Genesis Owusu’s Next Album Fixes Its Gaze on Empire and Paranoia

Genesis Owusu finished writing his third album last year, but he’s holding the release until now. The reason, he says from his home in Canberra, is that the record’s core concerns haven’t aged a day. Imperialism, greed, hatred. He sounds restless waiting for it to land. The themes, as he puts it, are still very much alive. They aren’t going anywhere.

‘REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE’ arrives this month with an opener that doesn’t exactly ease into things. On ‘PIRATE RADIO’, Owusu barrels through chopped synth lines and names Elon Musk directly. The verse is a blunt force takedown of wealth and toxicity, delivered with the kind of snarling confidence that set his previous records apart. He calls it a soundtrack to disruption, not a safe listen. The energy is confrontational, but there’s a communal logic behind it. He wants the record to push people toward one another, to locate the others who feel what he’s feeling. That’s the hope underneath the noise.

This isn’t new terrain for Owusu. His 2022 debut ‘Smiling With No Teeth’ dealt with racism and depression. Then ‘STRUGGLER’ framed an existential crisis inside an album format. Heavy subject matter sits naturally in his music, but the sound is never monochrome. He points to Prince and Andre 3000 as guides for how to pack difficult ideas inside bright, shape-shifting production. The contrast makes the message sink in without turning into a lecture.

He talks about the album like it’s a battery. Something to charge people with when the news cycle flattens them into indifference. The “strange and paranoid age of mass gaslighting” he describes isn’t a backdrop. It’s the exact condition the songs are built to confront. Owusu doesn’t claim to have answers. But he’s making a space where the questions feel urgent and shared.