That Tommy Genesis counts Tracey Emin among her influences feels telling: the Canadian rapper-singer’s output is charged, provocative, and as concerned with visuals as it is with music. Like Emin, Genesis, who is of Tamil and Swedish descent, might sometimes explore “taboo” subject matter. Increasingly, though, she sets it in a poppy, accessible framework.
Genesis’s acclaimed 2015 mixtape, World Vision, and sultry 2017 single, Tommy, left her pigeonholed as, in her words, “a freakshow” – these were breathy, explicit releases (the video for the latter saw her writhing in a bathtub). Her forthcoming eponymous debut album pushes away from that; moments of sweet singing show vulnerability amid the brash sexuality. Sure, 100 Bad’s refrain – “I spit it, I lick it, I count it and I flip it” – pulses suggestively with something a little more fetish and left-field than a sex-positive pop rapper like Cardi B. But the fact that hedonistic British pop sensation Charli XCX hops on the trap-infused single is indicative of the sleek, shiny space Genesis is aiming for.
In recent years, Genesis has worked with MIA and toured with Dua Lipa, but the timing feels right to step into her own limelight, while steering clear of constricting labels. As she said in an interview with Noisey: “Every song on the album is a different genre… There are no rules. I just made what I wanted.”
• Tommy Genesis is out on Downtown Records on 9 November
