Genesis Owusu Live at ICA London, Review: Stomping, Striking Artistry
TOPNOTE reviews Genesis Owusu at ICA, London 23/06/26. Image credit: TOPNOTE
‘After curating so much of the show in vivid anguish rather than escapism, it takes serious skill to leave an audience on such a high.’
Did anyone tell Genesis Owusu there’s a 40 degree heatwave happening in London? For last night, the 28-year old stomped, sprinted and sprung back-and-forth at his intimate album launch show hosted in the ICA with total commitment — for the most part in clothing not far off a suit — like he simply hadn’t noticed.
The Ghanian-Australian rapper and singer, who featured on TOPNOTE’s emerging artist list for 2026, has flown over from Aus for two small-scale shows in London and Paris to celebrate ‘Redstar Wu & The Worldwide Scourge’ before embarking on a world tour that circles back to London in late November.
After a shifted set to accommodate the World Cup England game (against Ghana, no less), Genesis Owusu delivered a remarkably high-energy performance that reflected the zeitgeist, with a burning desire to change it.
Genesis Owusu at Institute of Contemporary Arts. Image credit: TOPNOTE
Owusu arrived with high-octane single ‘Stampede’ fresh from last month’s album release – mobilising his audience from ‘the left side to the right side’, who, to their credit, committed to the emotional highs and lows of the evening’s performance with surprising enthusiasm in the roasting Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Flanked by only a fantastic drummer and superb vocalist, the three musicians produced just two voices and one live instrument between them; managing still to traverse punk, funk, soul, hip-hop, and drum-and-bass.
Genesis Owusu, or, for this album campaign, Redstar Wu’s ensemble is a colonial-era military style cropped jacket, worn briefly with a red beret. It’s paired with a wrap-around garment flanked by strips of kente cloth — the national cloth of Ghana. The layers did peel off, whether by necessity or intention, and the effect was to gradually reveal more of Kofi Owusu-Ansah, the human behind the ever-changing persona (with an homage to his former character spotted in larger-than-life roaches creeping up the set’s painted speakers). His body reacts to each beat almost as if he’s unaware of its connection to the music, from fluid movements to rigid poses, and the synergy is striking and effective when performed in such structured clothing.
“But there the bizarre reality unfolded, with goosebumps lifting off my arms and sweat falling down my face, as Owusu dug into an electrified version of ‘The Worldwide Scourge’... This standout performance was bone-chilling, rapping with clarity through the world’s turmoil as if a Pandora’s Box of troubles had come tumbling out in stunningly crafted poetry. ”
Who knew one could get chills in such scorching temperatures? But there the bizarre reality unfolded, with goosebumps lifting off my arms and sweat falling down my face, as Owusu dug into an electrified version of ‘The Worldwide Scourge’, beginning with an effective red haze and the fitting line ‘dancing with the devil on the surface of a burning world’. Eerie organ chords filled the room, with Owusu’s delivery swelling in urgency and emotion, and a pounding drum to provide the heartbeat of anxiety. This standout performance was bone-chilling, rapping with clarity through the world’s turmoil as if a Pandora’s Box of troubles had come tumbling out in stunningly crafted poetry.
And while it would be tempting to wonder why not finish with such a clattering statement, Owusu has a different agenda for his audience. This is a true show – a performance of concept, conflict, and resolution.
After a tempered middle section that pinpoints exactly what global ‘bullsh**t’ inspired the album with biting precision and palpable anger, the purging of such emotion is cleansed in the set’s final third, on the theme of ‘community’ Owusu preaches on stage about nurturing.
Genesis Owusu’s music could be considered by some as radical. I think it’s easier to argue the opposite is true. His artistry calls out corrupt politicians (sometimes by name), apathy and genocide, for starters, but the core of his music is a call-to-action, for connection and empathy. Owusu left the stage twice during his set, the first time to stand in the middle of a crouching circle in the centre of the room, while his audience waved lights and watched the singer slowly rotate. The second time, during 2021’s swaying ‘A Song About Fishing’, Kofi Owusu-Ansah walked through his audience, catching smiling eyes singing back his lines, before he took a grinning man in both hands and made space for a spot of ballroom waltzing, and a couple of gentle twirls.
“If there *is* a radicalism to Owusu’s music, it’s in its persistence of joy, which men are also given encouragement (or just permission) to feel without inhibition, symbolised by the simple act of them holding hands and spinning round in woozy circles at the end of it all.”
It seems pertinent to note that TOPNOTE spent the afternoon of the same day along Wembley Way, meeting the glittered and overwhelmingly female audience heading to see Harry Styles. And whilst Styles’ brand of sparkly, short-shorts masculinity has been praised for creating a joyous, safe space for women, the unignorable omission of men in his audience suggests it’s more a temporary bubble of relief than a genuine cultural shift. On the contrary, this audience skewed slightly to a male majority, and more interestingly, it was mostly men who lined the front rows.
Owusu’s lyrics frequently confront masculinity head-on – its realities, projections, ideals, progressions and contradictions. After curating so much of the show in vivid anguish rather than escapism, it takes serious skill to leave an audience on such a high. If there is a radicalism to Owusu’s music, it’s in its persistence of joy, which men are also given encouragement (or just permission) to feel without inhibition, symbolised by the simple act of them holding hands and spinning round in woozy circles at the end of it all.
Ending his set with the rave-inflected intensity of ‘Leaving The Light’, most of the bouncing crowd looked like they’d been caught in a cloud-burst on their shuffle out the venue, with sodden shirts and dripping hair. But the Genesis Owusu movement has only just begun.
Genesis Owusu returns to London on 28th November with a live show at Electric Brixton.
Genesis Owusu’s ‘Redstar Wu’ stage outfit. Image credit: Jamieson Kerr