21-year-old Canberra-based artist Genesis Owusu is creating far outside the confines of any genre - blending signature rap with funk and lush vocals so seamlessly we would never want one without the other. And, as evidenced below, he knows how to move.
To celebrate the release of Owusu's latest track WUTD, RUSSH is proud to present the premiere for the single's Bart Celestino-directed film clip below. The artist's primary aim for the video? "A worldwide simultaneous shaking of asses." Play on.
On working with Bart Celestino …
Bart is part of our creative family. He’s really good friends with my manager, so we’ve been meaning to work together for a while now. I like working with him a lot because it’s all very natural and free-flowing. Most of the time when you’re making visuals you’re kind of locked down by a frame-by-frame video treatment, and that’s all well and good, it makes a lot of sense and probably saves a lot of time, but that’s really not where my heart seems to lie, and Bart was the same way. We came in with a bunch of loose ideas, adding and subtracting as we went along, which was very reminiscent of what I did with my first music video for Sideways. It was just a spontaneous kind of journey.
On writing WUTD ...
Everything I’ve released so far has been done with intention. Since I’m a rapper, usually the intention of the piece can be found via the lyrical content, but that’s not so much the case with WUTD. WUTD from a lyrical perspective is just a love song, probably because when I was writing it, I was thinking about my girlfriend who I love. But it really could have been about anything; the intention is to dance. So the writing process involved putting together words that accented the intention, rather than having the words convey the intention.
On creative independence ...
I can do what I want, say what I want, sound how I want and move how I want at any given time. And any of those things I want can change in a heartbeat. I can make art that is as contradictory as I am as a person and who can stop me? No one.
On artistic inspirations ...
Callum Connor (who produced this track) and I were listening to a lot of Prince when we made this one. Particularly Kiss and Uptown. In more of a general sense though, I draw artistic inspiration from anyone and anything, even if I don’t like it. Why don’t I like it? What could I do to twist this and make it into something that I like? I feel like that’s the best way to continue evolving as an artist, just by being as open-minded as possible and by being willing to try anything, even if it turns out trash.
On whether he got nervous about dancing on film ...
Hell nah, I’m a baddie.
