For Tommy Genesis, being an artist isn’t confined to just being a rapper. The Vancouver-born up-and-comer is also a visual artist, a model and she attended the Emily Carr University of Art and Design for film and sculpture. As she says on her defiant single, “Execute,” she has a vision she wants to fulfill, and she’ll do it in whichever way and medium she needs to.
Genesis has been climbing the creative ranks since she caught the eye of Awful Records founder and rapper Father. In 2015, she released her first album, World Vision, a collection of raw and intense tracks that pushed her self-proclaimed brand of “fetish rap.” While her music is grounded in hip-hop, there’s also a strong thread of electronic production that begs comparison to one of her influences, Grimes. Genesis is brazen and confident, unafraid to bring a hyper-sexuality to her verses that both celebrates womanhood while rejecting traditional norms of femininity.
In 2016, she was hand-picked as one of 29 actors, musicians, athletes and models to star in Calvin Klein’s fall ad campaign, placing her alongside Young Thug, Zoe Kravitz and Frank Ocean. Fashion also brought her closer to another important musician: M.I.A.. The two starred in a Mercedes-Benz fashion film together earlier this year, which later led to the British rapper inviting Genesis to play at her Meltdown Festival in London. Many have gone on to call Genesis M.I.A.’s protégé, but she was already well on her way to building her own reputation.
Now signed to Downtown Records/Interscope, Genesis is currently working on a new album, which will include a self-directed video for the lead single. Now we can add that to her growing and wide-ranging list of accomplishments.