A triumph from top to bottom, Smiling… sets the stage for Genesis Owusu to become a potentially generation-defining star.
Owusu’s debut offering not only manages to deftly balance style with substance, but does so with a jubilance that gives as much reason to curl up your own most toothy grin.
Via forays into multiple musical genres, Smiling with No Teeth creates a space both for Owusu to express his own personal experiences, and for others to question nuanced complexities.
His dynamic approach to music has allowed him to put forth a body of work that is diverse and eclectic yet still cohesive across the board. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
The whole album is a visceral sonic attack on the senses and should cement Genesis Owusu as an international renaissance man.
It’s an album that’s easy to feel intimidated by at first listen, due to its sheer scale and ambition. However, after a few listens you’ll be in no doubt that Genesis Owusu is one of the most exciting names of the year.
Owusu is a charis- matic anchor throughout this boundary-pushing debut.
Though the album itself could have been cut down to at least half its size, Genesis Owusu’s first full-length is a triumphant beast that’s broken defiantly out of its cage.
Like Gorillaz, Outkast or even The Weeknd before him, he plays well with dark and sinister, throwing theatrical voice in a musical hall of mirrors with real versatility.
With strong, clear-eyed subtext, overlaid by compositions that touch on every influence from TV on the Radio to Prince, Childish Gambino and Radiohead, Smiling With No Teeth is not so much an album as it is a memoir.
The record could be shorter, but its disjointed brilliance sweeps away any urge for cohesion. What ties these tracks together is Genesis Owusu’s talent, ambition, and imagination.
With ‘Smiling With No Teeth’, Genesis Owusu has delivered a riveting album that underscores the power of self-knowledge, perspective and art – one that should be cranked loud.
Smiling With No Teeth brings to mind an overdose of references, but the musical magpie-ism is more Prince than pastiche.
Genesis Owusu's full-length debut is impressive, occasionally even overambitious.
Smiling With No Teeth is a swaggering, hyperactive ride, Owusu showing scant regard for convention as he unpacks his inner conflict in a highly charged, often fun, genre- flouting trip.
Smiling With No Teeth has plenty of not only good, but great, songs and whether you are a fan of high energy hip-hop, raw punk-esque guitars or soulful R&B, there is something on the album for you.