Prince claimed the color purple; why can’t Genesis Owusu take red? Hot on the heels of his infectious, politically charged third album, ‘REDSTAR WU AND THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE,’ the Australian-Ghanaian visionary reflects on the potency of his voice, authentic artistic expression, international identity, and fighting against the harsh uncertainty of life in the 21st century.

‘REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE’ – Genesis Owusu

The warm Australian sunrise peeks through the window, brightening Genesis Owusu’s charming demeanor.

Even after a 25-hour journey from Europe to Melbourne, the artist shows no sign of fatigue. Owusu speaks with an even keel; he’s intelligent, patient, and disarmingly polite. With a project as political as REDSTAR WU AND THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE on the table, it’s natural that our conversation would land on the combative commentary at the heart of his music.

“It’s just the life and the times, man.”

There’s a sincerity in the way Owusu speaks about his craft. His calm temperament never diminishes the weight of his words; if anything, his earnestness sharpens them. The direct tone of the album is captivating; few artists are brave enough to take shots at Elon Musk and Sean Hannity in the same breath. Fans of Genesis Owusu are familiar with a high level of artistry – vivid, metaphorical soundscapes layered with sonic nuance. Yet, when crafting REDSTAR WU, the musician felt compelled to alter his creative process, stripping away all abstraction to properly articulate his troubled state of mind.

“Living on Planet Earth in the 2020s is ambiguous enough… I no longer have the privilege to be ambiguous; I need to say things as directly as possible.”

Politics has been a driving force throughout Kofi Owusu-Ansah’s career, but this era of Genesis Owusu is brasher. Even in Australia, the artist felt the paradigm shift after the 2024 American election; political fanaticism and online radicalization reverberated on an international scale.

“American politics is world politics,” he exclaims, reflecting on the weight of one nation’s cultural and military influence over the globe. “I’m lucky enough to call two countries my home, one being Ghana, one being Australia,” he continues. “Completely opposite sides of the world, completely different cultures, yet the U.S. has military bases on both of them.” Not one to stand idly by, Owusu sought to channel his anger, confusion, and defiance into something tangible.

REDSTAR WU AND THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE is rife with a rebellious swagger.

Owusu is at his most visceral, calling out a myriad of alt-right extremists while urging listeners to rally against their corruption. A follow-up to 2023’s Struggler, a concept album about a roach fleeing the clutches of God, REDSTAR WU is an urgent statement to the uncertainty of the 2020s; a piercing response to a world in absolute disarray.

Yet, Owusu’s brilliance lies not in the commentary itself, but in the enticing package that delivers it. Scattered amidst the scathing criticism are moments of levity in the form of engaging, genre-defying dance cuts. “My music has always just been a tool to express myself. So when it comes to an album like this, I feel like it can’t just be one thing.”

Owusu has never been one to flatten himself into a single character; he embraces the full spectrum of emotions that make him a multifaceted human being. “Sometimes I contradict myself,” he ponders, “and my music has never been a tool to do anything but express the totality of myself, whether that’s the beautiful side or the ugly side.”

REDSTAR WU’s main ideas were present from its inception – an album depicting Planet Earth in the 2020s – but the artist treated the studio process with an almost day-to-day stream-of-consciousness approach.

Owusu worked almost solely with producer Dan Hume, who played most of the live instrumentation on the album. The duo’s approach to genre is nearly seamless, showcasing fusions of smooth neo-soul, dance-punk, and tinges of hip-hop with absolute ease. “We would get into the studio every day and just jam, throw shit at the wall, see what stuck,” the artist states, letting the music develop as organically as possible.

As an exercise in authenticity, the duo put an emphasis on letting Owusu’s feelings dictate the sound of a specific song. For a span of time, he woke up feeling confident and funky. The result: the sultry “HELLSTAR.” Tired of reading an aggravating bit of global news for the fourth time that week, Owusu channeled his frustration into the brash, punk-infused “PIRATE RADIO.”

The approach is perhaps best heard on “THE MOST NORMAL AMERICAN VOTER.” Fascinated by the “mass political psychosis” of the QAnon movement surrounding the past two American elections, Owusu pondered what it would be like to step into the skin of someone in that mindset. “It’s frantic, and it’s kind of like, what does this do to a human beyond the politics?” The result is a frenetic soul-rock bop that is admittedly kind of silly, yet takes a poignant approach to the dangers of propaganda.

Once the album was fully recorded and delivered for mixing, Owusu helped his parents move back to their home country of Ghana. Visiting his country of birth for the first time in eleven years, he felt inspired to continue his creative process there. “It was almost kind of directly and indirectly influenced by not only Ghana, but by the concept of knowing your roots and your identity,” the artist reflects. While shooting music videos in West Africa, Owusu began crafting the album’s title and visual aesthetics, eventually drawing an association between Wu’s red star and the iconic black star on the Ghanaian flag.

Owusu drew inspiration from the Ghanaian Independence Movement of 1957, one of the first successful victories against imperial rule on the African continent.

The blood shed by Ghanaians who fought for the greater good – and the community’s resolve that fueled the revolution – are symbolized in the Ghanaian flag by the color red. Thus, REDSTAR WU was born. “My previous albums were much more metaphorical, and they lived in different worlds. This one kind of lives in this world,” Owusu explains. “I don’t really think of it as a character as much as it is just an alias. This version is very much just me… it’s just me talking.” The alias allows the boldest and most authentic version of him to shine.

This ideology became the backbone of REDSTAR WU’s anti-establishment framework and an inspirational visual representation of the album as a whole. Not only has the color red always been present throughout Genesis Owusu’s career (“If Prince can have purple, then I’d have red” – let’s make it happen, people), but it also resonates with his heritage. Red signifies defiance. Red depicts a fight. Red becomes a rallying cry, flying on the flag of a man brave enough to tote it.

REDSTAR WU’s greatest strength lies in its accessibility. Instead of preaching, Owusu approaches his message with humanity, composure, and optimism.

“I think the reason that so much of the album has the energy that it has is because I want the album to be a battery in the backs of people… I want people to be extremely aware of the situation that we’re in, which is f***ed up a lot of the time. But, just like we have many times in the past, we can overcome,” Owusu asserts. “It’s upbeat and accessible because I want this album to be a battery in people’s backs, so when they listen to it, they have the energy to open the door and truly face the day and face the world.” It’s a sentiment that defies outrage in hopes of promoting action.

Yet Owusu crafted a message around a core theme of community: “Historically, the reason that we have a lot of the rights and luxuries that we have is because we did that, because we came together in dark times and overcame.” Genesis Owusu wants his listeners to be informed, but he also wants them to be energized to face the world. In an era of stark ambiguity, solidarity is the loudest form of expression. REDSTAR WU is not only a poignant statement, but a vivid depiction of an artist at the peak of his creativity – a man with infectious charisma rallying the world toward a better place.

“There is still beauty and light and reason to uplift each other, especially in moments like this.”

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:: stream/purchase REDSTAR WU… here ::

:: connect with Genesis Owusu here ::

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 © Isaac Brown

REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE

an album by Genesis Owusu