Steve 'Flash' JuonStepping on the scene when she was still a teen back in 2016, Tommy Genesis quickly garnered a reputation for her frank lyrics, and when she self-styled as a “fetish rapper” the lurid imagination of the internet ran wild. It’s nothing new or revolutionary for a female rapper to imagine herself as spank the wank material though. Lii’ Kim wanted jail inmates to put her poster on their wall. Trina made the world pull over just to see her gluteus maximus. Nicki Minaj repurposed Sir Mix-A-Lot to get the biggest D, and a former stripper became a household name and VH1 mainstay in the last five years. Where does Genesis (that’s her actual birth name) fit in?
“I was born like this and I’ll die like this”
It won’t be for putting her sexual needs first on “goldilocks x.” That’s not a knock on the lyrics or production of “Wet,” but the content itself adds nothing new to the conversation. “I don’t like them basic, what the fuck/Oh, you like to fuck? I don’t give a fuck.” Hey sister, soul sister, go and get your O sister. It won’t be for espousing the matriarchy on “a woman is a god” either. I heard the same sentiments from Leikeli47 on “Attitude” and found the beats and rhymes therein far more catchy than this track.
Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places then. Let’s roll it back to the first single off the album entitled “peppermint” from earlier of this year. Even though the accompanying video in May was designed to make both men and women who experience sexual attraction excited, the clip has managed only a modest 400,000 viewers as of this review. That doesn’t make it a failure by any stretch, but it can’t be anything like the tens to hundreds of millions of visitors they expected. Genesis notes that she’s “the bitch that makes fetish rap” and tries to offend devout Christians with the words “They call me Adam, Eve and Genesis.” It seems like they didn’t even notice.
If you want a song with a hard bass thump that makes you think about licking and sucking on things for a long time, “peppermint” will do it, but I think only Cardi B could dance to it at the (cough) club. Genesis keeps trying to be a provocateur on tracks like “mmm” and “men,” quipping on the latter “Even when I cum I’m pretending,” but Genesis came along a generation too late to shock or awe her audience. Her message of female empowerment from the bedroom to the boardroom is fine, but punchlines that don’t punch above her weight class can’t make her stand out. “Yes I said that shit before you said it” she states on “average,” but actually it’s the other way around.
The real killer about “goldilocks x” is that it doesn’t move the needle. The songs are all slickly produced, she claims her womanhood for herself and all others who identify like her, and even though she wants to stir the pot there’s nothing truly offensive here unless the mere thought of sex is to you a sin. (How were you conceived then? Think about it.) A thorough examination of the album finds none of the things that usually raise my eyebrow — no gay bashing, no excessive conspicuous consumption, no open advocacy of DUI. She’s even doing the Post Malone sound just as well or better than he does it on songs like “Hurricane.”
In the end though it’s all just a little too polished, like a hip hop manicure after a rap spa day, one that leaves everything radiant and glossy but says nothing about what’s underneath. It actually makes me sad because I think that Genesis has an interesting story if you look her up outside of her music career, and although “sex sells” I’d like to hear a little more about her life and not just her escapades. She’s young so there’s still time for that, but if she’s pinning her career on being a poster girl, the internet has made poster girls free to download for decades.