Genesis Owusu doesn’t release songs so much as dispatches. With new single ‘STAMPEDE’, the Ghanaian-Australian artist tightens the focus of his recent run — following ‘PIRATE RADIO’ and ‘DEATH CULT ZOMBIE’ — into something even more immediate.
The track lives up to its name. Echoing synth clangs jar the senses awake before an unrelenting drum stomp pushes forward with militant insistence. It’s abrasive but purposeful, a collision of synth-punk urgency and melodic resolve. Owusu’s vocal performance cuts through the distortion with clarity, frustration sharpened into something communal rather than isolating.
Where earlier singles felt like warning shots, ‘STAMPEDE’ reads as mobilisation. “Left side to the right side, front side to the back, we’re all in this together,” he insists — not as platitude, but as provocation. His target is clear: systems that divide communities for profit. The rally cry is collective.
The accompanying video, directed by Isaac Brown and filmed across Accra, places Owusu at the centre of a swelling movement. Motorcycles and horseback riders circle him, youth and subculture framed with deliberate pride. It marks his first return to Ghana in 11 years, a reconnection that broadens the scope of a project concerned with humanity beyond borders.
Backseat Mafia saw Owusu command stages at Harvest Rock, where his presence felt similarly urgent — part preacher, part punk disruptor, entirely in control. That same electricity pulses through ‘STAMPEDE’. He has long balanced funk, rap and art-punk within his catalogue — from the ARIA-dominating Smiling With No Teeth to the conceptual ambition of STRUGGLER — but here the edges feel sharpened.
His international ascent has been steady: triple j domination, BBC Radio 1 spins, Zane Lowe premieres, festival slots from Lollapalooza to Primavera Sound. Yet Owusu’s focus remains on community at ground level — intimate residencies, 360-degree stages, conversations in living rooms, even UNO games with fans. The audience is not a bystander; it’s part of the architecture.
Listen HERE.
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