The mesmerizing Tommy Genesis

Almost two years ago, I was at the Sping Attitude Festival in Rome. On the last day, at the end of an evening during which I had shuttled between the two stages, I found myself entering the hall sponsored by the Red Bull Academy, dedicated to emerging talents. 

The stage was completely empty, and yet a volley of hi-hats and bass distorted beyond every human conception were balsted from the system, an hypnotic and peculiar feminine voice traveling over it in a strange and disturbing way; then there was a mass of people forming a circle just below the stage. Approaching it I discovered that at the center of the attention of the spectators was this tiny girl, beautiful and similar to an elf, blond dyed hair and a kind of schoolgirl uniform, complete with a checkered skirt with white socks and shirt. In spite of the stature, she was totally in control of all the spectators, dominating the room with a crazy and unprecedented energy that I still distinctly remember.

That was my first meeting with Tommy Genesis, Canadian rapper and model, New Yorker by adoption.

She has a work released in 2015, World Vision and above all the first real album Tommy, released earlier this year. If the first lp immediately defined her sound, it was still incomplete, without a defined center; not without major peaks, like the single and video Execute or Hair Like Water featuring Abra. What emerged immediately is something that can not be taught or faked, a magnetism and a total control of her image in front of the camera and her sensual voice on the beat. Tommy projects, through music and videos, an original imagery, which originates its sound mainly from the cloud rap and trap, filtering both genres through a particular sensitivity, feminine almost in an extreme, dangerous way. The hyper-explicit and sexually aggressive lyrics confirm it, as well as the maniacally curated videos, always filmed and edited by her, in which her beauty and her visceral charm are almost obsessively main actors. However, her openly bisexual declaration is enormously reflected in the lyrics, creating a duality of sexual references that are a further element of definition and at the same time non-definition of her persona. A kind of amazon, like a timeless mythological figure with blurred borders that listens to a lot of trap music and draws her aesthetics from high fashion and contemporary art. 

By virtue of a very special beauty, derived from the union between her Finnish mother and her Indian father, Tommy Genesis became a cult model in New York before she started making music, a real star of the underground New York Fashion Week and also face of the Fall 2016 ad by Calvin Klein, as well as one of the stars of the Mercedes Benz advertising campaign along with her fellow M.I.A.

Her latest album Tommy, largely produced by Charlie Heat (nominated at the Grammys, known among others for his work with Kanye West and Vic Mensa) is a collection of songs that, unlike the first record, form a more consistent and focused work. The sound is more defined, more pop, while maintaining that purely wild and out of control element and the incredible aesthetic described till now. The song 100 Bad has also gained also a remix by Charli XCX.

The God is Wild Tour has just been announced, which in addition to the United States will also include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Hamburg and Berlin.

Tommy is an all-round artist whose depth and vision are still not fully explored and we hope to see more and more coming from her in the next future. 

The world is like a 19-year-old boy who confuses wants with needs. I used to do that, but now I realize there's nothing anyone can give me that I don't already have. Without my spirit all I am is guts, bones and blood.