Genesis Owusu: Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge evaluate – political fury and propulsive enjoyable | Australian music

Last September, Genesis Owusu road-tested materials from his then-untitled third album at three intimate gigs at Sydney Opera House. Performing within the spherical for adoring followers, he radiated the boldness of an artist sharing music he deeply believes in. What made the brand new songs so arresting have been the contrasts – snarling punk intermingling with neosoul and dexterous hip-hop – all grounded in Kofi Owusu-Ansah’s magnetic charisma. Even then, months earlier than the album’s launch, it was clear the following period of the Ghanaian Australian artist could be one thing particular.

Now titled Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge, Genesis Owusu’s third album arrives with important expectation after its predecessors – 2021’s Smiling With No Teeth and 2023’s Struggler – rode waves of acclaim and went on to win the Aria album of the 12 months. Following the dense symbolism of these information, with their vivid imagery of black canines and the unkillable roach, Genesis Owusu has made clear his newest exists “very much on planet Earth in the 2020s”.

That intention is straight away evident within the album’s first trio of singles, Pirate Radio, Stampede and Death Cult Zombie, all of which seethe with righteous anger whereas additionally serving as get-the-pit-going anthems. Across the three tracks, Owusu-Ansah skewers billionaires, “alt-right” hucksters and informal and flagrant racism with equal elements vehemence and wit. Yet it’s the dancey fourth single, Life Keeps Going – one in all his sharpest earworms thus far, accompanied by a surprising video shot throughout his first inventive journey to Ghana final 12 months – that the majority strongly hints on the genre-hopping discovered throughout the album’s monitor checklist.

Beyond the singles, the depth of feeling throughout Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge makes a powerful case for the sturdiness of the album format. After the opening salvo of Pirate Radio and Stampede, the file exhales into the sleazy, richly textured funk of Hellstar, with a rakish efficiency by Owusu-Ansah alongside a short flip from US rapper Duckwrth. From there it swings into the woozily romantic Falling Both Ways, that includes New Zealand indie-pop artist Ladyhawke, earlier than the fiercely locked-in The Worldwide Scourge, the place Owusu-Ansah raps urgently over a lurching beat a few world in collapse. With lyrics resembling “How dare they pillage Gaza and still have the nerve to sleep at night”, the monitor stands as a central assertion of Owusu-Ansah’s Redstar Wu alias, which he describes as “me seeing the world as it is”.

In the second half, the album turns inward: Situations is a softly thrummed rumination, with Owusu-Ansah’s voice shut and heat within the combine, whereas the pacy, charismatic Runnin Outta Time and the serene One4All deliver the album full circle, from its venomous opening to a softer touchdown.

The dialled-in fervour of Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge isn’t any accident. While Struggler was made within the blur of world touring, its follow-up got here collectively in a transformed church in Wales with Owusu-Ansah’s collaborator, producer and songwriter Dann Hume. The intimacy of the setting is felt within the tightly wound propulsion and complicated element of the manufacturing. Alongside the punky scuzz, the album carries a notable digital undercurrent, together with on the dreamily inorganic 4Life and late-album standout Big Dog, whose waves of synth and squirrelly bass wouldn’t be misplaced on an Underworld file. Vocally, Owusu-Ansah sounds alternately extra relaxed and extra hard-charging than ever, whether or not within the luxurious crooning of Blessed Are the Meek, the chanting vitriol of Most Normal American Voter, or the breathless, throaty barks of Pirate Radio.

Much has been manufactured from Owusu-Ansah’s doable inspirations since he achieved mainstream fame, from Childish Gambino and Prince to Bloc Party. “Sometimes they’re pinning major influences on me that I’ve never heard of in my life,” he said in 2022. As his finest and most full album thus far, Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge emphasises not a lot his influences however his uniqueness inside Australian music, channelling his lived experiences as a Black artist into unabashedly political songs that stay open, accessible and outright enjoyable.

Some listeners might discover the 2020s-ness of the album, with its whip-crack references to Gaza, Andrew Tate and the “Orange Man”, claustrophobic and even exhausting. But for all its engagement with the unease of the current second, the album can also be a reminder that artwork – particularly this uncooked and human – is itself a supply of hope.