He once earned a co-sign from Barack Obama himself but with his typically eclectic and politically charged new album Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge, it seems like the wider world has finally caught up with Genesis Owusu.
The ARIA winner’s third album has earned stellar write-ups in The New York Times, Pitchfork and The Guardian and a rave review from the internet’s favourite music critic Anthony Fantano. “We love to see it,” says the 28-year-old Ghanaian-Australian musician, real name Kofi Owusu-Ansah.
He’s speaking over Zoom from his family’s home in Canberra, where he’s enjoying a brief weekend break before jetting off to Europe for shows in Paris and London. “They can’t take Canberra out of the boy,” he says, laughing about his revitalising respite back home. “The boy’s globetrotting but my heart is always here.”
1. Worst habit?
Procrastination. I’m a big chiller. I love taking it easy, taking it slow. Even right now, I should be packing, but I’ve got a whole list of little boring admin stuff that I’ll be procrastinating on until the last minute. I hate a deadline, but deadlines definitely spark the motivation I need to get things done – except when it comes to my albums. My art’s the only thing where I’m like, “Okay, let’s get this out NOW.”
2. Greatest fear?
Stagnation and mediocrity. Not only for myself but just in general. It’s the fear of me not moving forward, people around me not moving forward, society as a whole not moving forward. A lack of curiosity scares me. The unwillingness to live out the greatness that you could be living out scares me.
It’s why my music touches on so many different sounds and genres. When I was young I gave myself the mission to be a boundary-breaker, to constantly try and tread new ground, so if I stop doing that I feel like I’ve betrayed myself.
3. The line that has stayed with you?
“Think globally, act locally.” I’m not sure who said it first, but I heard it from Fred Hampton from the Black Panthers. It feels more pertinent every day.
Being able to see so much of the world and being bombarded by information, sometimes you feel powerless with all these crazy things that are happening. But all you can do is what you can do, and often that starts in your backyard and in your community. If everyone does what they can, then hopefully we make steps to a positive change.
4. Biggest regret?
When I was in Year 11 in 2014, I had a friend who was a bit quirky and he was like, “Man, there’s this thing called Bitcoin and we can buy stuff on the black market with it.” I was like, “Hell no, bro, keep me out of it.” Lo and behold, I should have bought that Bitcoin. He only wanted me to put in, like, 100 bucks at the time, which would have been pretty significant now.
5. Tell us about your turning point.
I think I’ve always been on a relatively straight path. There weren’t any 180s; it’s always been forward velocity and compounding evolutions. I feel like if you knew me as a child and then as a teenager and then as you know me now, the path would make sense.
I’ve known since I was a child that I would end up making music or doing something crazy. Whenever people would ask what I was gonna do when I was older, I would literally say, “Something crazy!” I didn’t know the exact shades and colours, but I always had the outline. I’ve kind of known who I was, and who I was going to be, all my life.
6. The piece of art you wish was yours?
It was when I saw Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers live show in Sydney in 2022. It was so good that I got mad.
Because when I watched that show, it was the ultimate version of what I always dreamed my show would be, literally to the point where there were ideas on that stage that I had thought of doing – these moments of theatricality – but just didn’t have the budget to make happen. So when I saw it actually happening, I was so pissed off [laughs]. I was like “Damn you, Kendrick Lamar!” and shaking my fist. But I was so impressed. It was the greatest show I’d ever seen.
7. If you could time travel, where would you go?
I’m not super interested in time travel, to be honest. I don’t really want to go back to any time that’s more racist than now, and if we don’t do stuff in the present then the future’s not looking too hot either, so I’m definitely a man of the present. But if I had to go, it would probably be back to 2014 to get that Bitcoin.
Genesis Owusu’s Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge is out now.
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Robert Moran is Spectrum deputy editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
