drew Klippel to Canberra to watch Owusu perform as a teenager.
With his manager Andrew Klippel. Source: SBS News
“That morning I’d said to my wife that I’d really like to find a new artist to work with and she was like, 'what about this guy?' – and it was Kofi.
“She’d seen a photo of him, he would have been 16 and it was his formal and he had a wedding dress on and these great Kurt Cobain sunglasses. We thought that was amazing.”
But it was a performance that made Klippel want to work with Owusu “right there and then”.
“There was no one there, it is was a midday slot at [regional music festival] Groovin the Moo and he comes out like it’s a stadium and he rocks the place.
“An absolute incendiary type of performance, it was incredible.
“It’s the same type of performance as he does today … he was already that good, he’s just nuancing it now.”
In January, Owusu will tour the United States before playing a string of shows in Australia in March, then Europe and the United Kingdom in June.
Performing on stage. Source: Supplied, Jordan Munns
He will also play at the 2022 Splendour in the Grass festival, scheduled for Byron Bay in July, and says performing live is his favourite part of the musical experience.
“For me as a black person, other people of colour, I think it’s powerful to finally be able to see us on these kinds of platforms. But I’m very adamant that regardless of what these platforms are going to do in the future or what they’ve done in the past, it’s never going to stop anything."
“We have always been a force and a powerhouse, creative house, the source, the drip, all of that good stuff, and regardless of any kind of validation, that’s not going to change.
“Having diversity on stage is more of a service to the majority, to see what you guys have been missing out on, I guess.”
