Fresh off his set at Adelaide’s Harvest Rock festival last weekend, Genesis Owusu has released a new single, “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE”.
Out everywhere via Ourness, the song features a gritty, head-banging bass line that evolves into stomping strikes of Brit rock guitar and pounding drums.
A thematic air of madness emanates from the Ghanian-Australian artist as he observes the complexities of entrenched thought indoctrination, when one can reach a point of no return. Released on Halloween, lyrical allusions to divisive global conversations leave an eerie irony in the air, while the world grapples with the zombification within.
“For most people, the shaking up of what they consider to be true is too scary and inconvenient. Once you’ve picked your truth, you live by it staunchly despite whatever pesky ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ get in the way. Pride won’t let you be wrong, fear won’t let you be free, dogma won’t let you be aware. The delusion is more comfortable,” he said.
“But the longer you sit in that delusion, the faster the zombification spreads through your body like a plague; like a scourge. Gotta be brave enough to break from the cult.”
The new song showcases why Owusu, born Kofi Owusu-Ansah, is one of Australia’s most creative artists, with his unfiltered energy and fearless experimentation.
“DEATH CULT ZOMBIE” takes a different style approach to the electronic-punk heartbeat of his other recent single “PIRATE RADIO”, which marked his first piece of new music in two years. Once again melding sharp punk production with hard-hitting rap, “PIRATE RADIO” offered an unsettling glimpse of our broken-apart world.
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Owusu’s debut album Smiling with No Teeth took out the top spot in Rolling Stone AU/NZ‘s Best Australian Albums of the 2020s So Far list. Purportedly a hip-hop album, it found Owusu journeying dizzyingly through jazz, rap, and soul, whatever genre he fancied exploring. Meanwhile his second album, 2023’s Struggler, debuted at No. 4 on the ARIA Album Charts.
Across the two albums, Owusu secured seven ARIA Awards, including two Album of the Year wins.
Genesis Owusu’s “DEATH CULT ZOMBIE” is out now.
