Genesis Owusu: ‘We are not each other’s enemies. Trans people and immigrants aren’t the reason your eggs are expensive’ | Music

On a large suburban avenue in Canberra’s Weston Creek district, with utes in driveways and entrance yards dotted with kids’s toys, Genesis Owusu greets me on the door of his discreet, tan-coloured bungalow. His lounge is neat, understatedly furnished, with timber venetian blinds closed towards the afternoon solar.In distinction to his swaggering, aggressively cool onstage persona, the Ghanaian-Australian artist, born Kofi Owusu-Ansah, is disarmingly down-to-earth. As we put together to go, he tells me I’m carrying the fitting sneakers for our stroll and asks if I used to be final in Canberra on a college journey to Questacon.Whereas Owusu-Ansah is getting ready to be the centre of consideration once more on a run of intimate reveals, he’s content material within the relative anonymity of Canberra. {Photograph}: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian“I just like the neighbourhood,” he says. “It’s largely previous individuals, which could be very healthful.”We’ve met within the lead-up to Owusu-Ansah’s as-yet-untitled and drastically anticipated third album. It follows his acclaimed 2021 debut, Smiling With No Enamel, and its equally lauded 2023 follow-up, Struggler – each of which gained the Aria album of the yr. His distinctive mixture of hip-hop, post-punk and funk earned him spots on The Late Present with Stephen Colbert, and at Lollapalooza and Primavera Sound worldwide festivals.The brand new album’s lead single, Pirate Radio, bristles with righteous anger over an electronic-punk pulse, however as we cross right into a reserve for our stroll to the height, Owusu-Ansah exudes peace and luxury among the many suburban streets and eucalypts. His straightforward snigger reveals two gold enamel, one printed with a pink star.As we method a bridge to go below, Owusu-Ansah exchanges a well-known hey with a passerby on a mobility scooter. Interactions like these, he says smiling, are one of many causes he nonetheless chooses to reside in Canberra. “Neighborhood, usually, has been fairly missing globally,” he says. “However in a spot like this, it’s a bit extra elevated on the precedence record.”That perception in group fuelled Owusu-Ansah’s determination to go to native followers’ properties final month. Winners have been chosen for his or her most inventive responses to a “Fuck, Marry, Kill” situation that includes Elon Musk, Peter Dutton and “an actively burning constructing” – a sometimes Owusu-Ansah mixture of political sentiment and wry, internet-era humour.“I’d decide the individuals on Instagram and so they’d be like the overall 20-year-old Genesis Owusu fan,” he says. “Then the entire household can be ready for me with a cheese platter in each residence. It was very candy.”Over these plates of cheese, Owusu-Ansah shared a brand new music video filmed throughout a visit to Ghana earlier this yr. Owusu-Ansah and his older brother, Kojo, have been born in Koforidua and moved to Canberra with their mother and father in 2000, when Owusu-Ansah was two. Their mother and father have now returned to Ghana. It was 27-year-old Owusu-Ansah’s first time again since he was 16. He renewed his passport and citizenship and immersed himself within the Twi language. “I’m actually Ghanaian once more,” he says with pleasure, including that the music video was “the very first thing musically I’ve carried out within the nation, truly assembly up with different Ghanaian creatives”.As we start our uphill ascent alongside the roadside, out of the trail of passing SUVs, he glances over to fulfill my eyes whereas talking warmly about “the very, very particular expertise” he and his brother had reconnecting with “a bunch of aunties and uncles and cousins I haven’t seen since I used to be a wee lad”. His mother and father, in the meantime, have constructed their dream “retirement residence” after a long time of arduous work and sacrifice in Canberra. “They’re rising coconut and pineapple bushes, getting some chickens and geese. They’re residing good on the market.”‘I’m so pleased to have a house base, someplace that’s chill – an escape from the chaos of touring and travelling,’ Owusu-Ansah says. {Photograph}: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The GuardianThe new album got here collectively elsewhere completely – through the 2024 US presidential election, in a transformed church in Barry, Wales, owned by his collaborator Dann Hume.Pirate Radio, with traces like “Elon’s a fuckin’ weirdo / who gave these incels moolah?”, is a becoming entry level into the album’s headspace. “I used to be within the church, so remoted and form of watching the seams of the world tear aside round me,” Owusu-Ansah recollects. “My different albums form of lived in their very own literary worlds with their very own characters and symbolism. There’s nonetheless symbolism on this one, nevertheless it’s very a lot on planet Earth within the 2020s.”He says, calmly and with conviction, the album is a name to “wake the fuck up earlier than it’s too late”, including: “We aren’t one another’s enemies. Trans individuals and immigrants aren’t the rationale your fucking eggs are costly.”Neighborhood is his antidote to division, he says. He’s motivated by “what we must be doing as an alternative: coming collectively”.As kangaroos watch us from a close-by area, Owusu-Ansah tells me that he does this stroll each couple of weeks. He’s been on a health kick, and appears very comfy with the incline and the house. “You faucet in, contact grass, as they are saying,” he says with a smile.skip previous publication promotionSign as much as Saved for LaterCatch up on the enjoyable stuff with Guardian Australia’s tradition and way of life rundown of popular culture, developments and tipsPrivacy Discover: Newsletters might comprise details about charities, on-line advertisements, and content material funded by exterior events. Should you shouldn’t have an account, we’ll create a visitor account for you on theguardian.com to ship you this article. You’ll be able to full full registration at any time. For extra details about how we use your knowledge see our Privateness Coverage. We use Google reCaptcha to guard our web site and the Google Privateness Coverage and Phrases of Service apply.after publication promotionOwusu-Ansah’s mother and father left Ghana to make sure “higher alternatives for schooling” for him and his brother, selecting Canberra as a result of his dad’s sister and her household – “the one individuals we knew in Australia” – lived there.Arriving with “$200 in his pocket”, his dad took a job stacking cabinets at Woolworths, whereas his mum cleaned homes. “They only grinded till we received our first condo,” Owusu-Ansah recollects, including that his dad later labored as a corrections officer and his mum as a instructor.They discovered group at an African Pentecostal church in Woden, which Owusu-Ansah attended each weekend till he was 18. Because the tech-savvy child, he manned the projector displaying music lyrics whereas his brother, who’s now a producer and audio engineer, performed guitar. Although initially resisting music-making, as soon as his brother transformed their research right into a studio, “it was, like, unavoidable”. A pure introvert, Owusu-Ansah found a performative facet. “At any time when there was music at home events, I’d be the one beginning the dance circle.”‘It’s vital to take a step again, breathe, bear in mind why I’m doing what I’m doing, after which come again when I’ve one thing to say,’ Owusu-Ansah says. {Photograph}: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The GuardianWe pause a dialog about his love for Child Cudi’s second album as the trail begins to climb and the wind picks up. “That is the place it begins getting steep, so when you ever want a break, simply let me know,” he says. Whereas Owusu-Ansah is getting ready to be the centre of consideration once more on a run of intimate reveals, together with a residency on the Sydney Opera Home, he’s content material within the relative anonymity of Canberra. “I’m so pleased to have a house base, someplace that’s chill – an escape from the chaos of touring and travelling,” he says.His first impressions of his adopted residence city, he says, have been “very white”. “However over time, as soon as I noticed what it was and who I used to be, and was in a position to comfortably stroll my very own trajectory, I felt prefer it was nearly the very best place I could possibly be. It’s such a tranquil place, not an excessive amount of is occurring – others would use the phrase boring. It was like a clean slate for somebody like me to color within the colors I wished.”Regardless of a number of Aria wins, Owusu-Ansah is blunt in regards to the economics of being an artist within the streaming period. Like lots of his friends, he nonetheless rents and shares residing bills along with his girlfriend, having lived along with his mother and father for a time earlier than they returned to Ghana. He compares the artist’s life to the glass bridge in Squid Recreation: you by no means know which step will shatter or propel you on. With profession longevity in thoughts, he’s open to working with manufacturers – together with licensing his 2022 single Get Impressed to KFC for a marketing campaign. “Proper now, I can’t escape myself on these KFC advertisements,” he says with amusing. Even his landlord talked about them when he got here by to repair the dishwasher.We attain the height and select the facet overlooking the low, flat expanse of Woden Valley. Unflustered by the exertion, Owusu-Ansah factors out the inexperienced and brown suburb of Lyons, the place he grew up, and landmarks just like the Telstra Tower and Lake Burley Griffin. “These are the ends,” he says gratefully. “The place I used to be raised and was fortunate to reside.”‘Neighborhood, usually, has been fairly missing globally,’ Owusu-Ansah says. ‘However in a spot like this, it’s a bit extra elevated on the precedence record.’ {Photograph}: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The GuardianAfter the success of Struggler, he says he took time to “see the world and do my facet quests”, visiting arcades in Tokyo and choosing a “go well with of armour” on the Queanbeyan medieval honest – “simply random shit”, he says with delight.“It’s vital to take a step again, breathe, bear in mind why I’m doing what I’m doing, after which come again when I’ve one thing to say. After which the world occurred, and I got here again with one thing to say.” Genesis Owusu is enjoying on the Sydney Opera Home on 19 and 20 September. His new single, Pirate Radio, is out now.