Genesis Owusu was only one song into his set when the floor of the venue he was playing caved in.
A four metre crevasse and postponed gig aside, the Ghanaian-Australian musician was already winning ARIAs (the Aussie Grammy – 4 of them to be exact) after the release of his debut album one year ago. Experiencing a longevity much pursued and rarely achieved by Australian artists, Smiling With No Teeth has continued to spin on radio stations, dance floors and in our brains. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the comparisons that the press heaps upon him; he’s the next The Weeknd, Australia’s answer to the Beastie Boys. In honesty, Owusu can’t be labelled so easily, as he is just one in the latest slew of artists sliding into the genre-less space without really meaning to.
Carrying the volatile energy of rap music minus the machismo, he can sing, he can rhyme, but he adopts a loose interpretation of both, which makes for a beautiful cacophony of drawling lyricism tying into tightly enunciated rap on the track, ‘The Other Black Dog’. Owusu’s vocals are his instrument, moving the hip hop album away from the realm of electronic music even though there is a high production value on computer-made sounds. Said sounds move into the compressed territory of disco music for a throbbing beat which descends into a subtly funky breakdown.
POV: You let your little cousin loose on the synthesizer. Turns out, he’s really good at it. That’s what ‘Centrefold’ sounds like. Blended with a smooth soul sound before the second half of the song lets deep, libido-soaked vocals contrast with the high and lofty chorus.
Introducing the Motown feel that underpins the album is ‘Gold Chains’, a demonstration of good rap with great electric guitar accents that bicker with the vocals. Owusu challenges the machismo of rap a lot on this record, not taking himself too seriously with lyrics that are cheesy enough to do justice to 2000s R&B, while pontificating on the price of fame, “When it looks so gold but it feels so cold inside these chains.”
Just when you think he’s gone and done it all, spoken word creeps into the title track, the slow and muddy sound is an intermezzo to the record, referencing other songs already sung and yet to come. Backing vocals hint at gospel while never actually going there. It’s a nice thought though and one that might not be so farfetched given that Owusu is the son of a gospel singer.
Sucked into the tantric beat of ‘I Don’t See Colour’, hypnotised by bongo drums and sent careening from the incessant dangers of existing as a person of colour, this song sounds like being chased by something that you can’t see, or something that disguises itself differently every time it lunges for your jugular. Truly creepy and impactful, it plays host to the Black Dog, a returning motif for racism and depression – two struggles the musician has both dealt with and drawn from for his first-born album.
In the final three tracks, Owusu lets his diverse musical influences flow through more liberally – something that felt held back in the rest of the album.
‘A Song About Fishing’ stands far apart from, but high above the rest of the tracks; Melodically similar to Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ with a decidedly reggae sound and folk heart, and a whiff of Jimmy Cliff in the lyrical dissonance. “Rise and shine, to dawn I wake / Casting my net in a fishless lake” sings out like a nursery rhyme with a melancholy feel. It speaks less about wilful perseverance and more about struggling through a fate cast upon you. This song made it onto the album almost by accident, Owusu stating that it started off as a joke, but he shows a mastery in this song that he only skirts around in others, and fans (me) would love for Owusu to diverge in this direction more in the future. Make reggae hip again.
‘No Looking Back’ is a jazz-influenced track which continues the tale of perseverance through organ licks that enhance the mellow, low-key vocals. Overlapping saxophone solos close out the song and lend intensity and emotion, bringing us back to instrumentation that brings out vocal flavour and vice versa. And it is a refined producer that knows not to insist on vocal forwardness all the time, letting Owusu pursue sonic concepts to fruition.
The use of electronic sounds becomes more polished as the album goes on. It’s like witnessing an artist come into their own all within a debut album, which is no mean feat. You can hear it in the funk-driven beat of ‘Bye Bye’. Something that sounds faintly like a kazoo gives way to buffeting sounds where the black dog motif comes barking back to tie it all together. And it suddenly becomes clear that the black dog is not an alter ego – a trope done to death amongst rappers today – but rather a persona bestowed upon the artist, unwanted, and reducing its victim to a caricature of black, male aggression, used to stigmatise black artists in the mainstream media while the other black dog, depression, stalks closely by the other side.
Smiling With No Teeth is one of the most exciting hip-hop albums of the past year, Genesis Owusu giving life to his diverse influences without contriving to force them into the “rap” or “hip-hop” box. A sound born of creative weirdo, it stands all on its own, and it does so proudly.